Sheila Fitzpatrick Russian Revolution historian - lucyrussianrev

Sheila Fitzpatrick Russian Revolution historian

Books:

Name:

Sheila Fitzpatrick

Lived:

1938-

Nationality:

Australian-American

Profession(s):

Historian, academic (professor, University of Chicago)

The Russian Revolution Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union (1921-1934) In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian women

School of historical thought:

Social revisionist

Synopsis:

One of Australia’s foremost historians, Sheila Fitzpatrick graduated from Melbourne University in 1961 then went on to complete a PhD at Oxford eight years later. She has become a recognised expert on modern Russian history, particularly on social conditions and changes under the regimes of Lenin and Stalin. Fitzpatrick, undoubtedly revisionist in her approach, provides an overview of historical changes of 1917 onwards but her interest lies with everyday Russians – what did the revolution mean to them, and how did the political changes of the revolution affect the unwritten rules and conventions that shaped the way people lived. Fitzpatrick examines crucial but hitherto overlooked social concepts such as class, identity, education, mobility, social expectations and etiquette. Life in post-revolution Russia created a new breed that Fitzpatrick labels homo sovieticus and strives to analyse. Though not overtly feminist, she also dwells on the lives of Russian women: both those who played an active part in the revolution and those who lived through it.

Quotations:

“Despite their reservations about sexual liberation, the Bolsheviks had legalized abortion and divorce shortly after the Revolution and were popularly regarded as enemies of the family and traditional moral values. In the 1920s, the leaders had held to the principle that state intervention in matters of private sexual morality was undesirable.” “Successful revolutions tear off masks: that is, they invalidate the conventions of selfpresentation and social interaction that existed in pre-revolutionary society. In such upheavals, people have to reinvent themselves, to create or find within themselves personae that fit the new postrevolutionary society.” “As a social historian, I have a long history of dissatisfaction with class as an analytical category for Soviet society and of impatience with Soviet and Western-Marxist discussions of “class consciousness”. The Russian workers whose story I know best were primarily interested in getting themselves and their children out of the working class.”

Useful links: http://www.uncp.edu/home/smithj/writing%20assignments/samplerussian.htm © Steve Thompson 2006