I found the first volume of Eugenia Ginzburg's work "Journey into the Whirlwhind," which is about Ginzburg's experience in Stalinist Russia as she was captured, tortured, and sentenced to a decade in a Siberian labor camp to be stunning and heartbreaking. I looked forward to reading "Within the Whirlwind," the second installment of her memoir.

I struggled a bit reading this book -- mostly because Ginzburg (probably due to necessity from the horrors she witnessed -- seems a much "flatter" writer in this volume. The story and the horrors of life in Siberian camps is just as striking, but it's told in a more matter-of-fact type style that made it a harder read.

Still, Ginzburg's observations are a solid (and heartbreaking) look at a terrible time in history. ( )

Atmodas laika grāvējs, kas pārlasīts neskaitāmas reizes. Tomēr ar laiku tā vien gribas apšaubīt memuāru autores absolūto šķīstību un tiklību vispārējas nešķīstības vidū ( )

Les hasards de la diffusion clandestine ont coupé en deux ce récit, qui fut un des grands succès du samizdat. Le premier tome parvenu en Occident fut publié sous le titre le Vertige en 1967. Il provoqua immédiatement une émotion d'autant plus profonde que l'auteur, qui persistait à se dire communiste, énonçait des faits vécus sans aucune intention polémique. Elle racontait son arrestation, son procès et sa déportation. Epuisée par le travail et le froid, elle allait mourir lorsqu'elle fut sauvée par l'intervention d'un médecin... Dans ce second tome, nous la retrouvons, en juin 1940, travaillant au centre qui recueille les petits enfants du Goulag, ceux qu'on a enlevés à leurs mères bagnardes. Car la sexualité existe aussi dans les camps et parfois même le grand amour. Evguénia Guinzbourg le rencontrera en la personne d'un médecin déporté et, désormais, une nouvelle espérance l'aidera à gravir ce ' chemin escarpé ' (c'est le titre russe du livre) qui, à travers des alternances de misère et de soulagement, la conduira vers la liberté, le bonheur, la sérénité.

A solid sequel to Ginzburg's first book, Journey into the Whirlwind. I had been unaware of this book when I read the first and wondered why the first book had ended so abruptly; now I realize these books are really meant to be two volumes of the same work. I suppose they need not necessarily be read together; there is a three-page section at the beginning of this second book that summarizes the events of the first. But I think reading them together, and in order, certainly enriches the experience.

Here Ginzburg recounts the last few years of her sentence at a series of brutal labor camps in the farthest, remotest corner of northeast Russia. They only called off work if it was -50 degrees Celsius, and the guard claimed the temperature never dropped past -49. Ginzburg was more fortunate than most in that she had some friends with influence and often got better jobs, including at the camp infirmaries and on farms. After her release she was required to remain in Magadan, a remote city on Russia's eastern coast, populated by ex-prisoners and a few free workers who got paid extra for being there. Life gradually improved: she was able to send for her son, whom she hadn't seen since he was a toddler; she married a fellow prisoner; they adopted a little girl; she got a job first in a kindergarten and then as a teacher at a night school for adults. Gradually in the years following Stalin's death, things got much easier for the prisoners and ex-prisoners, and Ginzburg was eventually rehabilitated (that is, exonerated, her record cleared).

Ginzburg is, as in the first volume, scrupulously honest and fair, evaluating all the events she witnesses and characters she encounters in a matter-of-fact way. She was a literature professor and in the book she frequently quotes poetry and refers to obscure Russian writers (luckily there are footnotes to explain these references). She also managed to keep her sense of humor. Some of her stories are downright funny, particularly her experiences on the chicken farm.

I would recommend this to people interested in political prisoners' memoirs and Stalinist Russians in particular. It is a wealth of information. ( )