Check order status

Become part of a community of book lovers from all over the world and get access to a whole bunch of benefits. Create an account for free

Austrian Post 5.49 € DPD courier 3.99 € DPD point 2.99 €

Contact

How to shop

Help

My account

▸ Empty :-(

Always Under Siege

Name: Always Under Siege
Brand: Cornell University Press
SKU: 50038359
Price: 170.19 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Irina Paperno
ISBN: 9781501785825

Olga Freidenberg's Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism

Irina Paperno

Language

English

Book Hardback

Publishers Cornell University Press, March 2026

Always Under Siege presents a remarkable and harrowing account of life in dark times that describes... Full description

Libristo code: 50038359

417 b

New

170.19 € VAT included

In stock at our supplier Shipping in 9-15 days

Delivery to Austria

Up to 30 days for returns

Customers also purchased

Des Conflits V1: Ou Empietement de L'Autorita Administrative Sur Le Pouvoir Judiciaire (1828) Francois Nicolas Bavoux

Paperback

57.29 €

Alya sometimes hides her feelings in Russian SunSunSun

Paperback

12.49 €

Anaí; la tejedora de sueños Paz Padilla

Paperback

15.39 €

Amerikanische Literatur Mariam T. Tennoe

Paperback

316.00 €

4 PRELUDES ORGUE PETER JONA KORN Book

binding.

52.19 €

Das Geheimnis der Maurin Lea Korte

Adobe ePub DRM

17.09 €

Amanti delle piante grasse. Una guida completa per capire, coltivare e curare cactus e succulente Chiara Rimazzi

Paperback

23.39 €

Profesorica profesorica Freida McFadden

Paperback

18.39 €

Always Under Siege presents a remarkable and harrowing account of life in dark times that describes and embodies strategies of physical and moral survival. Irina Paperno brings to light the autobiographical chronicle (her "notes") of Olga Freidenberg (1890–1955), a pioneering Russian philologist and cultural theorist (and cousin of Boris Pasternak), who endured Stalin's purges, the Leningrad blockade during World War II, and the suffocating repression that followed. Using concepts of scholarship to understand what was happening to her and around her, Freidenberg transformed daily ordeal into what Paperno calls a "diary-theory," not just a record of events but a reflection on how power invades home, body, and mind. Analyzing Freidenberg's personal writings, kept hidden for decades, Paperno shows how she used myth, metaphor, and ethnographic description to interpret the everyday terror of life under Stalin. Comparing Freidenberg's ideas, developed in isolation, with those of contemporaries like Hannah Arendt, who witnessed Hitler's rise, Paperno identifies in Freidenberg's "notes" a compelling theory of totalitarian oppression. Presenting a singular testament of resilience, despair, and stubborn creative intellect, Paperno's book shows what it means to live and to think in a state of siege.