ABSTRACT
The interview with Ol'ga Andreevna was arranged by her daughter and took place in a mutual friend's house in Cheltenham, UK. I had met Ol'ga Andreevna briefly during an earlier visit to Moscow, but we now had the opportunity to sit together so she could tell me about her life. As can be seen, her family and personal connections presented her with links to the Soviet political and cultural elites.
The life story touches on the following: family background; experiences during the war and in evacuation; schooling and university education; her career as a journalist and accomplished writer; reading habits; relationships, marriages and daily routine of family life. The life story also discusses the death of Stalin and the beginnings of the ‘thaw’; the 1957 Youth Festival; and Ol'ga Andreevna's impressions of the ‘shestidesyatniki’.
