Nina Lugovskaya

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Nina Lugovskaya
Нина Серге́евна Луговская
Born
Nina Sergeyevna Lugovskaya

(1918-12-25)December 25, 1918
SFSR
DiedDecember 27, 1993(1993-12-27) (aged 75)
Alma materSerpukhov Art School
OccupationArtist
SpouseVictor L. Templin

Nina Sergeyevna Lugovskaya (

collapse of the Soviet Union, her diary was discovered intact inside the NKVD's file on her family. It was published in 2003, and resulted in Nina being called "the Anne Frank of Russia."[2]

Family and early life

Nina's parents were educated professionals. Her father, Sergei Rybin-Lugovskoi, was an economist[3] and passionate supporter of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, while her mother, Lyubov Lugovskaya, was an educator. Nina had two older twin sisters, Olga and Yevgenia (also called Lyalya and Zhenya), born in 1915.[4]

Sergei was first arrested in 1917, prior to the revolution, and after it held a government position, only to be arrested and exiled again in 1919. After three years, he returned and the family located to Moscow where he ran a bakery cooperative, employing 400 people. After economic nationalization in 1928, the business was closed, and Sergei was arrested and exiled again to a town north of Moscow. This is where Nina began writing her diaries.[4] In 1935 Sergei was arrested and imprisoned in Moscow, where Nina visited him shortly before his exile to Kazakhstan.[3]

Although she had many friends, Nina suffered from

depression, and repeatedly confided her suicidal fantasies to her diary. Nina further suffered from lazy eye, which made her very self-conscious[citation needed]. In her diary, she often confided her hatred for Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. These beliefs came from witnessing the NKVD's repeated harassment and internal exile of her father, who had been a NEPman during the 1920s.[1]

Arrest

On January 4, 1937, Nina's diary was confiscated during an NKVD raid on the Lugovskoy's apartment. Passages underlined for prosecutorial use included Nina's suicidal thoughts, her complaints about Communist indoctrination by her teachers, her loyalty to her persecuted father, and her often-expressed hopes that someone would assassinate Joseph Stalin.[1]

Based on the "evidence" in her diary, Nina, her mother and her two sisters were arrested and sentenced to five years'

hard labor in the Kolyma prison camps of the Soviet Arctic.[1] After serving her sentence, she was released in 1942 and served the next seven years in exile in a remote area of Kolyma.[4]
Nina's mother and sisters survived Kolyma. Lyubov died in 1949, and her father in the 1950s.[4]

Marriage

In Magadan, Nina married Victor L. Templin, an artist and fellow survivor of the GULAG.[1][4]

Career

Nina worked as an artist in theaters at Magadan, Sterlitamak, in the Perm region. While decorating the Magadan theater, Nina met with painter Vasili Shukhayev, and began to consider herself his pupil.

After 1957, Viktor and Nina lived in

collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.[1]

Death

Nina Templina died on 27 December 1993 and was buried in the Ulybyshevo cemetery near Vladimir.[citation needed]

Diary

After Nina's death, her diary was found in Soviet archives by

GULAG
. Deeply impressed by the diary, Osipova decided to publish it.

In 2003, the Moscow-based publisher

bold type.[6]

Throughout her diaries Nina showed contempt for the Bolsheviks, writing "These bloody Bolsheviks! How I hate them! All hypocrites, liars, and scoundrels", "I could feel my fury with the Bolsheviks rising in my throat, my despair at my own powerlessness", "These lousy Bolsheviks! They don't think about us young people at all, they don't think about the fact we are human beings too"! In one passage she recounted "sixty-nine White Guards were arrested and shot in Leningrad without any investigation or trial".[1]

Her diaries reflect a nationalist patriotism, in which she wrote about the SS Chelyuskin incident: "wanted to cry for happiness and sympathy with these great heroes...to participate in the general celebration". On her country she wrote: "How can it be? Great Russia and the great Russian people have fallen into the hands of a scoundrel. Is it possible? That Russia, which for so many years fought for freedom and which finally attained it, that Russia has suddenly enslaved itself."[7]

Sources

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "I Want to Live: The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalin's Russia", Nina Lugovskai︠a︡. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006. p. 16, 21, 30, 42, 35-36, 56, 59-60, 61, 62, 71, 80, 119, 130, 253-254. Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  2. ^ "Anne Frank Unbound: Media, Imagination, Memory", Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Jeffrey Shandler. Indiana University Press, 2012. p. 12. Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  3. ^ a b "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union", Martin McCauley. Routledge, Jan 14, 2014. p. 146. Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "Girlhood: A Global History", Jennifer Helgren, Colleen A. Vasconcellos. Rutgers University Press, 2010. pgs. 142-161. Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  5. ^ "The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl: 1932-1937 (Glas, No. 32)", Nina Lugovskaya. Glas; 1 edition (September 1, 2003). Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  6. ^ "I Want To Live: The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalin's Russia", Nina Lugovskaya. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (June 18, 2007). Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  7. ^ "Pessimism and Boys", Sheila Fitzpatrick. London Review of Books. May 6, 2004. Retrieved 6 feb 2017

External links