Soviet Childhood

Balsky’s book is an analysis of the paradoxes of Soviet childhood, where behind slogans about the happiest childhood in the world there lies a complex range of real experiences. Using personal stories and little-known facts, the author creates not a nostalgic image, but a detailed picture of an era in which joy and suffering, ideology and everyday life are intertwined into a complex and contradictory knot. Being unhappy was a risky thing. Sounds unexpected, doesn’t it? But exactly this claim appears in the work of K. N. Balsky. He suggests investigating how children lived in the era of Stalinism, how cloudless their childhood really was, and whether they could genuinely be happy. The author brings together diverse, lesser-known facts and personal stories, creating an integral depiction of Soviet childhood.