Mothers and Daughters

Elena Bonner's parents were middle officials in the Comintern, the international organization of communist parties. As such they lived a life of privilege in Leningrad and Moscow during the 1930s. In this book the author describes what it was like for a young adolescent to be coming of age in the Soviet system. The family lived in a large apartment hotel in Moscow and their neighbours were both Soviet officials and communist leaders from other countries. But in 1936 Bonner's neighbours started to disappear in Stalin's purges. Finally Bonner's parents were taken, separately, and she and her brothers were "orphaned" by the state. This book captures the mood of this tragic episode in Russia's history and offers a portrait of Bonner, her mother and her grandmother.