Russia After the War: Hopes, Illusions and Disappointments, 1945-1957: Hopes, Illusions and Disappointments, 1945-1957

The years of late Stalinism are one of the murkiest periods in Soviet history, best known to us through the voices of Ehrenburg, Khrushchev, and Solzhenitsyn. Now at last we have a sweeping history of Russia from the end of the war to the Thaw by one of Russia's most respected younger historians. Drawing on the resources of newly opened archives as well as the recent outpouring of published diaries and memoirs, Elena Zubkova presents a richly detailed portrayal of the basic conditions of people's lives in Soviet Russia from 1945 to 1957. She deftly brings out the dynamics of postwar popular expectations and the cultural stirrings set in motion by the wartime experience versus the regime's determination to reassert command over territories and populations and the mechanisms of repression.

Elena Zubkova is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences Hugh Ragsdale studied at the University of North Carolina (A.B.) and the University of Virginia (M.A., Ph.D.). He has done postgraduate study at Moscow State University and the Soviet/Russian Academy of Sciences