Socialist Car

Lewis H. Siegelbaum (Editor)

Description

Across the Soviet Bloc, from the 1960s until the collapse of communism, the automobile exemplified the tension between the ideological imperatives of political authorities and the aspirations of ordinary citizens. For the latter, the automobile was the ticket to personal freedom and a piece of the imagined consumer paradise of the West. For the authorities, the personal car was a private, mobile space that challenged the most basic assumptions of the collectivity. The "socialist car"-and the car culture that built up around it-was the result of an always unstable compromise between official ideology, available resources, and the desires of an increasingly restless citizenry. In The Socialist Car, eleven scholars from Europe and North America explore in vivid detail the interface between the motorcar and the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR.In addition to the metal, glass, upholstery, and plastic from which the Ladas, Dacias, Trabants, and other still extant but aging models were fabricated, the socialist car embodied East Europeans' longings and compromises, hopes and disappointments. The socialist car represented both aspirations of overcoming the technological gap between the capitalist first and socialist second worlds and dreams of enhancing personal mobility and status. Certain features of automobility-shortages and privileges, waiting lists and lack of readily available credit, the inadequacy of streets and highways-prevailed across the Soviet Bloc. In this collective history, the authors put aside both ridicule and nostalgia in the interest of trying to understand the socialist car in its own context.Contributors: Elke Beyer, Swiss Institute of Technology; Valentina Fava, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and University of Helsinki; Luminita Gatejel, European University Institute, Florence; Mariusz Jastrzab, Kozminski University; Corinna Kuhr-Korolev, University of Bochum; Brigitte Le Normand, Indiana University Southeast; Esther Meier, University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg; Kurt Moser, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Gyorgy Peteri, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim; Eli Rubin, Western Michigan University; Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Michigan State University

Sujets

• Histoire
• USSR
• Eastern Europe
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• History of Europe
• History
• Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801463211
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

THESOCIALISTCAR

THE SOCIALIST CAR AutomobilityintheEasternBloc

LewisH.Siegelbaum,editor

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESSLDNODNOAHTIAACN

Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2011 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2011

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

The socialist car : automobility in the Eastern Bloc / Lewis H. Siegelbaum, editor.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801449918 (cloth : alk. paper)  ISBN 9780801477386 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Automobiles—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern—History—20th century. 2. Automobiles—Social aspects—Soviet Union—History. 3. Automobile industry and trade—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern— History—20th century. 4. Automobile industry and trade—Social aspects— Soviet Union—History. 5. Socialism and culture—Europe, Eastern— History—20th century. 6. Socialism and culture—Soviet Union— History. I. Siegelbaum, Lewis H. HE5662.9.A6S63 2011 388.3'42094709045—dc23 2011018880

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction LewisH.Siegelbaum

PartOne:ciSodnSsrataClasi,oductfioPnrmsoyste Distribution, and Consumption

 1.The Elusive People’s Car: Imagined Automobility and Productive Practices along the “Czechoslovak Road to Socialism” (1945–1968) Valentina Fava  2.Cars as Favors in People’s Poland Mariusz Jastrząb  3.Alternative Modernity? Everyday Practices of Elite Mobility in Communist Hungary, 1956–1980 György Péteri

PartTwo:Mobility and Socialist Cities

 4.Planning for Mobility: Designing City Centers and New Towns in the USSR and the GDR in the 1960s Elke Beyer  5.Automobility in Yugoslavia between Urban Planner, Market, and Motorist: The Case of Belgrade, 1945–1972 BrigitteLeNormand

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CONTENTS

 6.On the Streets of a TruckBuilding City: Naberezhnye Chelny in the Brezhnev Era Esther Meier  7.Understanding a Car in the Context of a System: Trabants, Marzahn, and East German Socialism Eli Rubin

PartThree:Socialist Car Cultures and Automobility  8.The Common Heritage of the Socialist Car Culture Luminita Gatejel  9.Autobasteln:Modifying, Maintaining, and Repairing Private Cars in the GDR, 1970–1990 Kurt Möser 10.“Little Tsars of the Road”: Soviet Truck Drivers and Automobility, 1920s–1980s LewisH.Siegelbaum 11.Women and Cars in Soviet and Russian Society Corinna KuhrKorolev

Notes NotesonContributors Index

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Socialist Carwas put into gear thanks to the willingness of the Berliner Kol leg fr Vergleichende Geschichte Europas (BKVGE) at the Freie Universität Berlin and its managing director, Dr. Arnd Bauerkämper, to host the conference from which this book emanated. Luminita Gatejel, then a graduate student at BKVGE, deserves special acknowledgment and thanks for having served as local organizer. Corinna KuhrKorolev, another contributor, always responded promptly and with sound advice to all my emailed queries and expressions of anxiety, thereby be coming a closer friend. The other contributors are to be thanked for their coop erativeness at every stage of the writing and revision process. I also express my appreciation to Mark Aaron KeckSzajbel, Leslie Page Moch, Gijs Mom, Nordica Nettleton, and Sergei Zhuravlev for their various contributions at the conference; to Mark Kornbluh and Walter Hawthorne, successive chairpersons of the Depart ment of History at Michigan State University, who provided key support; to Ta tiana Gushchina at the Lumiere Brothers Photogallery for granting permission to use the photograph on the book cover; and to Candace Akins and Jamie Fuller for agreeing to copyedit and doing such a splendid job. Finally, thanks again to John Ackerman for sticking with the Socialist Car.

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THESOCIALISTCAR