Raisa Orlova : radici ebraiche, educazione russa : un percorso comune a diverse protagoniste dell'intelligencija sovietica

The essay presents the personal story of Raissa Orlova as an example of a process performed by different writers, primarily women of Jewish origin in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the  20th century. These women no longer have any connection with their ancestors’ religion and try to  replace the faith in the Jewish religion with  the faith in communism, whose god is Stalin. Raissa Orlova is a perfect example of homo sovieticus: she undertakes the  young communist girls’ cursus honorum and  she is totally blind to what is happening around her.  A fundamental step in her path is the attendance of the IFLI, the  "communist school " in Moscow. The veil of illusion falls from her eyes  after the Twentieth Party Congress and the comparison with the European reality: Orlova realizes that she has believed in an idol and begins to trace her own personal past, to contrast the unifying vision of communism . At this stage Orlova rediscovers her Jewish origins and, although not converted to her ancestors’ religion, she finally becomes aware of her  long ignored past.