To continue reading:
or
Log-In
In the People's Paradise
Subscriber content preview.
or
Log-In
Thirteen is a difficult age, especially when your father is in jail, your mother is sick with worry and your two older sisters are perfect in every way. So Nina Lugovskaya, a high school student in pre-World War II Moscow, began confiding her innermost
turmoil
to a diary. For nearly five years, she poured out her thoughts on parties, puppy love and sibling resentment until one day in 1937, when there was a knock at the door. The diary was seized by Joseph Stalin's secret police (
nkvd
) and used to convict the girl of treason. Lugovskaya, her mother and...