Traveling Hard Through the USSR. ++Excellent Observation/Social History of the USSR during the hard year 1934++

Philena Weller Montgomery and John Ferguson Montgomery ++Seemingly unplublished++

Edité par Self published in the Bronx, NYC, 1934

A propos de cet article

Self-published, 1934. 11 x 8.5 , 77 leaves (printed on one side only), approximately 35-40,000 words, printed from the typed originals by mimeograph(?), with occasional line drawings in text by the authors. WorldCat locates only one other copy (Antioch, where the two Montgomerys went to school). It seems to me that the work was printed but not published, as there is no trail for the work, anywhere. This copy is from the Library of Congress, with their surplus rubber stamp on rear cover. I cannot find any reference to this work in any of the standard histories of this period. The binding is made of paper wrappers with a cloth-covered spine, and stapled. The front wrapper is nearly detached.  Very Good condition. [++] The Montgomerys wrote this travelogue on their trip through the Soviet old country in the mean and bitter summer of 1933. It looks as though they printed the pamphlet themselves in 1934, giving their address as 1105 Morrison Ave, Bronx, NYC. They produced a remarkable major-minor work, I think, making hundreds of small observations on the little bits and bobs of everyday life that one usually does not see in a work like this. For example, they walk around Stalingrad and rather than remark on the great sights and vistas they report on the state of window displays that there were unrelated objects on display, like urinals with lamp lights and pictures of clothing for sale that the storekeep didn't have, and that the windows were dirty and hadn't been cleaned in months or years, and that the broken ones were fixed with metal and rivets; that sort. That's the real strength of this work, I think; the ability of the writers to see the small local, personal detail they weren't interested so much in a grand building, but rather the women who were scrubbing the marble floors with some evil-smelling something because there was a shortage of soap; and not so much the boat they were passengers on, but rather the shabby dress whites of the captain and how he moved through the crew and how the crew responded to that; not the grand vistas of old St. Petersburg but rather the dirty shop windows that displayed pictures of items that they didn't have in stock. [++] The authors left with a group of 10 other people (fellow students?) for a loosely-guided trip through the Soviet Union. This was not a North Korean-style tourist experience for this group; they write that even though they had a guide that they were in no way constrained from wandering off or speaking to anyone they wished; they felt that there was no control over their activity outside of the route they were following for their visit. The fact that they saw so much poverty and hardship, and interviewed whomever they pleased, attests to the limited control the state placed on their tour. [++] Their adventure begins in Leningrad, and moves to Moscow, Gorki, Kaza, Samara, Saratov, Stalingrad, Rostov, Yalta, Odessa, and then back west via Kiev. The authors write that if the USSR were really trying to control what the visitors saw that they would positively not send people out of or into the country via Kiev because of the state of the city and the people. [++] Here are some notes from my reading--Kiev: pale children working elevators at night of their hotel; more Bezpreysosny (orphans) here than they saw in all the rest of the Soviet Union combined; city swarmed with red Soldiers and OGPU; shop windows displayed odd assortments corks, urinals, bridge lamps, washboards, side-by-side, with very little consumer goods; buildings were shabby as were the people, especially the children, who show the effects of suffering ; visit to a Jewish collective farm;  prophylactorium mostly for the peasants; doling out gold colored safety pins to a throng of 30 women; the authors remarked that if the Soviet government Soviet government wanted to give a good impression of their country that it would be best for them to leave||Write for full description.

N° de réf. du vendeur ABE-1741962356027

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Traveling Hard Through the USSR. ++Excellent Observation/Social History of the USSR during the hard year 1934++
• Éditeur: Self published in the Bronx, NYC
• Date de parution: 1934
• Reliure: Soft cover
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Poids: 1 livre
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Social History