By Nicole Findlay
For Celia Stephens a picture really is worth a thousand words, or in her own description at least, pages and pages of one man’s autobiography. For her final project for seminar Historical Representations, Stephens ‘represented’ This Was my Choice, a book Igor Gouzenko wrote about his decision to defect to Canada.
“Part of what I love most about history is stories of individuals. Personal stories help you get inside the mind of a person, and in a way a generation,” said Stephens, a third-year history and humanities student.
Gouzenko was a cipher clerk in the Soviet Union’s Embassy in Canada. When he discovered a spy ring that threatened Canada’s security, he brought evidence to various Canadian officials to alert them – and officially launched this country’s role in the Cold War.
“This just goes to show how an average person can impact historical events,” said Stephens. “If it weren’t for him, perhaps the Cold War wouldn’t have happened as it did. Isn’t it amazing to think that one man did that?”
Stephens wrote and illustrated a four-page graphic novel based on the information she found in his biography and old news clips archived by the CBC. In one panel alone, Stephens captures Gouzenko’s odyssey to be taken seriously by the various governmental officials he approached with his story.
In her illustrated version Gouzenko, Stephens hopes readers will see beyond dry dates to the ‘real people’ whose actions set in motion the events that we now think of as history.
“I think in an academic environment this is a very easy thing to forget sometimes.”