Overview of the H. Lucas Ginn Letters Received
Processed by Hoover Institution Archives Staff.
Hoover Institution Archives
© 2011
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305-6010
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Hoover Institution Archives. All rights reserved.
Overview of the H. Lucas Ginn Letters Received
Hoover Institution ArchivesStanford University
Stanford, California
- Processed by:
- Hoover Institution Archives Staff
- Date Completed:
- 2011
- Encoded by:
- Machine-readable finding aid derived from MARC record by Samira Bozorgi.
© 2011 Hoover Institution Archives. All rights reserved.
Title: H. Lucas Ginn letters received
Dates: 1989-1991
Collection Number: 2012C5
Creator: Ginn, H. Lucas
Collection Size:
4 manuscript boxes
(1.6 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Letters from pen pals in the Soviet Union, relating to social conditions and youth culture in the Soviet Union.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages:
Russian
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[Identification of item], H. Lucas Ginn letters received, [Box number], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 2012.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog Socrates at
http://library.stanford.edu/webcat . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in Socrates is larger than the number of boxes
listed in this finding aid.
In 1989, H. Lucas Ginn, then a California high school student, wrote to a Soviet magazine saying he was seeking a pen pal
in the Soviet Union. Ginn's letter and address were published in Studencheskii meridian, a youth magazine; he subsequently
received some two thousand missives from young Soviet citizens. The era of glasnost had just begun, making corresponding with
their peers in the West a novelty for Soviet youth, which explains the exuberance with which they responded to Ginn's letter.
Scope and Content of Collection
Most letters, which came from all over the USSR, are brief (and in Russian) but do allow some glimpses of the interests of
Soviet youth at the time, including music, current events, and AIDS. Historians and sociologists will find the letters interesting
for what they tell us about how Soviet youth, ranging from fourteen to sixteen years old, viewed the world, the United States,
and their own society in the crucial years preceding their state's collapse.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Soviet Union--Social conditions--1970-1991.
Youth--Soviet Union.