Zpověď ženy stalinského čekisty
Mira Yakovenko, Agnessa Mironova
Agnessa. The Confession of the Wife of the Member of Stalin’s Secret Police. The recorded oral memories of Agnessa Mironova (1903-1982) is a must book for anybody who wants to know what was a personal life like under Stalinism. For the first time ever, Agnessa’s notes open the secret door into living rooms and boudoirs of Stalin’s “hangmen”, top-ranked Soviet secret police officers during the purges of the 1930-40s.
However, anyone who reads this book with the intention to better understand the past, will also discover an outstanding female character, a proud predator, who reveals all truths about herself frankly and without keeping anything back. A life story of this unique woman, so beautiful and repulsive at once, has developed during the most terrible and bloody period of modern history.
Agnessa’s husband, ‘the main love of her life’ as she dubbed him, was the NKVD officer Sergei Mironov. Thanks to his extremely fast and successful career, Agnessa got to the very top society of the Stalin era. We follow the amazing trajectory of her life full of most drastic contrasts: first she talks with Stalin at the New Year celebration party in Kremlin, and next freezes in a Gulag camp lost in cold Kazakh steppes; first she lives alone with her husband in a huge mansion once belonging to the royal governor of Siberia, and next in a miserable pigeonhole in communal apartment in Moscow; first she travels in a luxury saloon cars and limos, and next is a prisoner of the NKVD jail.
Agnessa’s memories are more than just an interesting biography with rich historical background; it’s a fascinating text with exactly grasped conversational tone that conveys something that no archive document can revive: everyday life, ordinary characters, ideas, and finally, the mythology of the past.
Oral memories of Agnessa Mironova recorded by Mira Yakovenko were first published in 2008 by Memorial Society. In 2012, Irina Shcherbakova, the head of Moscow Memorial Society, has prepared an extensive commentary, a preface and the index of all historical figures mentioned in the book.
Regular price of the paperback: 328 CZK. Available at our e-shop with 35 % discount for 213 CZK.
E-book available for 188 CZK via this LINK.
| Author: | Mira Yakovenko, Agnessa Mironova |
| Original title: | Агнесса. Исповедь жены сталинского чекиста |
| Number of pages: | 262 + 26 pages with photos |
| Foreword | Irina Shcherbakova |
| Year of publication: | 2021 |
| Issue number: | 1. |
| Publication number: | 1. |
| Translator: | Kateřina Šimová |
| ISBN: | 978-80-907771-0-1 |
| Binding: | paperback with flaps |
