«The newspapers—going mad from all the contradictory rumors—willingly printed all this nonsense…These rumors lost their direct purpose of reporting fictitious “facts”…They turned into a means of self-soothing or a powerful narcotic medicine. Only in rumors, people found hope for the future. Even outwardly, Kiev residents began to resemble morphine addicts.»

Editor’s and Translator’s Note

Thinking about the chaos that seems to periodically erupt in the territory of Ukraine, a Hegelian would argue that there are historical inevitabilities that explain such large-scale events. A student of geopolitics would add that the relationship between land and politics backed by the knowledge of history shapes our understanding of the world. On more than one occasion, we discussed the striking parallels between the turbulent events of the early 20th-century Russian Civil War in the territory of Ukraine and the present-day conflict in the region. Yet, the following excerpt from Konstantin Paustovsky’s autobiographical The Story of a Life (1962) goes even further to shed light on mis- and disinformation, mass media, as well as the social mood in Kiev immediately after the 1917 Revolution.

After all, Paustovsky, a Nobel Prize-nominated Soviet author, spent his youth between Moscow and Kiev. While in Kiev, he documented his perceptions of the frequent changes in the self-proclaimed governments, foreign “interventions,” and the way in which the public responded to them. In this sense, his writing is valuable because it provides an additional dimension to understanding war propaganda both a century ago and today.

The translation is generally presented as is. Exceptions include using the full names where they were omitted in the original and providing editorial notes for context. As always, translation is an art, not a science. For instance, in some cases, I translated the word “power” (vlast‘)—in reference to those who ruled during the Civil War—as a “regime” because the author did not use the term “government,” and this translation is more in line with the theme.

The Story of a Life (Excerpt)

Konstantin Paustovsky

1962

The regime of the Ukrainian Directorate and Symon Petliura looked provincial. The once-brilliant Kiev turned into an enlarged Shpola or Mirgorod with their formulaic presences and Dovgochkhuns (Ivan Dovgochkhun is a character in How the Two Ivans Quarrelled (1834) by Nikolai Gogol – Ed.) who presided in them.

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