This is an amazing story about a teenage girl in Stalinist Russia who was both a "refusnick" and a dissident and dared to keep a journal. The very act of keeping a journal was outlawed in the Soviet Union of Stalin's time. Everyone was expected to be part of the Collective and to enjoy and promote the "Group Think" espoused by the government.
All creativity was stifled. Art and literature had to meet exacting political standards of "Socialist Realism" in order to be published.
While the Communist government spouted that all people were equal in status regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity...this was far from reality. Women were still second-class citizens under Stalin, while nationalities such as Ukrainians (Southern neighbors of Russia) were looked upon as disposable Kulaks (Middle-class farmers), who did not embrace Communism whole-heartedly, and therefore did not deserve and rights or respect. People who had oriental appearances were not even allowed to walk on sidewalks occupied by Caucasian Russians in Moscow.
In addition, the Proletariats (Working Class People), while extolled by the government...were nothing but slaves to the government leaders and bureaucracy. Peoples' homes and apartments could be broken into and searched for any reason whatsoever. Anyone could be questioned and searched anytime, anywhere. There were no privacy rights. Anyone charged as an "Enemy of the People" lost all their freedoms and were subject to deportation and imprisonment without trial or proof of any kind.
Individuality and non-comformity were disallowed and punished. The alledged Workers' Paradise was anything but...and in fact life was extremely bleak and drab for anyone with a mind, creativity and conscience. Nina suffered from depression because of her isolation from what she saw as the stupid, mindless, and ugly culture that engulfed her. Being the daughter of a dissident, she had access to news and information outside of Pravda and the official propagandistic Soviet news sources (also completely outlawed). She therefore knew about disasters, dissent, and the forced famine in the Soviet Ukraine that murdered at least five million people and reduced much of the population to starvation or canninbalism.
Upon the discovery of her diary by the NKVD (Secret Police prior to the KGB), Nina and her family were sentenced to five years of hard labor in a Soviet Labor Camp and seven years more in exile in Siberia. Though she had thoughts of becoming a writer, her years in exile silenced her forever. Nina died in 1993, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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