New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies
Society & Culture
On January 21, 1924 and at the age of 53, Vladimir Lenin passed away. We’ve now had a century of a world without him, but also a century of a world undeniably changed by his imprint. In commemoration of his life, Verso has recently put out a collection of classic works both by and about this pivotal figure. One of these books, a short biographical sketch called Lenin’s Childhood, is the topic of today’s conversation, although it’s really only a jumping off point for my guest and I to talk about the book’s author, the Marxist historian and biographer Isaac Deutscher. Best known for his biographies of Stalin and his trilogy on Trotsky, Lenin’s Childhood is the only completed piece of an attempted two-volume study that would’ve completed his biographical work, and set the stage for a greater study of Russian history in general. While his untimely death in 1967 cut his work short, he still left a rich body of writing worth wrestling with. Throughout our conversation, we discuss Deutscher’s life, work and legacy, and encourage listeners to revisit his work as still relevant for contemporary readers.
Our guest today, Gonzalo Pozo, wrote the introduction to the new edition of Lenin’s Childhood, and is currently working on a biography of Isaac Deutscher.
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Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)
Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)
Andrew Harding, "A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, Death and Defiance in Ukraine" (Ithaka, 2023)
Rotem Kowner, "Tsushima" (Oxford UP, 2022)
James Crossland, "The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Terrorism" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Danny Orbach, "Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War" (Pegasus Books, 2022)
Mikhail Shishkin, "My Russia: War Or Peace?" (RiverRun Press, 2023)
Mark Harrison, "Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism" (Stanford UP, 2023)
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Sofia Samatar, "The White Mosque: A Memoir" (Catapult, 2022)
Anna Schur, "The Letters and the Law: Legal and Literary Culture in Late Imperial Russia" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
Frank Costigliola, "Kennan: A Life Between Worlds" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Simon Dreher and Wolfgang Mueller, "Foreigners in Muscovy: Western Immigrants in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Russia" (Routledge, 2023)
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Doug Enaa Greene, "Stalinism and the Dialectics of Saturn: Anticommunism, Marxism, and the Fate of the Soviet Union" (Lexington, 2023)
Ann Komaromi, "Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society" (Cornell UP, 2022)
James H. Meyer, "Red Star over the Black Sea: Nazim Hikmet and His Generation" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Halyna Kruk, "A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails" (Arrowsmith Press, 2023)
Selcen Küçüküstel, "Embracing Landscape: Living with Reindeer and Hunting among Spirits in South Siberia" (Berghahn, 2021)
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