Diaries in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture: Twenty-Five Years Later

Abstract

This article is a sequel to the author’s previous piece Дневники в русской культуре начала ХХ века [Diaries in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture] (1990). During these years a lot of diaries appeared that were not known to anyone, and scholarly understandings of life-writing changed radically. First of all, we are obliged to understand the functions of the diary for its author. More and more often a diary becomes intended for an outside reader, as a work of fiction is. So scholars must distinguish between Dichtung [poetry] and Wahrheit [truth] in these works, as they do in addressing pure art.