Sofia Petrovna

Sofia Petrovna is a dissident novella written in 1939 by the Russian author Lydia Chukovskaya. Fearing for her life following the Great Terror of 1937, Chukovskaya hid the manuscript until the early 1960s, when the political tide had turned against Stalin’s legacy enough to open the possibility of publication. However, the political tides turned once again, and Chukovskaya’s contract for publication was rescinded. The novella circulated clandestinely as samizdat in the Soviet Union before crossing into France in 1965, where it was officially published (in Russian) for the first time. It was subsequently translated into English and published in the United States in 1967. Finally, in 1988, with the fall of the Soviet Union incipient, Sofia Petrovna was officially published in the USSR.

This guide uses the 1994 paperback edition translated by Aline Worth and published by Northwestern University Press.

Content Warning: The source material contains descriptions of suicide and antisemitism.

Plot Summary

Sofia Petrovna is a widow who lives in Leningrad with her teenaged son, Kolya. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, Sofia and her late husband—a respected doctor—enjoyed a bourgeois lifestyle. Now, Sofia and Kolya live a spartan but happy life in one room of their former apartment—the other rooms were requisitioned to other families during Collectivization. Kolya is studious and has a strict sense of justice. When a classmate of his, Sashka Yartsev, calls his friend Alik Finkelstein an antisemitic slur, Kolya organizes a mock trial to redress the insult.

Sofia works as a senior typist at a major publishing house, where her bosses value her industriousness. The work of reviewing patriotic Soviet fiction for publication is gratifying—Sofia can’t believe she went years without the stimulation of a job. Sofia is friendly with everyone at work except for the unscrupulous party secretary, Timofeyev, and his confidant, a lazy junior typist named Erna Semyonovna. Sofia makes a good friend in Natasha Frolenko, a wan but fastidious typist whose father was in the White Army, the imperial Russian force that fought the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Kolya and Alik matriculate at engineering college. After excelling in their studies, they’re recruited to a factory in Sverdlovsk, where Kolya invents a new production method, earning him a front-page article in Pravda (the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

With Kolya gone Sofia spends most of her time at work. In her free time she and Natasha go to the movies. Sofia pities Natasha, who despite her patriotism is continually refused Komsomol (communist youth group) membership because of her father’s anti-bolshevism. An inveterate Stalinist, Kolya believes they’re right to deny Natasha membership.

The NKVD (secret police) begins arresting people accused of being fascist spies or Trotskyists. Kolya’s godfather, Dr. Kiparisov, is arrested, as is the director of Natasha’s publishing house, Zakharov. Reading about supposed acts of terrorism in Pravda, Sofia is enraged that saboteurs would dare harm Stalin; nonetheless, she struggles to believe that Kiparisov or Zakharov could be guilty of anything.

Kolya is arrested without explanation. Sofia, Alik, and Natasha try to learn about the status of his case, but the prison bureaucracy is impenetrable. Weeks and then months go by and still they hear nothing about Kolya. Sofia’s once friendly neighbors become hostile. Meanwhile, problems arise at the publishing house. Erna gets Natasha fired for an anti-patriotic typo, and when Sofia defends her friend she is forced to resign.

Sofia finally learns that Kolya has been sentenced to 10 years in a gulag. Astonished, Sofia nonetheless redoubles her efforts to contact him and win his freedom. Natasha, who had an unrequited love for Kolya, dies by suicide. Alik is arrested. Sofia becomes depressed. She tries to take money to Alik in prison but is dissuaded by Mrs. Kiparisova, who warns her that the NKVD will connect her to Alik’s case.

More than a year after Kolya’s arrest, there are some releases from the gulags. However, Sofia still hears nothing of Kolya. In utter despair, she pretends that he has in fact been freed and is returning home with a new fiancée. This charade only provides a measure of solace. Finally Kolya is able to sneak a letter to Sofia from the gulag. He was arrested because his former classmate Sashka told the NKVD that he’d recruited Kolya to a terrorist organization. After being brutally beaten, Kolya confessed to this fabricated crime. He pleads for Sofia’s help.

Sofia rushes to show the letter to Mrs. Kiparisova, who’s preparing to be deported to Kazakhstan. Mrs. Kiparisova implores her not to show the letter to the authorities—such accusations of malfeasance can only make things worse for her and Kolya. Sofia returns to her apartment. In despair she burns the letter.