Fate in My Hands : The Death Penalty in the Soviet Union

Skorobogatov, Yana

University of Chicago Press（2026/07発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 288 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780226837314

Full Description

A striking examination of the death penalty in the Soviet Union that documents in heart-rending detail how its citizens, hopeful for a new life post-Stalin, lost faith that their transgressions could be forgiven.
 
From 1954 to 1991 in the Soviet Union, nearly 40,000 citizens were executed after the death penalty was reinstated as a punishment for homicide. Fate in My Hands introduces readers to the many citizens in this period—women and men of all ages and backgrounds—who found themselves on death row and tried to escape it in the only way available to them: asking for forgiveness.
 
Examining the letters and objects the dead left behind, Skorobogatov recovers their voices and allows them to speak anew. She offers a striking portrait of life in the Soviet Union and the citizens who dreamed of new possibilities even as they faced their tragic end. Using a corpus of never-before-accessed criminal court records, Fate in My Hands brings readers not just into the police interrogation rooms, courthouses, and cells where the condemned awaited their fates, but into the homes, workplaces, and psychiatric hospitals where families and friends alike came together to pursue an elusive, bitter justice in the wake of violent tragedy.

Contents

Note on Transliteration

Introduction: Toward Forgiveness
Interlude: Abolition and Its Discontents

Part One: Forgiveness
Chapter One: Morality on Trial
Chapter Two: The Science of Guilt and Innocence
Chapter Three: Domestic Crime, Public Punishment

Part Two: The End of Forgiveness
Chapter Four: Learning Legality
Chapter Five: Bad Institutions
Chapter Six: New Morals

Conclusion: The End of Forgiveness

List of Archives Consulted and Notations
Notes
Index