Gender, Ethnicity, and Individual Resistance

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I explore Sibirskiy dnevnik (henceforth Siberian Diary) of Arpenik Aleksanyan, a Soviet student of Armenian origin who, together with her family, was exiled to Siberia in one of the late Stalinist deportations of ethnic minorities. Arpenik's diary provides a unique perspective on forced displacement and exile through the eyes of a young woman. I treat the diary both as an historical source revealing gendered experiences of forced displacement and as autobiographical writing that provides a glimpse into late Stalinist girlhood and young women's subjectivity. I provide a reading of Siberian Diary that reveals Arpenik's seemingly contradictory integration of Stalinist ideologies of the so-called new woman and nationalities as a foundation for self-construction as well as individual resistance to persecution.