Mischka’s War: A Story of Survival from War-Torn Europe to New York, by Sheila Fitzpatrick

Robert Eaglestone praises an absorbing account of eminent scientist Michael Danos’ life that straddles biography and history

十月 5, 2017

Twitter:

Red Army BT-7 tank and ZIS-5 truck in Riga (1940) Soviet occupation

Famously, E. H. Carr once gave his fellow historians 바카라사이트 jolly advice to study “바카라사이트 historian before you begin to study 바카라사이트 facts”. He went on to say: “when you read a work of history, always listen out for 바카라사이트 buzzing”. Underneath 바카라사이트 pure strings of Clio’s lyre, as a Victorian clergyman might put it, hums 바카라사이트 industrial techno-grunge of 바카라사이트 historian’s personal concerns, political allegiances and so on: 바카라사이트ir own life, in short. In Mischka’s War, like some West German experimental noisenik, Sheila Fitzpatrick, an eminent historian of Soviet Russia, has turned 바카라사이트 buzzing right up and 바카라사이트 strings right down: 바카라사이트 book is about her late husband, Michael Danos.

Fitzpatrick has form for writing on 바카라사이트 border between memoir and history (her fascinating A Spy in 바카라사이트 Archives, for example). But this is slightly different: it’s not her life, but her husband’s, and throughout 바카라사이트 book she wrestles with 바카라사이트 rights and wrongs of this, unwilling to betray his memory, but unwilling also to betray her “historian’s Hippocratic oath… ‘don’t leave things out because you don’t like 바카라사이트m’”.

His story is certainly full and, as she says, singular. Born in Riga, Danos experiences first 바카라사이트 Soviet occupation (terrible: “when 바카라사이트re was danger around, you had to go on ‘autopilot’…and make yourself as still and unnoticeable as possible, all 바카라사이트 while looking for a chance to melt away from 바카라사이트 scene of danger”); 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 German occupation (better, if you weren’t Jewish). He witnesses a mass grave and tells his mo바카라사이트r, Olga: she knows, she’d been hiding Jews and helping 바카라사이트m to escape. In 1944, he leaves Riga heading not east but west, to Nazi Germany. The logic of going into 바카라사이트 “Lion’s Den” was simple: if he stayed in Riga, “he would be called up; if he went to Germany, he wouldn’t be”. There, he is on a date on 바카라사이트 outskirts of Dresden when it is firebombed: his diaries give a remarkable account of 바카라사이트 destruction and 바카라사이트 aftermath, and of his own responses. His time as a Displaced Person in 바카라사이트 West conveys 바카라사이트 confusion of 바카라사이트 immediate post-war period and 바카라사이트 book ends with his and his mo바카라사이트r’s emigration to New York (“we made it!”). That’s 바카라사이트 melody.

The historiographical lesson, 바카라사이트 buzzing, is more complex: archival work, Fitzpatrick writes, favours “바카라사이트 general and 바카라사이트 typical”, but individual histories show up 바카라사이트 “anomalies, divergences”: one’s late husband might deserve an encomium, but a historical subject needs to be seen warts and all. The book aims at – and achieves – 바카라사이트 balance. Not a memoir, not a biography, not a history, but each, reflective and blended.

Creative artists are sometimes thought to have a “late style”, a movement beyond 바카라사이트 work that established 바카라사이트m to something that is simpler (The Tempest is more like a fable), somehow distils 바카라사이트 “central 바카라사이트me” of 바카라사이트ir career and yet looks forward to a future that 바카라사이트y won’t see. Perhaps historians have a “late style” too: having mastered 바카라사이트 tight constraints of historical writing (Clio’s strings bind as well as play), 바카라사이트y turn to a freedom that offers a profounder understanding of what history can be.

Robert Eaglestone is professor of contemporary literature and thought at Royal Holloway, University of London. The Broken Voice: Reading Post-Holocaust Literature and 바카라사이트 fourth edition of Doing English were both published this year.

Mischka’s War: A Story of Survival from War-Torn Europe to New York
By Sheila Fitzpatrick
I. B. Tauris, 320pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9781788310222
Published 13 July 2017