To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War / Edition 1

by Rebecca Manley

Overview

In summer and fall 1941, as German armies advanced with shocking speed across the Soviet Union, the Soviet leadership embarked on a desperate attempt to safeguard the country's industrial and human resources. Their success helped determine the outcome of the war in Europe. To the Tashkent Station brilliantly reconstructs the evacuation of over sixteen million Soviet civilians in one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II.Rebecca Manley paints a vivid picture of this epic wartime saga: the chaos that erupted in towns large and small as German troops approached, the overcrowded trains that trundled eastward, and the desperate search for sustenance and shelter in Tashkent, one of the most sought-after sites of refuge in the rear. Her story ends in the shadow of victory, as evacuees journeyed back to their ruined cities and broken homes. Based on previously unexploited archival collections in Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, To the Tashkent Station offers a novel look at a war that transformed the lives of several generations of Soviet citizens. The evacuation touched men, women, and children from all walks of life: writers as well as workers, scientists along with government officials, party bosses, and peasants. Manley weaves their harrowing stories into a probing analysis of how the Soviet Union responded to and was transformed by World War II.Over the course of the war, the Soviet state was challenged as never before. Popular loyalties were tested, social hierarchies were recast, and the multiethnic fabric of the country was subjected to new strains. Even as the evacuation saved countless Soviet Jews from almost certain death, it spawned a new and virulent wave of anti-Semitism. This magisterial work is the first in-depth study of this crucial but neglected episode in the history of twentieth-century population displacement, World War II, and the Soviet Union.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801447396
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rebecca Manley is Associate Professor of History and Undergraduate Chair of the Department of History at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

What People are Saying About This

Peter Gatrell

To the Tashkent Station is an indispensable contribution to the scholarship on World War II. It will certainly repay the attention of readers who are seeking a serious, informed, and nuanced study of Soviet wartime upheaval and mobilization. Drawing from source material in several Russian archives, Rebecca Manley guides the reader through debates on policy as well as the process and experiences of evacuation, resettlement, and return of Soviet civilians. It is a worthy addition to Cornell's impressive list in Russian and East European Studies.

Lynne Viola

The story of the mass evacuation of Soviet citizens during World War II has found its historian in Rebecca Manley. She has done an amazing job of tracking down sources, reconstructing the bureaucratic web of institutions and policies undergirding the evacuation process, and collecting a range of personal experiences of the evacuation from all sectors of society. The result is an extremely compelling narrative that reads beautifully. In Manley's hands, the evacuation also serves as a kind of microcosm of Soviet politics and society. Most important, this is a story of the human experience of evacuation and war.

Editorial Reviews

Manley's book is an impressive achievement. Through work in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Tashkent archives, along with the use of memoir and periodical sources, she effectively documents... Soviet society and the Soviet state as revealed in a moment of crisis.... She produces a nuanced understanding of how evacuation simultaneously exposed and healed fissures within and between various strata of the population in its leaders.

Slavic Review - Jeff Sahadeo

This book is one of the most significant recent contributions to the history of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. A nuanced, complex, and confident interpretation of a rich and diverse source base, it is much more than just a careful study of... the Soviet evacuation of institutions, factories, and human beings, to rescue them from the German invasion of 1941. It is also a microstudy of Soviet society in the 1940s more generally.

Journal of Modern History - Mark Edele

"This book is one of the most significant recent contributions to the history of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. A nuanced, complex, and confident interpretation of a rich and diverse source base, it is much more than just a careful study of . . . the Soviet evacuation of institutions, factories, and human beings, to rescue them from the German invasion of 1941. It is also a microstudy of Soviet society in the 1940s more generally."—Mark Edele, Journal of Modern History (March 2011)

"Manley's book is an impressive achievement. Through work in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Tashkent archives, along with the use of memoir and periodical sources, she effectively documents . . . Soviet society and the Soviet state as revealed in a moment of crisis. . . . She produces a nuanced understanding of how evacuation simultaneously exposed and healed fissures within and between various strata of the population in its leaders."—Jeff Sahadeo, Slavic Review (Winter 2010)

"The story of the mass evacuation of Soviet citizens during World War II has found its historian in Rebecca Manley. She has done an amazing job of tracking down sources, reconstructing the bureaucratic web of institutions and policies undergirding the evacuation process, and collecting a range of personal experiences of the evacuation from all sectors of society. The result is an extremely compelling narrative that reads beautifully. In Manley's hands, the evacuation also serves as a kind of microcosm of Soviet politics and society. Most important, this is a story of the human experience of evacuation and war."—Lynne Viola, University of Toronto, author of The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements

"To the Tashkent Station is an indispensable contribution to the scholarship on World War II. It will certainly repay the attention of readers who are seeking a serious, informed, and nuanced study of Soviet wartime upheaval and mobilization. Drawing from source material in several Russian archives, Rebecca Manley guides the reader through debates on policy as well as the process and experiences of evacuation, resettlement, and return of Soviet civilians. It is a worthy addition to Cornell's impressive list in Russian and East European Studies."—Peter Gatrell, University of Manchester, author of A Whole Empire Walking

"To the Tashkent Station makes a significant contribution to the social history of the Second World War. Manley's vivid prose and rich detail bring to life the experiences of the evacuees. Her incisive analysis illuminates the social and cultural paradoxes and ambiguities of Stalin’s Soviet Union, in which the same action could be deemed patriotic or treasonous depending on circumstances."—Kenneth Slepyan, Canadian Journal of History (Fall 2011)

From the Publisher