A Must-Read on Many Levels...

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	• Journey into the Whirlwind (Helen and Kurt Wolff Books) Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg Harvest/HBJ Book, 2002 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Her son's books are better.

Yevgenia Ginzberg has authored the moving books of the "whirlwind" saga, but they are pale and boring compared to her son's books: Generations of Winter and The Winter's Hero. There was a lot more to the Stalin era than the gulag, and her son, Vasily Aksoyonov, who grew up in the gulag, tells the story of Russia much more movingly. His characters and their story will break your heart.

Engaging Narrative

Eugenia Ginzburg chronicles the first three years of her eighteen years of misery (1937-1955) in Soviet prisons as a result of Stalin's purges. During these three years she was transferred to six prisons spanning thousands of miles. Each prison successively became more life-threatening and depraved (due to the increasingly changing subjectivity and, hence, tyranny of the "law"), and each year her crime became defined more differently. Ginzburg, a university teacher and loyal party member, was "convicted" as an "enemy of the people"--more particularly as a Trotsky sympathizer in 1937--but by the end of the book she was better known as an "international terrorist." I was struck by Ginzburg's naivete. Even to the bitter end she remained committed to the communist system, despite the great suffering she endured from the consistent outworkings of this philosophy. To her nothing was wrong with Communism, just the man Stalin. But Stalin was consistent: "If the State is god, and I am the ruler of the State, then my will be done on earth." (If God is removed from the picture, then anything goes, and those holding the power dictate the "anything"--see "Brave New World of the Enlightenment" by Louis I. Bredvold). Even the fact that her very accuser and judge, a high party official, would later suffer inside the same prison had no effect upon her loyalty to the party. She frequently ran across as prisoners the very people who had previously guarded her, transported her, fed her, etc. Ginzburg reveals a few parallels between Soviet Communism and German Fascism, one being that both "law" systems executed people for telling political jokes (see my book review on "In the Name of the Volk"). She details several frightful sufferings along with many interesting stories of prison friendship and techniques for prisoner communication in solitary confinement. Her account of prisoner transfers by cargo trains is very similar to what the Jews experienced during Hitler's "Final Solution." She includes a nice testimony to a group of women prisoners who outperformed everyone else in tree-felling and always succeeded in making their quota without cheating. These admirable women even refused to cut trees on the Sabbath, no matter how harsh was their punishment. When they refused to cut trees on Easter, they were forced to strip to complete nakedness and stand on the ice (in Siberia!) until their feet became frostbitten. They sang praises while enduring this treatment. The other women, after having come to their defense and consequentially punished for it, debated whether or not these women should be labeled virtuous or fanatical. Sadly, after being freed, Ginzburg heaps praises on the seeming restoration of "the great Leninist truths" (417). If the evils of Stalin's purges interest you, then I recommend the book.

Humorous quote of the book from her tree-felling days in Elgen (Siberia): "Our overseer was a criminal called Kostik, nicknamed the Actor, and a man of some education. At one period of his hectic career he had worked as a stage hand in a provincial theater, and this had added to his vocabulary such words as 'mise-en-scene,' 'farce,' and 'travesty,' which added a distinctive quality to his obscene language" (p.403). (Competing with this was the attempted seduction by an Islamic Turk (one of her overseers) who attempted to woo her by lying on a bed holding a necklace made of plastic beads!)

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A Must-Read on Many Levels...

For your own education, as much as for an unbelievably gripping read, you must pick up a copy of this book. I find that it is most often the personal account of adversity and tragedy is the one that makes the most lasting impression on me. Of everything I studied in my Russian history class in college almost ten years ago, this is the one text I still carry with me and will continue to fervently recommend, without reservation, to my friends.

simply amazing

One of the definitive works concerning the Soviet gulags. It's first hand point of view completely draws one into the thoughts of the prisoners. The utter despair of the situation is conveyed clearly. It is simply awful. The psychological depths of this work are the most intriguing parts, especially how loyal Communists deal with a situation caused by Communists. Reminds me a lot of Jews in Germany, pre-Kristalnacht, and the thoughts and denials that ran through their minds. May the world please give up the idea which is communism.

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I am surprized beyond words!

I have read this book many years ago in Russian, and now I wanted my husband, who doesn't speak Russian, to read it too. Nobody would be able to describe how upset I was when I actually received the book and found out that this was only the first part of it. Having looked through your site I realized that there is no second part sold here,and I am wondering who took the liberty of deciding how much of the original book is acceptable for the English speaking public to read.Can somebody enlighten me on that? This book is too precious to be cut!I'd rather think that it would be better not to sell it at all, then to offer a cut version of a misterpiece.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6

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