Authors

Ella Rossman¹;  ¹ University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UK

Discussion

Arsenik Aleksanyan was a 24 years old medical student of Armenian descent, living in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, when almost all her family was deported to Siberia — together with representatives of several local ethnic minorities. For nearly five years, they lived in exile, under control of local authorities, and were released only after Stalin’s death. All these years, Aleksanyan kept a diary, where she carefully recorded what happened to her and her relatives in Siberia. This presentation focuses on the specifics of the self-understanding in this diary and shows, how powerful state ideology, gender and belonging to an ethnic minority could not only create vulnerabilities but provide sources for unique female agency and resistance in Stalin’s exile.