Moscow, 1937

"Moscow, 1937: the Soviet metropolis at the zenith of Stalin's dictatorship. A society utterly wrecked by a hurricane of violence. In this compelling book, the renowned historian Karl Schl©œgel reconstructs with meticulous care the process through which, month by month, the terrorism of a state-of-emergency regime spiraled into the 'Great Terror' during which 1.5 million human beings lost their lives within a single year. He revisits the sites of show trials and executions and, by also consulting numerous sources from the time, provides a masterful panorama of these key events in Russian history. He shows how, in the shadow of the reign of terror, the regime around Stalin also aimed to construct a new society. Based on countless documents, Schl©œgel's historical masterpiece vividly presents an age in which the boundaries separating the dream and the terror dissolve, and enables us to experience the fear that was felt by people subjected to totalitarian rule. This rich and absorbing account of the Soviet purges will be essential reading for all students of Russia and for any readers interested in one of the most dramatic and disturbing events of modern history."--Jacket.

Maps on endpapers.

Originally published in German as: Terror und Traum.

Translated from the German.

Margarita's flight : Manuscripts don't burn. A writer in 1937 -- Relief map of the city, locations, staging posts -- Dramatis personae and their portrayal, dual characters -- NKVD, the organization -- "People vanished from their apartments without trace" -- Sudden deaths, execution as spectacle -- 'That can't be!' -- Aleksandr Medvedkin's New Moscow- A new cityscape: Stalin's General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow -- Moscow as a construction site: between demolition and new construction -- Moscow beyond the Ring Roads -- Human landscape, struggle for survival -- Snapshot of the status quo. Directories as documents of their age -- Topography of power and other locations -- Traces of the disappeared -- Lists of people to be shot and the posthumous reconstruction of their addresses -- World-historical criminal cases: the rhetoric of the first Moscow show trial -- The echo of violence: how a latent civil war comes to be articulated in language -- 'Double-dealers' -- The birth of the show trial from the spirit of lynch-law -- The ideal enemy -- A key scene in European intellectual history: Feuchtwanger's meeting with Stalin -- The impotence of the anti-fascist movement: how to g…