James R. Gibson. <i>Hungry and Starving: Voices of the Great Soviet Famine, 1928–1934</i>

The principal novelty of the concept presented in Hungry and Starving. Voices of the Great Soviet Famine, 1928–1934 lies primarily in the fact that the chronological framework of the phenomenon under consideration—the Great Famine—has been expanded from the usually emphasized 1932–1933 to the seven-year period 1928–1934. This choice helps the reader to see the dynamics of the phenomenon under study, and not just concentrate on its climax. In addition, the geographical scope of the study has been expanded. Instead of the more popular approach among researchers, limited to Ukrainian and the South Russian areas (4), James R. Gibson tried to present an integral picture in many regions of the USSR, gathering the voices of various participants and analyzing the dynamics of the provisional difficulties year by year. However, describing one region after another could require a huge amount of book space, because, as the author suggests, “the condition of the agricultural population varies widely from place to place”—and not only from macro-region to macro-region but from micro-region to micro-region” (16). The author thus identifies seven types of the analyzed phenomenon, assessing its relative intensity, with each carefully discussed in separate chapters. Therefore, the methodology creates a convincing typology of this dramatic phenomenon shown in a new persuasive scale.In addition, it should be noted as a reasonable decision, that the author has not limited his interest to the case of the USSR in the noted seven years. To create a broader and richer context, he is freely drawing on various data on famine cases relating to both previous periods of Russian history including the postwar time and worldwide parallels on relevant topics.The absolute success of the book is that the author managed to convey to the reader the voices of living people and, on the basis of this evidence, reconstructs a detailed picture of the studied phenomenon. It is very important to add to the dull statistics data the human voices, e.g., anecdote, ditty, and other forms of expressing opinions of the people. In the very helpful Index, “anecdotes” are listed (471). Ditty is absent, and could be added too (9, 141, 330, 415). They also played a very significant role in the “invisible” part of public consciousness.The book uses and presents a wide list of Russian terms (57), and shortenings (13), and for this reason, the Glossary (295–6) and Abbreviations (297) of terms are useful and even necessary elements of the book structure.The next problem relates to the various ways of transmitting Cyrillic characters into Latin. It seems a reasonable decision to preserve some of the differences in transliteration principles, since this eliminates the need for adjustments und unification quotes from various sources. This is an understandable step “for the sake of the general reader” (xiii). For instance, the author chooses the form srednyaks (not serednyaks), “the middling, or average, peasants” (19) and keeps this unified spelling through the whole text. Such a unification is similarly found in the form yurt “felt tent” (240, 248, 257, 296), although the feminine yurta occurs more often, even though the masculine variant is acceptable too.Some clarifications regarding Russian quotes and terms may be proposed.In conclusion, it should be emphasized, once again, that the overall impression of the book is created by a representative chorus of live voices, which came from contemporary people who experienced all the silent horrors of so-called “provision difficulties.” The book demonstrates a restrained balance between a rigorous academic report and an honest narration addressed to the average reader.