LOST TO THE STATE

This study is extremely well done, a fluently written, scholarly account and analysis that provides a necessary addition to the post-Soviet literature, which has few such sharp analyses of the family, not least because the author takes on relevant debates and histories that both add considerable depth to this discussion and widen the applicability of the primary focus. Thus, we are given a marvellously careful and detailed insight into the workings of a provincial bureaucracy still shaped by the mores and customs of a Soviet bureaucracy but now faced with the sharply different context of the post-Soviet world. · Catherine Alexander, Goldsmiths College, London Childhood held a special place in Soviet society