• Always Under Siege: Olga Freidenberg's Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism - Paperback
Always Under Siege: Olga Freidenberg's Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism
Always Under Siege: Olga Freidenberg's Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism

    Always Under Siege: Olga Freidenberg's Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism - Paperback

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    Description

    by Irina Paperno (Author)

    Always Under Siege presents a remarkable and harrowing account of life in dark times that describes and embodies strategies of physical and moral survival. Irina Paperno brings to light the autobiographical chronicle (her "notes") of Olga Freidenberg (1890-1955), a pioneering Russian philologist and cultural theorist (and cousin of Boris Pasternak), who endured Stalin's purges, the Leningrad blockade during World War II, and the suffocating repression that followed. Using concepts of scholarship to understand what was happening to her and around her, Freidenberg transformed daily ordeal into what Paperno calls a "diary-theory," not just a record of events but a reflection on how power invades home, body, and mind.

    Analyzing Freidenberg's personal writings, kept hidden for decades, Paperno shows how she used myth, metaphor, and ethnographic description to interpret the everyday terror of life under Stalin. Comparing Freidenberg's ideas, developed in isolation, with those of contemporaries like Hannah Arendt, who witnessed Hitler's rise, Paperno identifies in Freidenberg's "notes" a compelling theory of totalitarian oppression. Presenting a singular testament of resilience, despair, and stubborn creative intellect, Paperno's book shows what it means to live and to think in a state of siege.

    Author Biography

    Irina Paperno is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. Among her books are Stories of the Soviet Experience and "Who, What Am I?"

    Number of Pages: 258
    Dimensions: 0.58 x 9 x 6 IN
    Publication Date: March 15, 2026
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