Dear Unknown Friend
The Remarkable Correspondence between American and Soviet Women
Published on 8. October 2024
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-674-98758-6 (ISBN)
Description
In the tense years of the early Cold War, American and Soviet women conducted a remarkable pen-pal correspondence that enabled them to see each other as friends rather than enemies.
In a compelling new perspective on the early Cold War, prizewinning historian Alexis Peri explores correspondence between American and Soviet women begun in the last years of World War II and continuing into the 1950s. Previously unexamined, the women's letters movingly demonstrate the power of the personal, as the pen pals engaged in a "diplomacy of the heart" that led them to question why their countries were so divided.
Both Soviet and American women faced a patriarchal backlash after World War II that marginalized them professionally and politically. The pen pals discussed common challenges they faced, such as unequal pay and the difficulties of balancing motherhood with a career. Each side evinced curiosity about the other's world, asking questions about family and marriage, work conditions, educational opportunities, and religion. The women advocated peace and cooperation but at times disagreed strongly over social and economic issues, such as racial segregation in the United States and mandatory labor in the Soviet Union. At first both governments saw no risk in the communications, as women were presumed to have little influence and no knowledge of state secrets, but eventually Cold War paranoia set in. Amid the Red Scare, the House Un-American Activities Committee even accused some of the American women of being communist agents.
A rare and poignant tale, Dear Unknown Friend offers a glimpse of the Cold War through the perspectives of women who tried to move beyond the label of "enemy" and understand, even befriend, people across increasingly bitter political divides.
In a compelling new perspective on the early Cold War, prizewinning historian Alexis Peri explores correspondence between American and Soviet women begun in the last years of World War II and continuing into the 1950s. Previously unexamined, the women's letters movingly demonstrate the power of the personal, as the pen pals engaged in a "diplomacy of the heart" that led them to question why their countries were so divided.
Both Soviet and American women faced a patriarchal backlash after World War II that marginalized them professionally and politically. The pen pals discussed common challenges they faced, such as unequal pay and the difficulties of balancing motherhood with a career. Each side evinced curiosity about the other's world, asking questions about family and marriage, work conditions, educational opportunities, and religion. The women advocated peace and cooperation but at times disagreed strongly over social and economic issues, such as racial segregation in the United States and mandatory labor in the Soviet Union. At first both governments saw no risk in the communications, as women were presumed to have little influence and no knowledge of state secrets, but eventually Cold War paranoia set in. Amid the Red Scare, the House Un-American Activities Committee even accused some of the American women of being communist agents.
A rare and poignant tale, Dear Unknown Friend offers a glimpse of the Cold War through the perspectives of women who tried to move beyond the label of "enemy" and understand, even befriend, people across increasingly bitter political divides.
Reviews / Votes
[A] surprising and perceptive study...The[se] pairings were often unlikely, but regardless of the gaps, in age or in marital, educational, maternal or career status, a curiosity about life on the other side of the world, combined with a shared grief for loved ones lost in the war and a common desire for a peaceful future, helped spur the bonds between strangers. -- Diane Cole * Wall Street Journal * Peri is a skilful writer with a keen eye for detail and a confident command of her material...in our hyperpolarized political times, this story offers a poignant reminder of the potential inherent in person-to-person communication. -- Kristin Roth-Ey * Times Literary Supplement * Peri's discoveries provide a new perspective on the period. Existing scholarship explores the history of women in the US and USSR separately, but in looking at them together Peri uncovers a shared sense of overload and burden, even before independent feminist movements provided the organisation and language to challenge it effectively. -- MIriam Dobson * London Review of Books * Highly readable and engaging...casts a light on this virtually unknown chapter in U.S.-Soviet relations...a worthy read. -- Yelizaveta P. Renfro * Washington Independent Review of Books * Well worth reading for an understanding of Cold War politics, as well as to reassure yourself that political narratives are always mediated by human experience, which can undercut propaganda in all its forms, if only those bonds can be built. -- Maree F. Roberts * Green Left * Placing us inside the friendships built between Soviet and American women pen pals, Peri's provocative book shows how their correspondence helped bridge the tense Cold War divide at a time when few personal intimacies slipped through. -- Kate Brown, author of <i>Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future</i> Impressive and original. Peri shows how women found civil ways to disagree with each other, each speaking to the merits-and sometimes the limitations-of their own systems, but maintaining a spirit of friendship and connection. Given the fractured nature of discourse today, I found this deeply inspiring. -- Julia Mickenberg, author of <i>American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream</i> Drawing on an extraordinary collection of letters, Alexis Peri reveals how Soviet and American women formed intimate pen friendships from the Battle of Stalingrad through the death of Stalin-even as relations between their governments drastically deteriorated into a bitter Cold War. Deeply researched, richly contextualized, and written in an engaging style, Dear Unknown Friend is an important contribution to our growing understanding of the roles of women, citizens, and emotions during a superpower conflict that has often been seen as revolving narrowly around male leaders. -- David S. Foglesong, author of <i>The American Mission and the "Evil Empire": The Crusade for a "Free Russia" since 1881</i> An engaging, crisply written account of how Soviet and American women connected. Analyzing a trove of surprisingly detailed and intimate correspondences, Peri reveals the values, priorities, and dreams of ordinary women living through a time of international political upheaval and domestic social transformation. -- Kathleen E. Smith, author of <i>Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring</i> At a time of deepening nationalist hatred and division, this beautifully written book reminds us that ordinary people are capable of finding profound commonalities and bridging even the most formidable borders. In her exploration of Soviet-American women's wartime and postwar correspondence, Peri provides us with a moving 'diplomacy of the heart.' -- Wendy Z. Goldman, author of <i>Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin's Russia</i>More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
2 Karten
2 Maps
Dimensions
Height: 242 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
626 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-98758-6 (9780674987586)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Alexis Peri is the author of The War Within: Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad, winner of the Pushkin House Book Prize and named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best books on the Soviet home front. She is Associate Professor of History at Boston University.