Dear Unknown Friend: The Remarkable Correspondence Between American and Soviet Women

Peri’s book was inspired by an extraordinary stroke of luck: she discovered, forgotten in a Russian archive, thousands of letters between Soviet and American women dating from 1943 to 1953. The Soviet government began correspondence in early 1943 with the aim of soliciting American aid. for their war effort and the Red Army’s triumph at Stalingrad in February of that year inspired many American women to get involved. This epistolary exchange was never private: both states organized and supervised it, and the Soviets undertook all translations. Most of the Americans involved were housewives, while Soviet women, often deprived of their men due to huge war casualties, tended to emphasize their professions and jobs in correspondence. Some of these unlikely friendships lasted several years, with pen pals going beyond personal experience to explore their differences. Although Soviet letter writers advocated socialism and collective solidarity and their American counterparts praised Christianity and the American dream, their discussions remained friendly and intimate, even amid the increasingly fierce confrontation of the Cold War.

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