How love triumphed in the Gulag
A celebrated historian of Russia, Figes’s new book is a collection of letters between Lev and Svetlana, two Moscow scientists who met in 1935 but were kept apart for 13 years by war and internment. Their letters tell the incredible story of how they kept communicating through Lev’s internment at the Pechora Gulag where he constantly faced death in the harshest conditions. It’s a story of hope, faith, incredible fortitude and determination.
Q How did you come across the letters?
A It was just a very lucky find. I had gone to Moscow to make a radio programme about an oral history project I had done with the human rights organization Memorial and literally stumbled on the three trunks which were blocking the doorway. The 1,500 letters filled one trunk. They are the sort of discovery every historian dreams of – beautifully written, emotional, and telling us exactly what life was like in Stalin’s labour camps. Lev’s letters are the only real-time record of daily life inside the Gulag. It is extraodinary that the letters (which were smuggled in and out) survived and in such great number.
Q As a historian, did you try to keep some distance or did you give way to sentimental attachment/become utterly emotionally swept up in Lev and Sveta’s story?
A It’s a fine balance. Their love story is incredibly emotional, and I let that drive the book, but as a historian you have to remain objective. I tried to set the letters in their historical context by using, for example, the archives of Lev’s labour camp in Pechora.
Q What were Svet and Lev like in person? Had they managed to escape deep bitterness?
A Yes, and that’s perhaps the most extraordinary thing. There’s not the slightest hint of bitterness or self-pity in any of Lev’s letters – in fact, he played down the hardships of the camp so as not to worry Svetlana. They were truly wonderful people. I filmed some interviews with them in 2008, a few months before Lev died. He remained devoted to Svetlana, whose love had saved him from the camps. She was ill but still vivacious, and I could see in her the brave young woman who – at enormous risk – had travelled to Pechora to meet Lev illegally.
Q Are there any universal truths to be got out of the story? What about truths about love?
A Yes I think there are. It is a book about love – not only love but hope, endurance and solidarity. I think it shows that love can triumph in the worst of times and places – that people can be saved by love.
Q Do you think love can keep people alive through sheer determination? Or were they just very lucky?
A Of course they were lucky – Lev could have easily perished or disappeared on a convoy to a remote camp in the Arctic. He was lucky to be working in the power station where it was warm and he could write. But his greatest fortune was to have Svetlana’s love – to receive her letters twice a week, to know that she would wait for him, even though she had no certainty that he would ever return. Her dedication saved him morally – it gave him hope. And without hope it is hard to live.
Q Do you think Gulag stories with miserable endings, the most common type, are also worth telling?
A Yes I do. Twenty million people endured the Gulag but we know much less about them than we do about the Nazi concentration camps.
Q Why did you become a Russian historian?
A My supervisor at Cambridge, Norman Stone, warned me off intellectual history for a PhD. “If you have a hangover or troubles with your girlfriend, you don’t want to battle with Hegel in the morning”. And he was right. So I studied the Russian peasantry. And went to Russia. And fell in love with it. It was Moscow, 1984, Intellectual life was high-octane, often vodka-fuelled, and the women beautiful.
Q What do you feel towards modern/contemporary Russia?
A Sadness mixed with anger, that so much has been lost, stolen from so many, by so few.
Q What do you make of British popular historian-ism? Do you feel a pressure to go more commercial all the time and to be less academic?
A But I do write “academic” history. My books are based on research in archives. They have footnotes. It’s just that I write them in a way that, tests have shown, attracts more readers than most academic books. I don’t feel any pressure to write commercial books. I write the books I want to write.
Q Can you explain your contact with Manny Roman, CEO of GLG, the investment manager? Is there a film in the pipeline?
A Manny is a friend. He’s a great reader with lots of interests, among them history, and we meet from time to time. Luckily for me, he has great taste in wine. Manny helped to finance the project. I don’t know about a film. No offers yet. But one can hope.
Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes is out now, published by Allen Lane (£20).