Women's Experiences of 1937: Everyday Legacies of the Purges and the Great Terror in the Soviet Union

The year 1937 is one of the most important dates in Soviet history. August 1937 saw the introduction of Operational Order No. 00486, which allowed action to be taken against the wives and children of 'enemies of the people'. Autobiographical and biographical accounts, life stories, eye-witness testimonies, memoir literatures and other forms of personal narratives often mention direct experiences of battle and the struggle for survival during the Second World War as the most significant turning point in their individual accounts of the history of the Soviet Union. This chapter examines the various recollections of '1937' in a selection of women's life narratives. Family lives were disrupted by the purges in ways other than direct arrests, as Yelena Khanga has explained in relation to the wider international community. The family members of those who had been purged during the Great Terror carried the burden of association and this now tainted personal biography with them throughout their lives