Seltsimees Vaheri küsimus: Nõukogude subjektsus Luise Vaherti 1941. aasta päevikus I
The Vaher question: Soviet subjectivity in Luise Vaher’s diary of 1941. Part 1

Summary/Abstract: This article is based on the diary of a young Estonian provincial female party activist Luise Vaher (née Kapstas), in which she describes her evacuation to the Soviet rear following the German invasion of the USSR in the summer and fall of 1941. The diary offers a rare glimpse into the mindset of recently converted Estonian Communists and their shock in encountering the realities of Soviet everyday life. It shows how a young female Bolshevik is trying to make sense of the abject Soviet poverty and the brutal kolkhoz life, its peculiar ethnic, racial and gender relations, and how these realities prompt her to reflect on her own beliefs and identity. The article is inspired by the so-called subjectivity school of Soviet studies, namely by the work of Jochen Hellbeck. The first part of the article examines the applicability of Hellbeck’s approach to the Soviet Estonian context. It also provides a political biography of Luise Vaher – from her conversion to Communism in the summer of 1940, through her rocky career as a provincial party activist, up to her post-Stalinist life as a promin­ent author of Soviet Estonian “women’s novels”.

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