War’s Epistles. On Corresponding the Combat Experience

SERGUEI A. OUSHAKINE (Princeton)

Abstract:

This paper will read closely a set of correspondence sent from the Soviet war in Afghanistan back to the USSR during the 1970-1980s. I am interested in understanding the types and forms of subjectivity that emerge in this correspondence. How did the combat experience influence the narrative conventions? Given the regime of censorship, how did the war percolate into the epistolary texts? What were the narrative positions from which the authors could articulate and convey their view on the war? I will rely on a set of letters from the Afghan war that I have been collecting over the years. In my analysis, I will as the main backdrop letters from various wars written during the twentieth century. By focusing on the Afghan war correspondence, I want to highlight both the commonality and the difference of this intervention.