Introduction
Journal: Academic Studies Press eBooks
Year: 2023

The twentieth century is more homeless still, It's gloomy life more terrible; (And even blacker and with vaster reach Than Lucifer's wing). -Alexander Blok, "Retribution" 3 Evgenia Ginzburg begins her memoir Journey into the Whirlwind with what is now considered a classic first sentence: "The year 1937 really began, for all intents and purposes, in 1934. " 4 Emphasizing Sergei Kirov's assassination, the calamitous event which anticipated the purges of 1936-1937, Ginzburg catapults the reader int