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From a debut author, an intimate, multigenerational narrative of the Russian and Chinese revolutions through the eyes of the Chinese youth who traveled to the Soviet Union and the fate of their blended offspring
List of contents
- Prologue At Vova's
- Introduction: Serious Romance
- Part I: First Encounters: Circa 1921
- 1 Emi's Adventures: Changsha-Paris-Moscow
- 2 Qu's Quest: Tolstoy and the Trans-Siberian
- 3 New Youth, New Russians
- Part II: School Crushes: 1920s
- 4 School Dramas: Costumes, Lines, Roles
- 5 Shanghai University and the Comintern's Curriculum
- 6 A Crush on Russia: Qu's Female Protégés
- 7 Chiang Kaishek's Son in Red Wonderland
- 8 Heartbreak: the Demise of Qu
- Part III: Love Affairs: 1930s-1940s
- 9 Kolia the Chinese
- 10 Liza/Li: The Agitator and the Aristocrat
- 11 Emi/Eva: The Love Affairs of a Sino-Soviet Poet
- 12 The Legend of He Zizhen: Mao's Wife in Moscow
- 13 Sino-Soviet Love Children
- Part IV: Families: 1950s
- 14 Male Metaphors: Mao, Stalin and Brotherhood
- 15 Wang, Dasha, and Nastya: Russian Romance Redux
- 16 Legitimate Offspring: Chinese Students in 1950s Moscow
- 17 Female Families: Liza's Home, Eva's Adventures
- Part V: Last Kisses: 1960s and Beyond
- 18 The Split Within: Sino-Soviet Families Under Pressure
- 19 Defiant Romantics: Ironies of Cultural Revolution
- 20 Nostalgia: Wang's Search
- Epilogue At Yura's
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Elizabeth McGuire is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, East Bay. She has studied, lived, and worked in Moscow and Beijing.
Summary
From a debut author, an intimate, multigenerational narrative of the Russian and Chinese revolutions through the eyes of the Chinese youth who traveled to the Soviet Union and the fate of their blended offspring
Additional text
Engrossing book...Red at Heart offers a highly original exploration of Chinese communism, putting the experiences and emotions of the young radicals who lived and studied in revolutionary Russia at the centre of the story. In her book, the concept of a Sino-Soviet romance works at the level of metaphor, pointing to a cycle of infatuation and disillusionment that made for intense, interlocked, volatile relationships between the two communist cultures, but it also takes into account the actual love affairs that made Chinese communists so personally invested in the socialist cause, and in the unfurling revolution in Russia.A provocative and original way of thinking about the connections between revolution, romance and international relations.
