Working in the archives is a lot like having a big puzzle to put together. Unfortunately, the end result is not at all clear. You don't have a dissertation for which you have to fill in the pieces.
So when you find a document that screams, "Hey you! This is important!" it is pretty exciting.
I found one of these the other day: a summary report on a conversation that Khrushchev had with a group of five senior agricultural officials a few weeks after launching this whole corn-planting scheme. It's only twelve type-written pages long, but there are at least five separate passages that offer fodder [no pun intended] for analysis.
Plus, there's humor. One of Khrushchev's constant refrains was that corn solved two problems: It provided grain, which was great, but the plant itself could also be chopped and used as fodder for livestock.
In this conversation, he related his amusement that that it might have a third use: One of his minions, Shevchenko, had gone to his, Khrushchev's, native village in the Kursk region to investigate their progress on planting corn, which they had begun a year or two before at his recommendation. The reports were good. Perhaps too good. Khrushchev explained:
So when you find a document that screams, "Hey you! This is important!" it is pretty exciting.
I found one of these the other day: a summary report on a conversation that Khrushchev had with a group of five senior agricultural officials a few weeks after launching this whole corn-planting scheme. It's only twelve type-written pages long, but there are at least five separate passages that offer fodder [no pun intended] for analysis.
Plus, there's humor. One of Khrushchev's constant refrains was that corn solved two problems: It provided grain, which was great, but the plant itself could also be chopped and used as fodder for livestock.
In this conversation, he related his amusement that that it might have a third use: One of his minions, Shevchenko, had gone to his, Khrushchev's, native village in the Kursk region to investigate their progress on planting corn, which they had begun a year or two before at his recommendation. The reports were good. Perhaps too good. Khrushchev explained:
There is so much silage there now that they feed it to cows, sheep, horses, hogs, and they've even tried to distill samogon [bootleg liquor] from it, but it hasn't turned out yet. As you can see, it even solves a third problem. True, they might be thrown in jail, these innovators, but they are convinced that they can make samogon.There you have it: white dog, Russian-style.
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