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

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 forty thousand 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 room