Childhood and Adolescence. Parts 2 and 3

The second volume of Vitaly Tretyakov’s “Memoirs,” the founder of the “Independent Newspaper” and the Higher School of Television at Lomonosov Moscow State University, the host of the “What to Do?” program on the “Culture” channel, continues his multi-volume account of the Soviet Union and Russia through the narrative of his own life. “From the USSR to Russia and Back” is the title Vitaly Tretyakov gave to the entire series of his memoirs, the first volume of which, devoted to the history of the author’s family and his early childhood, was published by Ladomir in 2013. The second volume completes the first book of Vitaly Tretyakov’s “Memoirs,” “Childhood and Adolescence,” and includes sections devoted to the author’s life and schooling from grades 5 to 8, as well as the pioneer camp where he spent his summer holidays. The second volume covers the period from 1964 to 1968. The second volume also contains Vitaly Tretyakov’s unique linguistic project: a dictionary he compiled of the most popular words and expressions from the 1950s and 1960s that were never used officially. Perhaps nothing like it has ever appeared in Russian literature. In the second volume, Vitaly Tretyakov remains true to himself as a memoirist: no flights of fancy, only accounts of what he knows for certain, and meticulous attention to the details that make up people’s everyday lives—food, clothing, games in the yard, pioneer activities, tape recordings, dances, handwritten songbooks, jokes, folk ditties of the time, and much more, which the author’s contemporaries will gladly recall and young readers will discover for the first time with interest. The second volume introduces even more historical figures whom Vitaly Tretyakov first saw on the television screen in his childhood and with whom he later became acquainted and grew close. The edition concludes with an alphabetical index of the people mentioned in all three parts of the book “Childhood and Adolescence.” “What is the Soviet Union? The ‘Evil Empire’ or a promised land? This dilemma is often resolved in favor of the former (and for good reason). Tretyakov, however, despite his grandfather being shot during the Stalinist repressions and his own eleven-square-meter room in a communal apartment (shared with four others!), boldly declares: “I love my country, Russia, very much. I loved it very much when it was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In fact, I loved the USSR itself. I simply cannot stomach the endless lies and slander hurled at my country, my homeland, whether out of stupidity or with malicious intent. And the main driving force behind these “Memoirs” is to ‘multiply the truth about my country, even if only partially, even if it is only what I have seen and what only I have remembered.’”