Synopsis
The Whisperers is a social history of everyday private life in the Soviet Union during the era of Stalinism. The book begins with a background of the Russian Revolution and ends with the death of Stalin. [2] According to Figes,
Many books describe the externals of the Terror – the arrests and trials, enslavements and killings of the Gulag – but The Whisperers is the first to explore in depth its influence on personal and family life. How did Soviet people live their private lives in the years of Stalin’s rule? What did they really think and feel? What sort of private life was possible in the cramped communal apartments, where the vast majority of the urban population lived, where rooms were shared by a whole family and often more than one, and every conversation could be overheard in the next room? What did private life mean when the state touched almost every aspect of it through legislation, surveillance and ideological control? [a] [3]
As the statement reveals, the book is mainly focused on life during Stalinist urbanization and industrialization in the 1930s and how this affected the private lives of average Soviet citizens. The author seeks to reveal how individuals lived their private lives, how living in the Stalinist system affected thinking and memory, how it influenced the way individuals communicated with others in day-to-day life and how Stalinism changed the notion of self and family. Figes refers to the moral sphere of the family as he explores how family and internal lives were shaped by personal strategies and choices to survive difficult and often dire circumstances. [2]
The Whisperers is based on an oral history and archival research project. Together with a team of Russian researchers from Memorial, Figes collected over 250 extensive interviews, along with letters, personal papers, memoirs, diaries, photographs, and physical artifacts "illuminating the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens living under Stalin's tyranny." [4] [b] The title of the work incorporates two meanings of the Russian word for Whisperers; one meaning to speak softly and quietly for fear of being overheard by others, the second meaning individuals who inform or gossip about another, reflecting the atmosphere of fear that enveloped individuals during this era and the role informers played in creating this atmosphere. [4]
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