10 diaries of famous women, which reflected the course of history of the XX century

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Diaries can rightfully be called one of the most interesting genres from the point of view of literature. When reading, the feeling of immersion in someone else's life and the feeling of looking at what is happening through the eyes of another person are mixed together. Different periods of history, different countries, different women, and the course of the history of a whole century, with its revolutions, wars and the fates of individual people, already rises before our eyes.

Zinaida Gippius

The Russian poet and writer kept a diary all her life - from the 1890s and almost until her death. They reflected the revolutionary events that took place in Russia from 1914 to 1917, the throwing of a single family in search of the meaning of what was happening, painful emigration, life away from the Motherland and disappointment at the end of life. Zinaida Gippius described her feelings about what was happening in St. Petersburg, her fears and doubts. Of no less interest are the records of Zinaida Gippius associated with the outbreak of World War II.

Virginia wolfe

Virginia Wolfe's diaries were published thanks to her husband, Leonardo Wolfe. It was he who put together all 27 notebooks that his famous wife had written during her life, processed them and prepared the diary for publishing. It is noteworthy that Virginia Wolfe herself used the diary as a means of self-discipline. She wrote, regardless of the circumstances, at an enviable frequency. But literature was often the subject of recording.

Olga Berggolts

Despite the fact that more than 40 years have passed since the poet's death, her diaries have not yet been published in full, although Olga Berggolts kept them throughout her life, frankly and in detail recording everything that happened. The recordings are of great interest as a literary object and as a significant female historical narrative.

Nina Lugovskaya

She began to keep her diary while still a schoolgirl, and finished in 1937, when she was not yet 18. The girl's diary was used by an investigator against her father, when he was groundlessly accused of preparing an attempt on the leader of the peoples. The whole family was arrested, and Nina herself did not escape the camps. However, the terrible reality did not break the young girl. She spent 5 years in the camps, but after her release she became a famous painter, worked as an artist in theaters in Magadan, Sterlitamak, Perm Territory. She was able to achieve the rehabilitation of her entire family. To date, only a part of Nina Lugovskoy's diary has been published, but after her release she again kept notes, which are now being prepared for publication.

Helen Burr

She was only 21 years old when she began to record in detail and diligently everything that happened in France since the occupation of France by Nazi troops. The young Jewish woman was sent to a concentration camp in 1944 and beaten to death by guards in April 1945. Her diary is a testimony not only against fascism, but also against the indifference that made people just avert their eyes from the trouble that was not happening to them.

Anne Frank

Another diary-requiem to its author and a call to prevent a repetition of the horrors of fascism. Anne Frank, a German Jew, a prisoner of Auschwitz, kept her diary from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944, but she did not have time to do the literary revision. The diary shows not only all the horror experienced by the Jews, who were forced to hide and wait for death. Behind his lines, the image of the girl herself appears, who tried to save herself.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo's diary was kept in the last 10 years of her life. It itself is a mixture of styles and genres, drawings and recordings in different languages. She has suffered from polio all her life, and in the last decade the pain has become simply unbearable. But the artist was not going to give in to the disease, keeping her spirit and love of life.

Elena Schwartz

The diary of the poetess Elena Schwartz is interesting, first of all, because it shows the process of forming a creative personality, starting with her emotions from acquaintance with the masterpieces of world literature and ending with her own genius poems. Unfortunately, so far only a part of Elena Schwartz's real diary has been published, including two periods of her life: until the 1960s and from 2001 to 2010.

Katharina Wenzl

A German linguist in 1994-1997 she lived in Moscow and kept a kind of chronicle of Moscow life. She tried, as impartially as possible, to describe the world in which she happened to live and work at that time.

Polina Zherebtsova

Polina Zherebtsova began to keep diaries, in which the events of the two Chechen wars are presented through the prism of a little girl's perception, at the age of 9. The war through the eyes of a child, described with piercing childish naivety and impartiality, is an important document that is worth reading and not allowing any conflict to be resolved from a position of strength.

The diary of 11-year-old schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva has become one of the most terrible evidence of the horrors of the war. was presented at the Nuremberg trials as evidence of the crimes of fascism. The girl survived the blockade, but never learned about the long-awaited Victory on May 9, 1945.