The tramp’s tale: Travels within the Soviet Union and across its borders, 1925–1950

Journal article

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. (2018). The tramp’s tale: Travels within the Soviet Union and across its borders, 1925–1950. Past and Present. 241(1), pp. 259 - 290. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gty012
AuthorsFitzpatrick, Sheila
Abstract

Anastasia Egorova was a one-legged Russian tramp whose wanderings took her all over the Soviet Union in the 1920s-1940s. At the end of the Second World War, she decided to see the world, and successfully crossed the Western border in 1945, claiming to be Polish. Travelling on to Italy, she found refuge in a psychiatric hospital and stayed there for four years, until Soviet officials looking for repatriation prospects came by and offered her free passage home. She accepted, and was duly repatriated and returned to her native village in 1950. This microhistory from the Soviet archives is examined with reference to the larger topics of marginality, individual agency, and travel and “self-actualization,” as well as the limitations of the “top-down” totalitarian model for Soviet history and questions of historical subjectivity.

Year2018
JournalPast and Present
Journal citation241 (1), pp. 259 - 290
PublisherOxford University Press
ISSN0031-2746
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gty012
Page range259 - 290
Research GroupInstitute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Publisher's version
File Access Level
Controlled
Place of publicationUnited Kingdom
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