#30  - JRL 2006-131 - JRL Home
Date: Tues 06 June 06
From: Robert Bruce Ware (rware@siue.edu)
Subject: Request for Advice and Suggestions [re: Oral Histories]

I am writing to ask if any readers might have any advice or suggestions regarding the publication of our collection of oral histories of elderly Russians. The collection is titled The Fight of Our Lives: Reflections of the Generation that Built the Soviet Union.

In the summer of 2000 my Dagestani wife and I interviewed 43 elderly Russians in five locations (Moscow, St. Pete, Protvino, Electrogorsk, and Makhachkala). Twenty-seven of these interviews were spontaneous, in that we simply approached elderly people in the streets, parks, etc., and 16 were arranged conversations with (often accomplished) Russians from selected walks of life. These included a famous cosmonaut, ballerina, physicist, priest, Hero of the Soviet Union, etc.

Some of our spontaneous interviews were extraordinary. For example, we chanced into an interview with one of the Soviet Union's top generals, with the Chairman of the National Writer's Union, with a famous dissident poet, with a ballerina who spent 15 years in the GULAG, etc. Since most interviews were conducted by my wife, they were often informal, candid, even intimate, conversations between two Russians about strengths and weaknesses in the history of their country.

We have completed the collection of these oral histories in two separate versions. The presentation of the first version is more traditional or scholarly, in that it focuses upon the texts of the interviews themselves. The second version includes personal narrative and reflections. Both versions are extensively annotated to assist the reader with a limited background in Russian history.

Both versions are good; one of the other of them should be published in some form. They present a range of truly Russian perspectives on events in Russia from 1920 to 2000, and this is something that readers should have a chance to consider. Moreover, many of the personal stories are incredibly dramatic. They should not be lost.

Nonetheless, both versions have been rejected by every major and minor publisher in the USA and the UK that I have been able to think of-- essentially on the ground that the manuscripts are unmarketable.

I am open to the idea of publishing with any press in the world that could give these stories some distribution and exposure, including Russian presses. We are not trying to make money, but only to get these incredible stories out into the light of day. Does anybody have any suggestions?