The article continues the tradition of studying the phenomenon of “letters to the authorities”. The novelty of the study lies in the attempt, considering the formed historiographic groundwork, the methodology of studying everyday life, and intellectual history, to examine in detail a relatively narrow chronological section — letters sent to I.V. Stalin in the last years of his life — 1952—1953. Primary attention is paid to ego-documents authored by representatives of the scientific and pedagogical intelligentsia of different status — academicians I.I. Shmalgauzen, P.L. Kapitsa, L.A. Orbeli, I.I. Present, or people whose life path most representatively reflected the institutional and political transformations of the period of late Stalinism. It is concluded that the epistolary discourse was characterized by ambivalence. The forms of ritualized narrative and dialogue generated and incorporated into the mass consciousness by the authorities were reproduced. At the same time, despite the presence of standardized vocabulary, it is shown that the letters contained individualized strategies of self-defense. They were manifested in the instrumental use of the practices of “criticism and self-criticism” to mitigate the accusations already brought, or the creation of a kind of commemorative-imagological “stent” aimed at launching a mechanism of rehabilitation in the system of party-political control.
For citation: Yudin K.A. “Comrade Stalin, forgive me for the long letter…”: power and Soviet society in epistolary discourse (1952—1953), Ivanovo State University Bulletin. Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 2, pp. 131—140.