Anne Gorsuch is the author of Youth in Revolutionary Russia. A review of her book for H-Russia was reprinted in IALHI's News Service. We therefore also publish her reply to the list:
Dear Editor:
I am writing in reference to a recent review by Sandra Pujals of my book Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).
I am delighted that Pujals found my book Youth in Revolutionary Russia "an invaluable source on NEP's youth culture" and something she would recommend as "required reading for a graduate reading seminar on Soviet culture." I am also pleased that she has taken the time to describe the materials found in each chapter in considerable detail.
However, I have a few questions and concerns about her description of my book, especially her (mis)representation of my use of historical sources. Pujals complains that most of my information is based on what she calls "secondary sources." She writes, for example, that in Chapter 3, "out of one hundred ninety-four notes …only thirty-three are original archival annotations." She is concerned that she cannot be sure whether I am "presenting original arguments or whether they are a combination of other authors' own conclusions." I am very puzzled by this. Although only 33 of my sources in this chapter are archival, the vast majority of my sources are still primary sources, even if not archival. As I explain in my introduction, and as will be familiar to most historians who have worked on questions of popular culture, some of the best sources on daily life are non-archival materials from the time in question (in my case the 1920s in Soviet Russia) including magazines, newspaper articles, diaries, movies, posters, as well as observations by contemporary sociologists and journalists. These are not secondary sources, as Pujals mistakenly calls them, but primary sources that tell us much that the often more institutionally oriented archival materials alone cannot.
I am also puzzled about her representation of my book as excessively preoccupied with Foucault. Although I do speak to issues of power and discourse, surely these terms are no longer limited to Foucault but are part of how many of us now think about questions of culture and power. In the entire book I mention Foucault only twice, and one of these two references is in a footnote. The problem for Pujals seems to be that I focus too much on the opinions of 'experts' at the expense of what young people themselves said and thought. Unfortunately, although I tried as much as possible to allow young people to "speak out for themselves" their voices were not available as often as I might have liked, and even when they were available were often filtered through the voice of the 'expert.' In other words, I believe there is no way around thinking about power and official discourse when talking about popular culture in the Soviet period, but this way of thinking is no longer particular to Foucault alone.
Sincerely,
Anne E. Gorsuch
Associate Professor of History
University of British Columbia