Fate in My Hands: The Death Penalty in the Soviet Union by Yana Skorobogatov
A striking examination of the death penalty in the Soviet Union that documents in heart-rending detail how its citizens, hopeful for a new life post-Stalin, lost faith that their transgressions could be forgiven.
From 1954 to 1991 in the Soviet Union, nearly forty thousand citizens were executed after the death penalty was reinstated as a punishment for homicide. Fate in My Hands introduces readers to the many citizens in this period—women and men of all ages and backgrounds—who found themselves on death row and tried to escape it in the only way available to them: asking for forgiveness.
About the Author
Yana Skorobogatov, Harriman Assistant Professor of Russian and Soviet History, is a social historian of Russia and the Soviet Union whose research focuses on the late and post-Soviet periods. She is in the early stages of writing a second book that centers on the Russian island of Sakhalin and its emergence as a major epicenter of global oil after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Additional research interests include political-economic history, environmental history, and the history and legacies of Russian and Soviet imperialism.
About the Speakers
Rachel Applebaum is an Associate Professor of History at Tufts University. She is a historian of the Soviet Union, communist Eastern Europe, and the global Cold War. She is currently working on A Global History of Russian: From Soviet World Language to Putin’s “Russian World,” which examines Soviet efforts to promote Russian as a global language during the Cold War and the ways local officials, academics, and ordinary people engaged with, contested, or assimilated Soviet language policies.
Catherine Evtuhov is a Professor of History at Columbia University. She specializes in the history of Russia, particularly the imperial period, with interests in Russian thought in European context, environmental and philosophical thought, cultural transmission, material culture and local history, and the history of the Black Sea region and Russian-Ottoman relations. She is currently working on Russia in the Age of Elizabeth (1741–61) and This Side of Good & Evil: Vladimir Soloviev for the 21st Century.
Mark Lipovetsky is a Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Columbia University, and the department chair. His research focuses on Russian postmodernism, New Drama, Soviet literary and cinematic tricksters, Soviet underground culture, and post-Soviet culture.
Małgorzata Mazurek is the Associate Professor of Polish Studies in the History Department at Columbia University and specializes in the modern history of Poland and East Central Europe. Her research interests include the history of the social sciences, international development, the social history of labor and consumption in twentieth-century Poland, and Polish-Jewish studies.
