Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e

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Among the few diaries available from inside early USSR none approaches Iurii V. Got'e's in sustained length of coverage & depth of vivid detail. Got'e was a member of the Moscow intellectual elite--a complex & unusually observant man, who was a Moscow University professor & one of the most prominent historians of Russia at the time the revolution began. Beginning his 1st entry with the words Finis Russiae, he describes his life in revolution-torn Moscow from 7/8/17 thru 7/23/22--nearly the entire period of the Russian Revolution & Civil War up to the advent of the New Economic Policy. This chronicle, published here for the 1st time, describes the hardships undergone by Got'e's family & friends & the gradual takeover of the academic & professional sectors by the new regime. Got'e was in his mid-40s when he wrote. At 1st he felt that Bolshevism meant doom for Russia, but eventually his ardent patriotism led him to accept the Bolsheviks' role in preserving the integrity of the state. The diary was discovered in 1982 in the Hoover Institution Archives, in the papers of Frank Golder, to whom Got'e himself had entrusted it in 1922. It's translated literally & unabridged, with annotations by Terence Emmons. The introduction by Professor Emmons places the diary clearly in the context of Got'e's life & scholarly career.