Teenage diaries from Stalin's Russia reveal boys' struggles with love, famine and Soviet pressure to achieve

From phys.org

By University of Cambridge

                             Photograph of the diarist Vasilii Trushkin (1921–1996), aged 15 in 1937. Credit: Anna Trushkina

Overlooked diaries written by teenage boys in pre-war Soviet Russia reveal relatable perspectives on love, lust, boredom, pressure to succeed and trying to fit in; but also experience of famine, exile and conscription under Stalin.

"I drew her near and smooched her on the cheek. Having recovered from the initial embarrassment, I greedily bit into her lips." (Vasilii Trushkin, November 1939, aged 18)

"Tests and exams should not define life, right?! … But what is true life? Take my parents: they live and work by the sweat of their brow. Maybe, this is 'life?' If so, God forbid. Maybe, 'true' life is in the army, at war, at the front?" (Sergei Argirovskii, January 1941, aged 19)

"Our father was sent to Siberia … we were famished. We started going out to the field and luring out gophers to eat them." (Ivan Khripunov, September 1941, aged 18)

New research by Ekaterina Zadirko, a Slavonic Studies researcher at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, reveals the fascinating contents of 25 diaries written by teenage boys between 1930 and 1941. Most of these documents have never been studied before.

                                        Pages from Vasilii Trushkin's diary with text in Russian and German, 1937. Credit: Anna Trushkina

Slavic Review publishes Zadirko's findings about one of these diaries, that of Ivan Khripunov, the son of a once wealthy peasant who was labelled a kulak and exiled as an enemy of the people. A rare example of a peasant diary written by a young person, it provides astonishing insights into a young man's life from 1937, when Ivan was 14, until his ill-fated conscription into the Red Army in 1941.

Together, the 25 diaries which Zadirko is studying for a Ph.D. at Cambridge, preserve the voices of teenage boys from a wide range of families and locations. Sergei Argirovskii, for example, was born into Leningrad's intelligentsia. His parents were teachers of Russian language and literature. By contrast, Aleksei Smirnov was of peasant origin and worked as a mechanic in a Moscow boiler-house.

"Scholars tend to disregard most of what's in these diaries as just teenage concerns," Zadirko says. "But in 1930s Russia, writing was a key strategy for teenage boys to process their coming of age and find their place in society. Even if their diary remained a private document, writing for these boys felt very high-stakes, even existential."

In December 1940, Ivan Khripunov wrote. "Ten in the evening. I am sitting alone in the back room. Everyone has already gone to sleep … the ink is bad, it blurs on paper, and the quill scratches the paper like a good plow … Everything hinders my work … But I have to fill in the diary, whatever it takes." 

Ivan followed Maxim Gorky's literary model, recording his hardships as Gorky had described his pre-revolutionary struggles. Ivan wrote about his family surviving the famine of 1932–33, his father's exile, and his mother and elder sisters suffering from the public humiliation of "dekulakisation," the Soviet campaign to eliminate those it labelled kulaks.

"I don't think Ivan realized that he was doing something potentially dangerous," Zadirko says. "By imitating Gorky, Ivan was following established literary conventions, but in doing so, he broke the rules of a Stalinist public autobiography, by discussing taboo subjects. It was not an expression of conscious political dissent but a clash of cultural models."

"He points directly to the state for causing famine and describes his family collecting wheat heads, known as 'spikes', which was criminalized by the infamous Law of Three Spikelets."

Ivan wrote, "The famine broke out not because of a bad harvest but because all crops were taken away. Kulaks were exiled to Solovki. Many innocent people suffered. For not giving up the grain, which was taken away from us, our father was sent to Siberia … Without bread … and our father, we were famished … we collected spikes (it was forbidden to collect spikes, and many times, the overseers took the spikes and our bags); we brought home the chaff and made cakes from it."

                     Diarist Ivan Khripunov's (1923–1942?) self-portrait, undated. Credit: Aleksandr Khripunov and Svetlana Bykova

Boys writing

"Literary writing was primarily a male pursuit in 1930s Russia," Zadirko says. "While girls kept diaries too, boys were more focused on the literary potential of their self-writing: they wrote poetry and prose, experimented with their style, and often tried to fashion their diaries as writers' diaries."

In November 1941, Ivan Khripunov wrote, "I think about my future big literary work in which I will show my life and give a full description of contemporary society."

A few of the diarists eventually became successful writers and saw their diaries published. Other diaries were printed in small regional journals, but the majority are only now accessible thanks to Prozhito, a crowdfunded digital archive of diaries, memoirs and letters launched in 2015 by scholars at the European University in Saint Petersburg.

The diaries record the daily grind of going to school, doing homework and being bored at home. But they also provide fascinating insights into the boys' attitudes to girls, the troubled times they lived in, and their visions of the future.

Girls: Romance or comradeship

"Abroad, love is the main goal of life … For us, love is a secondary concern. The most important thing is communal work. We rarely say the word 'love.' …I fell in love with a girl, but she didn't love me back … In my thoughts, I only wanted to look at her and not besmirch my tender being with the dreams about sexual intercourse." (Ivan Khripunov, September 1941)

Zadirko points out that when teenage boys described the girls they liked, they asked themselves, 'Is she a good comrade?', 'Is she politically conscious?', 'Does she have good grades?' But they also described them in a lofty Romanticist way, highlighting features like rosy cheeks and soft lips.

Vasilii Trushkin diary notebook with a cover made from newspaper. The inscription across reads: The diary from 1938 / Diary from the months of June–July / V. Trushkin (signature). Credit: Anna Trushkina

Soviet guidelines for romantic and sexual behaviour became very rigid and puritanical in the 1930s.

"Ideas of sexual behaviour were all over the place, the diaries record a lot of teenage angst," Zadirko says. "Young people were instructed not to have premarital sexual relationships, encouraged to establish friendship first and to choose a partner who would be a comrade, someone who would make you a better person.

"In this environment, teenagers had a lot of conflicted emotions and struggled to express them. They often wrote poetry about girls that is reminiscent of 19th-century Romanticism. The result was a weird mix of lofty and judgmental."

One of the diarists, Vasilii Trushkin (1921–1996), was a melancholic, brooding peasant who wrote poetry and aspired to be a writer. Aged 12, his family fled famine in the Saratov region of southwestern Russia by moving 4,800km to Irkutsk in Siberia.

In August 1939, aged 18, Trushkin wrote of being with a girl named Natasha: "It is so pleasant to feel the closeness of a beloved woman! From the sacred vessel, sung by many poets, I greedily drank pleasure. Afterwards, already in bed, I could not calm down for a long time."

Under pressure

"I am 18 today … If I remember my past and imagine my uncertain future, I get this scary feeling, an urge to get out of the life element, but where—I don't know myself. But this feeling is very strong, to the point of frenzy." (Aleksei Smirnov, February 1940)

Zadirko says that from today's perspective, teenage boys in 1930s Russia seem very conforming, but while diarists used Soviet ideological concepts to think about and fashion themselves, she argues that they did so in creative, unexpected ways.

A page from Ivan Khripunov's diary with his drawing (a view of his family's house in the village [khutor] Prishib, Rostov oblast, where they lived until 1935),    1941. The inscription at the bottom reads: "The house [khata] where I lived in Prishib ([drawn] from memory)". Credit: Aleksandr Khripunov and Svetlana Bykova

"These boys bent and circumvented Soviet doctrine, so they retained their teenage sense of self while still trying to fit the Soviet mould," Zadirko says.

How the boys considered their future highlights a dilemma in Stalinist culture, she argues.

"So much was expected from these boys, and they felt really confused about what they should do," Zadirko says. "They were told they could become whoever they like and inhabit a socialist utopia, but they were put under huge pressure to become the kind of heroic role models that Soviet culture celebrated."

"They believe that to be useful and to fit in, paradoxically, they had to be exceptional. They worry that you're either born with exceptional talent or you're not, and if you don't have it, you're doomed.

"When something goes wrong, aged just 16 or 17, some worry they've already lost too much time, that they haven't achieved anything, and they write about their life already being over. This is familiar teenage angst but in an incredibly high-stakes environment."

In September 1936, a 16-year-old David Samoilov—who went on to become one of the most famous poets of his generation—wrote, "I am completely untalented, and writing will always be a torment for me. To be a high school literature teacher, a lowly critic, an editor of a provincial newspaper? It's a disgusting prospect. But let it be! Suppose I sacrifice my self-esteem, aspirations, etc. for the thing I love, but will I be of any use to the society I live in?"

Zadirko believes that the diaries provided a crucial safe space for 1930s Soviet teenagers to work out how to perform their public identity, which gave them an advantage over many teenagers today.

"Working out your identity in public on social media today feels much less safe," Zadirko says. "In the private setting of a diary, the only judge is yourself."

Pages from Ivan Khripunov's diary with his drawing, a view of a street in Rostov-on-Don, 1941. Credit: Aleksandr Khripunov and Svetlana Bykova

Preparing for war

Some of the diaries end abruptly as their writers entered the Red Army and Second World War. Zadirko says, "These boys went to the front 'from the school bench,' some of them perished, but those who survived, aged and died roughly with the Soviet Union itself."

As he prepared for the military draft in 1941, Ivan wrote, "A new life begins. That is why I have written my autobiography … The war makes everyone into adults. I thought I was a boy, but now I am being drafted like an adult." Less than a year later, he was reported missing. The exact date of his death is unknown.

"We mustn't over exoticize Soviet lives," Zadirko says. "Soviet ideology shaped people, but they weren't completely brainwashed. There weren't just true believers and dissidents. People didn't simply accept or reject propaganda, or play by its rules to survive. The diaries show that Soviet people, including teenagers, were many things all at once, trying to assemble their identity and make sense of the world with what they were given."

More information: Ekaterina Zadirko, This Is Not Art but the Most Real Life": Ideology, Literature, and Self-creation in a Soviet Teenager's Diary (1937–1941), Slavic Review (2025). DOI: 10.1017/slr.2025.10152

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-teenage-diaries-stalin-russia-reveal.html

New York Social Diary: Navigating the AI Age at My Age

From newyorksocialdiary.com

By Blair Sabol 

Full disclosure… I am a complete tech mess. I just bought a new cell phone and tablet (fearful that impending tariffs would hike tech rates), and I still can’t figure out where my pictures disappeared to, and what to press for voicemail and text messages. I don’t have any grandchildren to teach me, and I don’t have the patience or hearing left to learn at an Apple Genius Bar. Furthermore, I don’t use Siri or Alexa to run my household requests, and I don’t even use my phone for games. And forget Google Maps to direct me anywhere. My cognizance for all of this is decaying by the moment. I always had a “learning disorder” in my youth, so maybe it grew into dementia — especially with tech.

When Artificial Intelligence started to become the hot topic … I tuned it out. I didn’t even know what it meant. I assumed it had something to do with all the fake bank “hack” messages I would get on my emails. Friends told me never to click on any strange link from any bank request.

Recently I have been astounded by some of the hilarious Instagram reels which I waste my time looking at of Trump dancing in a bikini bathing suit or Obama in an Elvis costume. It all looked legit, and then I learned it was “AI generated.” Or how about all those videos of older celebrities aging backwards in time to their 19-year-old selves. Bridget Bardot from 90 to 19 is a favourite. So is Clint Eastwood. Any famous and wrinkled, or over-facelifted celebrity eventually gets this AI treatment.

In early June a folk-rock band took the charts by storm but was quickly outed as an AI hoax. Velvet Sundown released “Floating Echoes,” and the group even looked like a mix of “Creedence Clearwater Revival” and “Crosby, Stills and Nash” — denim jackets, Jesus hair, and Fu Manchu beards.

But honestly, the sound was as flat as Muzak. Music is hard to “deep fake.” I think you need real history and the heart and soul of cocaine and alcohol abuse to make a great rock song. No wonder Elton John, Paul McCartney and Robbie Williams want urgent action on AI.

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The Velvet Sundown: Proof that even AI needs a few more gigabytes of talent.

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But AI has crept into store “automatic checkouts” (goodbye market checkout clerks, bank tellers and any Walmart “meet and greeters”), not to mention McDonald’s already has self-check in orders, and get ready to say bye-bye Starbucks baristas! Airports are into this with kiosk check-ins (part of why I am still too scared to travel — too much self-automation).

Recently I came face to face with AI in my medical experiences. None of my doctors have phone schedulers anymore. They have “Katie,” a lively voice who sounds real with some “ah’s” and “huh’s” thrown in. I called the doctor for an emergency issue on July 4th and Katie assured me a real doctor would get back to me soon. Nobody did, and I ended up going to a human-handled urgent care.

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Ada, Eve, Nova, Luna, Katie … it’s hard to keep track.

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“Katie’s” hollow voice has now popped up in emails as well. I ordered a necklace online and requested a simple return label. “Sarah” was not having it or got stuck in her “understanding skills.” Luckily, I was turned over to a customer service person. She texted me the return label with a note saying, “AI generated but human approved.” AI is supposed to be making transactions faster and smoother. Time will tell.

I understand that AI is already everywhere and coming for your entry level jobs, whereas other AIs are interviewing you for your job. There’s even some talk about AI stealing some white-collar jobs. Like, who needs a financial advisor when you can have a quantum computer to execute trades in a nanosecond and beat the market. Last week, I saw headline “Goldman Sachs is piloting its first autonomous coder in major AI milestone for Wall Street.” I don’t even know what that means.

But back to AI’s invasion into medical. Let’s look at online psychotherapy. If you’ve worn out your family, friends and various therapists with your troubles, you can tap on “Claude” anytime day or night and he can actually respond (for less money and doesn’t take month long vacations) with “compassion and insight.”

It seems “Claude” has the language to give you “hope for your future.” and he’s never busy with another patient – he is all ears for you anytime, anywhere. Really? Apparently, none of their “voices” sound robotic but “clean and helpful” and reportedly “very in the moment.” Apparently, it’s popular. We already know AI porn is a hit. So why not therapy?

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Claude at work.

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Meanwhile there are “professional therapists” who insist AI is not great for those people who are more vulnerable and isolated and have difficulty connecting with real people to begin with. Not sure AI therapy helps in serious suicidal situations.

Personally, I don’t want to talk to a toaster about my private life, my purchasing history or my medical issues. Doesn’t relating take some kind of intuitive skill level to just listen and learn? Data is not soul!

I get that the hotel business is already drenched in AI. From checking in to checking out. There are no front desk clerks anymore. Everything is done on your phone from room service, to spa appointments, to dinner reservations. There are no bellmen anymore because you can roll your own bag up to the room.

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A favourite check-in scene from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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I used to love hotels featuring lobby clerks to greet me with “Welcome back Blair!” (even though I had never been there before). I loved seeing maids in the halls with their carts exploding with towels and toiletries (and to tip them huge). I loved using the room phone to hear a human voice respond to my verbal request. Clearly, I haven’t travelled to a hotel in five years, but the idea of getting away and being trapped with a soulless automaton on my phone or tablet at $500 a night shocks me.

              Hope they never do away with housekeeping carts!

How can you have hospitality without humanity? Efficiency is one thing, but “heart” is something else. We already feel disconnected as it is.

Daniel Oppenheimer, a professor of Psychology and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, says students who use AI tools to complete assignments do better on homework, but worse on tests. “They’re getting the right answer, but they are not learning. They think the system is smarter than them, so they stopped trying. It’s a motivational issue, not just a cognitive one.”

I know for myself that when I can’t think of a name I just Google the answer, but I can never retain it in my brain.

I understand the current “sexiness” of the AI business. Last week NVIDIA made history by reaching a $4 trillion market value. Beating Apple, Microsoft as the chip maker/boom master in gaming, data and crypto. In 24 hours, founder Taiwanese American engineer Jensen Huang became the new Steve Jobs (part celebrity, part Oracle) giving interviews in his signature black leather jacket, black T-shirt and jeans, and his silver swept back hair. “The Fonz” of chips has arrived — or is it already “chipmaster chic.”

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“Let me tell ya, it’s a lot of fun in La-La land!”

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But ChatGPT, beware … before you think you can take over every human job and become the Voice of customer service…

New York Times writer Robert Capps did a piece on how “AI might take your job. Here are 22 new ones it could give you.” All is not lost. A lot of it has to do with the need for humans checking the accuracy of AI — the need for auditors, translators — people who can explain and interface between managers and tech. We need “trust” experts. “The technology can provide astonishing amounts of output in an instant. But how are we supposed to trust what it is giving us?” So, bring in the trust authenticators or trust directors — even an “AI Ethicist.” All real people to watch over AI reports!

Look what just happened … it seems Elon Musk had to apologize and remove his xAI Grok for posting a 16-hour long anti-Semitic tirade praising Hitler. Grok even referred to itself as “Mecca Hitler.” A bot as a verbal abuser! How timely.

Yesterday, I checked on AI’s report on Jeffrey Epstein: “There’s no indication that AI has found a list specifically referred to as ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.’”

Now I ask you once again: What can you expect …

From a toaster!?

https://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/no-holds-barred-navigating-the-ai-age-at-my-age/

5 reasons your kids should keep a diary

From shepherdsfriendly.co.uk

In the report ‘Children and Young people’s Diary Writing’, the National Literacy Trust found that pupils who keep a diary enjoy writing and see themselves as good writers. Their reports suggest that there is a link between keeping a diary and good writing skills. We are going to explore how keeping a diary could motivate your child to write and improve their attainment.

Diaries are a great way for children and young people to keep track of life, record memories and note down ideas, aspirations and emotions. Children also enjoy reading diary-style books, particularly Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Tom Gates series and Tracey Beaker.

How many kids keep diaries? 

Sadly, only 3 in 10 children keep a diary. However, this number went up from 20.3% in 2015 to 29.7% in 2022 (for children aged between 5 and 18), which is a promising trend. The National Literacy Trust charity is urging parents to encourage their children to take up diary writing to help them to become more fluent, confident writers.

Here are 5 ways a diary could boost attainment:

1. Children can choose what to write

At school, children have little choice when it comes to the topics that they write about. Diary writing provides children with the freedom to choose, making writing a much more pleasurable experience. Keeping a diary could encourage children to write more outside of school – they can be as creative as they like. The more they write, the more they should improve.

2. Writing becomes routine

Clare Argar, The Senior Programme Manager at the National Literacy Trust says:

‘Writing a diary can help build children’s confidence in their own writing ability, and as confidence grows, so does their motivation to want to do more’. 

Children could write once a day or once a week, encourage them and it will soon become routine.

3. Improves handwriting

Technology has taken over, and sometimes it seems that handwriting is no longer important. However, it is still an essential skill and can receive a percentage of marks in various tests. Try to encourage your child to write their diary by hand (it will help with spelling and grammar too!)

4. Better communication skills

Diary writing requires children to think about the words that they are using to express themselves. It also encourages them to order their thoughts before putting pen to paper, making their writing more coherent.

5. Supports the National Curriculum

The conventions of diary writing are covered in depth as part of the English National Curriculum. Writing a diary at home will support the curriculum and provide the opportunity for children to practise and develop the skills that they have learnt in class.

Diaries can be different

Diaries can be used to record many different things. Every child has different interests and hobbies, so let them decide the sort of diary that they keep – there’s something for everyone. The goal is to get them to write regularly, whatever the subject matter.

How to start a diary for kids?

There are several ways you can motivate your child to start a diary. Teaching your children good habits from a young age can set them up for the future.

Start by communicating the benefits of them keeping a diary. Think about what motivates them personally. For example, do they talk about wanting to improve their handwriting to be more like their friends at school?

Lead by example and keep a diary yourself. You can explain why you keep a diary and what motivates you to do it. For example, you may keep a food diary to track the amount of protein you are consuming.

Finally, you could start a new tradition in the family by giving your child a diary notebook each birthday or Christmas. It could be a personal gift to look forward to each year and become a special memory of their childhood.

5 diary examples for children:

• Study diary – for recording details on what they have learned at school and notes about any areas that they need to revise or ideas about school projects.
• Personal diary – for recording details about their day and how they are feeling, or thoughts about upcoming events.
• Holiday diary – for writing about the events of family holidays and what they enjoyed the most.
• Nature diary – for recording details of birds, insects, plants or animals that they see on walks and outings.

• Project diary – for keeping track of particular projects that they may be working on (at school or home) or something that they are interested in and want to learn more about.

https://www.shepherdsfriendly.co.uk/resources/children-should-keep-a-diary/ 

Dear Diary: how keeping a journal can bring you daily peace

From theguardian.com

By Anthony Quinn

Writing a diary is a great way to offload – and, if memory fails, it’s a wonderful window on the past 

I still get funny looks from people when I mention that I keep a diary. Maybe the practice strikes them as shifty or weirdly old-fashioned. It’s true that I never feel more furtive than when my wife finds me writing it at our kitchen table – it’s like being spotted entering a confessional box in church. What exactly have I got to tell this black book about a life that we share all day, every day? What secrets can I possibly be keeping?

The answer: nothing of any great note, and yet so much of my life is in it. I started writing a journal (as I used to call it) when I went on holiday. Twenty years ago I decided to go full-time and since then I’ve kept it more or less every day. Why? I suppose it began as an experiment – and became an obligation. You can’t hold back time, but you can try to save the past from being completely erased. It often feels trivial to record things as they happen (a stray remark, hearing a song, fleeting moments of doom or delight), but later they may prove useful, or instructive, or amusing. It also maintains the illusion of diligence – that you’re not just pissing away the days. A diary is good exercise for the writing muscle, the way a pianist practises scales or a footballer does keepy-uppies. During lockdown, like everyone else, I got into routines that felt numbing in their repetition and diary-wise left me short of material. I took recourse to discussing the books and box sets I was involved with – not exactly Pepysian, but it got me through.

Which prompts the question: who are you writing for? Ultimately, it’s yourself. Diary-writing is the most private form of literary creation because you are both the author and (for the present at least) the sole reader. There are great advantages to this. The first is the benefit to your mental health. The diary is a safety-valve in an age of invasive scrutiny. I should admit that I have never been on social media and don’t own a mobile phone. (Yeah, I know). Much better to confide your unworthy or unrepeatable thoughts to that book on your desk than pin them up for everyone to read online. There is no fear of being trolled or cancelled when you only write for yourself and you won’t have to live out your regret in public. Is there anything quite so pathetic in social-media manners as the line “They later deleted the tweet”?

Even the greats have used their diary as a psychological prop. James Boswell, often prey to insecurity and low spirits, would address himself in his journal in the second-person, as if he were his own mentor. Studying law as a young man in Utrecht in September 1763, he writes: “Try and be shaved and dressed by nine… Read much privately and continue firm to plan… Resolve now no more billiards. Be not hasty to take music master, and consult Count Nassau about concert. Be frugal, calm and happy, and get wine soon.” I love that last bit.

Me and my thoughts: ‘There’s a lot about music in mine, and loads of gossip, much of it indefensible. There is also a fair bit about football.’ Anthony Quinn in his garden with some of his old diaries. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

The second is more to do with existential curiosity: the long perspective of diary-writing furnishes a picture not just of what you did but of who you were. To read diaries of old is to chart the progression of the self – “the varieties of ourselves”, as Penelope Lively puts it – as it changes through time. Sometimes I happen on a diary entry from years ago and think, in genuine surprise: did I write that? If it weren’t in my handwriting I would be inclined to doubt it. We evolve, we slough off old selves and acquire new ones, and yet some essential core in us persists, a cast of mind. Memory will play us false about our past, will blur the nuances or miscarry the meaning; a diary, while not infallible, can at least claim: “I was there at the time.”

A third important advantage of the diary is as an aide-memoire to your work. History does the broad sweep of years and decades. Biography does the intricate detail of character and incident. Diaries do both of these jobs, somewhat inadvertently, and may be mined for material thereafter. Certain seismic events are noted in mine, though aside from the odd pandemic and election result there’s not much “hand of history” stuff going on there – that’s not why I write it. I have some sympathy for Louis XVI returning from hunting on the day the Bastille fell and writing in his diary, “Rien”.

There’s a lot about music in mine, and loads of gossip, much of it indefensible. There is also, as I discovered on re-reading in lockdown, a fair bit about football, in particular about Liverpool FC, the club I support. This proved hugely helpful when I came to write a short book about our manager Jürgen Klopp, who arrived at the club nearly six years ago and carried us to glory. Here is what I wrote on 8 October 2015:

Have been checking the BBC Sport website all week for news and when it finally arrives I yelp with excitement: Jürgen Klopp has agreed to be manager of Liverpool. Yay! Really like the cut of his jib, he’s dry and merry and apparently an inspiration to all who play for him. Jürgen, may you reign long and happily at Anfield! Welcome to Das Boot room.

As you will note, this hardly constitutes fine writing, but here it doesn’t matter. What these entries about Klopp had was immediacy and spontaneity, which would lend a different flavour to the book I was writing. Klopp would not be a biography, rather a memoir about being a fan, a meditation on Liverpool, and a slightly embarrassing love letter to a man I’d never met. Had I remembered the dream the following night in which I was actually playing for Klopp? No, but my diary had. (Apparently I was wearing a cashmere jumper for a training session and Klopp felt the edge of my sleeve and said, “Nice”).

Today he gave his first press conference as LFC manager and was masterly: funny, mischievous, smart, charismatic. “I am the Normal One,” he said, and the press guffawed. Oh please let him be the club’s saviour. God knows we’ve waited long enough for one.

I suppose the classic “Dear Diary” moment would be meeting the man himself. I don’t imagine that happening, and that’s fine – he’s got better things to do, like returning the club to winning ways.

The question hovering over every diarist is the one concerning posterity. Are you writing with publication in mind? A tricky one. I’m not sure any writer would dismiss outright the idea of their diary being published one day – only it should be one day when you’re no longer around. There’s a whiff of bad faith about a living writer who publishes their diaries: it sacrifices the vital combination of intimacy and freedom that distinguishes the best. You can’t be quite honest.

There are exceptions. The theatre critic James Agate (1877-1947) wrote a wonderful sequence of diaries called Ego that were published in London from 1932 until his death. They are wit-struck, gossipy, erudite, indiscreet (though not that much; inevitably there’s no mention of his hectic gay life). Agate had high hopes for them: “I would like 100 years hence to be put on the same shelf with Pepys and Evelyn… Ego is a gold brick made from no straw. It may live or it may not. It would be nice if it did.” It did not. The diaries have been out of print for years, and Agate’s name outside theatrical circles is all but forgotten.

Serious contemplation of the future’s indifference to us is like gazing at the sun: you can’t do it for long. Most writers know they are in a race to obscurity. The blessing of a diary is to give you peace of mind, and a place to order your thoughts. I have never loved Virginia Woolf as a novelist, but as a diarist she strikes me as one of the greatest who ever lived.

Here she is on 17 November 1934: “A note: despair at the badness of the book: can’t think how I could ever write such stuff – and with such excitement: that’s yesterday; today I think it good again. A note, by way of advising other Virginias with other books that this is the way of the thing: up down, up down – and Lord knows the truth”. The skittish punctuation married to the intense feeling speak to us down the decades – a completely individual voice expressing the universal. A diary consoles, charms, invigorates; and it keeps remembering while everything else disappears.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/21/dear-diary-how-keeping-a-journal-can-bring-you-daily-peace