Marvin Kalb: The Year I Was Peter the Great: 1956 - Khrushchev, Stalin's Ghost, and a Young American in Russia

Tretyakov Gallery, 75

Troitsky–Sergieva Lavra monastery, 190

Trotsky, Leon, 77, 83, 89–90, 197–98

Truman, Harry, x, 12, 120

Truth: Gorky’s Lower Depths and, 239; historians’ search for, 154; Pravda ’s reporting and, 141, 199; Russians’ desire to get truthful news reporting, 199–203, 205, 259

Tubeteiki (Uzbek hats), 135

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 60–70, 168, 231, 265. See also De-Stalinization’s effects; Khrushchev, Nikita

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, 115–16

Ulam, Adam, 35

Ulugh Beg, 133–34, 148

United Nations: Hungary situation and, 212; in Suez Canal crisis, 212–13

United States: fingerprinting policy, 92, 177, 246; JPRS funding from, 45; reaction to Soviet crushing Hungarian rebellion, 212; Russians’ assumptions about, 177–78, 180–81, 259–60; as subject of Soviet interest, 143–45, 154, 170–71, 177–81, 245–46; in Suez Canal crisis, 212; Voshchenkov on evils of, 241

University of Kentucky basketball team, 10, 17–22, 23

Uprisings. See Hungary; Poland

U.S. embassy: demonstrations over Suez Canal at, 213–14; party celebrating July 4th, 98–104. See also Bohlen, Charles

U-2 incident (1960), 277

Uvarov, Sergei Semyonovich, Kalb’s research on, 79–86, 220, 222; difficulty in gaining clearance in Russian institutions, 76, 82–85; in Leningrad, 238, 243–48, 253; microfilming of primary sources, 253–54, 262–63; Russians’ questioning Kalb about, 79, 80–81, 84, 249–50; Russians’ reaction to Kalb’s difficulties, 258–59; as subject of Kalb’s Ph.D. dissertation, 52. See also specific libraries

Uzbek language, 129, 139–40

Uzbek State University (Samarkand), 138–39

Vietnam War, 15, 276; disagreement with Johnson and Nixon over, x

Vladimir, travel to, 111–13

Voice of America, 106, 144, 199–200

Volga Germans, 153–54

von Kaufmann, Konstantin, 147

Voroshilov, Kliment, 75

Voshchenkov, K. P., 240–43, 250

Warner, James Todd, 38

Warsaw Pact, 172

Watkins, LeRoy, 18

White, Sherman, 22

Witte, Sergey, 259

Wolfe, Thomas, 7

Wolff, Robert, 34

World War I, 129

World War II: aftereffects in Soviet Union, 145, 242, 269; Baku’s importance in, 158, 159; Russia in, xi, 158, 230–31; siege of Leningrad, 238, 255; Stalin’s misreading of Hitler, 67, 74

World War III, inevitability of, 63

World Youth Festival in Moscow (1957), 192

Yaroslav the Wise, 117

Yasnaya Polyana, 114

Year of the thaw. See Thaw of 1956

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, 122

Young People’s Socialist League (City College), 10–11

Young Progressives of America (City College), 11

Yugoslavia and Tito, 94

Zagorsk, 113–14, 190

Zhou Enlai, 274

Zhukov, Georgy, 89, 99–104, 209, 214–15

ZISs/ZILs (limos), 117

Zousmer, Jesse, 276

Zyrardow, Poland, 2

What’s that saying—those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it? As the West confronts a newly aggressive Russia, it’s important to understand the context of the Cold War from one of the most crucial years. Marvin Kalb’s chronicle of the Soviet Union in 1956 doesn’t just provide that context, but because it’s part memoir, it adds a personal touch that allows readers to feel like they reliving the author’s experiences alongside him. And because this a Kalb book, you know it’s not only well researched and accurate, but smart and insightful.

Here is a detailed, first-person account by a young American who spent all of 1956 in Moscow and traveled around the Soviet Union as well. The result of these adventures has now become a lively book, the greatest virtue of which is Kalb’s own presence in its pages. This is a unique document of its time by a witness to history who went on to become a major figure in American broadcast journalism.

A remarkable, reported memoir, full of life and fascinating historical context, true to the principled journalistic leadership of Marvin Kalb. Elegantly economical in prose, rich in insight—a great read.

Marvin Kalb’s account of the bumpy transition from Stalin’s dictatorship to a normal Russian society is extremely important. America and Russia are different civilizations, and we must learn to meet, and sniff, each other. On each page that is what Kalb does so well. The year 1956 was the first step in a historic transition that continues to this day—from Khrushchev to Putin.

A fascinating memoir of a young American exploring Soviet society just after Stalin died. Based on notes Marvin Kalb made at the time, The Year I Was Peter the Great conveys a feel for Russian life with all the contradictory features that have puzzled and entranced foreign visitors to Russia through the ages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.

ISBN 978-0-8157-3161-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8157-3162-7 (ebook)

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Typeset in Albertina MT

Composition by Westchester Publishing Services