I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage, and I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had studied Russian in college. I had gotten into it first through literature and then just really found it kind of fascinating; of course, this was during the Cold War. So they were kind of the other great enemy that you grew up hearing about.
I read Russian literature a lot.
I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around.
I took a 19th-century Russian novel class in college and have been smitten with Russian literature ever since. Writers like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Grossman, and Solzhenitsyn tackle the great questions of morality, politics, love, and death.
You read 'Stalingrad' by Antony Beevor because you're interested in the Second World War or Russia or whatever.
I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
In the Cold War, a lot of Soviet actions could be explained as extensions of Czarist imperial ambitions, but that didn't stop us from studying Marxism in theory and Communism in practice to better understand that adversary.
Of John Le Carre's books, I've only read 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,' and I haven't read anything by Graham Greene, but I've heard a great deal about how 'Your Republic Is Calling You' reminded English readers of those two writers. I don't really have any particular interest in Cold War spy novels.
My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education.