In today's guest post, author Daphne Kalotay talks about the inspiration and research behind her new novel, RUSSIAN WINTER.
RUSSIAN WINTER had as its inspiration (on the most general, thematic, level) not just my passion for dance, but how thoroughly the Soviet experience has marked my own family.
As for its more specific origins, in the summer of 2000, I wrote the first words of what was at first a short story, also called “Russian Winter,” about falling deeply in love with a fellow grad student during the winter that I was preparing for an exam in Russian literature. In my memory my Russian tutorials, the New England winter, and falling in love had become intertwined. But the story soon called up another, much older memory—of helping an elderly woman pack her belongings for her move to an old age home. To connect her to the Russian literature idea, I decided to make the woman Russian, and as I wrote she became a version of my Hungarian grandmother, who along with my father survived both the Holocaust and the first decade of Russian occupation before escaping to Canada. Though they left Hungary in 1956, many of our relatives remained there, and I’ve seen up close how life under the weight of totalitarianism influenced both those who left and those who stayed—from individual mentality to interpersonal relationships.
To gain the knowledge and sense of authority I felt I needed in order to write the novel, I spent years researching Soviet Russia, its history and culture, Moscow, the ballet, etc. I went almost daily to the Boston Athenaeum, where I found old books on Soviet dancers and the ballet and—particularly helpful—travelogues by Westerners who were able to enter the Soviet Union during the last decade or so of Stalin’s rule; it seems that since it was so difficult to go behind the Iron Curtain in those years, anyone who did so wrote a book about it or published their diaries or letters home. Despite their quirks and subjectivity, these books were invaluable to me, because they pointed out the small details of Soviet life that the Russians often didn’t bother mentioning in their own writings: descriptions of foods, fabrics, automobiles, streets, restaurants, shops, etc. So much changed from year to year in those years after World War II; first there would be only certain foods or clothing available, the next year something else. I wanted to be as true to that reality as possible.
The greatest challenge for me was plotting a story set in such a fiercely controlled environment as Stalin’s Soviet Union, where terror and its repercussions prevented people from daring to say or do many things a writer might otherwise take for granted.
As for other research, I didn’t allow myself to travel to Russia until after I’d finished writing the book, because I was worried that experiencing contemporary Moscow might disrupt the post-war version I’d created, via books and photographs, in my imagination. Indeed, my first day in Moscow left me pretty confused; much of it looked nothing like it had in my 1947-52 version. And yet by the second day I was able to find the old streets from my research, where older buildings had once been, and to get a better sense of the size and feel of the city. Unfortunately, the Bolshoi was still under renovation at the time of my visit, so I’ve never been inside and had to rely on an old video I lucked upon of a 1950s performance that showed the audience, lobby, stairway, orchestra pit, dressing rooms, etc. But I’m glad I made the trip and saw Theatre Square for myself, in person.
Often during the long process of writing this novel I told myself that never again would I take on a project requiring research. It was simply too much work! And yet when I think back to my many days spent in the library, and my travels, and the hours of watching ballet videos, etc., I’m reminded of how refreshing it was to write something outside of myself—outside of my knowledge and experience—and that this is one more way that books expand our universe.
-- Daphne Kalotay, Author (www.daphnekalotay.com)
