Things of Life

Alexey Golubev

Description

The Things of Life is a social and cultural history of material objects and spaces during the late socialist era. It traces the biographies of Soviet things, examining how the material world of the late Soviet period influenced Soviet people's gender roles, habitual choices, social trajectories, and imaginary aspirations. Instead of seeing political structures and discursive frameworks as the only mechanisms for shaping Soviet citizens, Alexey Golubev explores how Soviet people used objects and spaces to substantiate their individual and collective selves. In doing so, Golubev rediscovers what helped Soviet citizens make sense of their selves and the world around them, ranging from space rockets and model aircraft to heritage buildings, and from home gyms to the hallways and basements of post-Stalinist housing. Through these various materialist fascinations, The Things of Life considers the ways in which many Soviet people subverted the efforts of the Communist regime to transform them into a rationally organized, disciplined, and easily controllable community. Golubev argues that late Soviet materiality had an immense impact on the organization of the Soviet historical and spatial imagination. His approach also makes clear the ways in which the Soviet self was an integral part of the global experience of modernity rather than simply an outcome of Communist propaganda. Through its focus on materiality and personhood, The Things of Life expands our understanding of what made Soviet people and society "Soviet."

Sujets

• Former Soviet Union
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Post-Soviet states
• Russia
• History of Europe
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501752902
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

THE THINGS OF LIFE

THE THINGS OF LIFE

MAT E RI AL I TY I N L AT E SOVI E T RUSSI A

A l e x e y G o lu b e v

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of a grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, University of Houston, which aided in the publication of this book.

Copyright © 2020 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. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Golubev, Alexey, author. Title: The things of life : materiality in late Soviet Russia / Alexey Golubev. Description: Ithaca, [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020003685 (print) | LCCN 2020003686 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501752889 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501752896 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501752902 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Material culture—Soviet Union. | Space—Social aspects—Soviet Union. | Soviet Union— Social life and customs. Classification: LCC DK266.4. G65 2020 (print) | LCC DK266.4 (ebook) | DDC 947.085—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003685 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003686

Cover image: Vitalities of the Ilizarov apparatuses. Photo by Ye. M. Rogov, 1982.

To Nastia

Co nte nts

List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations xv

Introduction: Elemental Materialism in Soviet Culture and Society 1. TechnoUtopian Visions of Soviet Intellectuals after Stalin 2. Time in 1:72 Scale: The Plastic Historicity of Soviet Models 3. History in Wood: The Search for Historical Authenticity in North Russia 4. When Spaces of Transit Fail Their Designers: Social Antagonisms of Soviet Stairwells and Streets 5. The Men of Steel: Repairing and Empowering Soviet Bodies with Iron 6. Ordinary and Paranormal: The Soviet Television Set

Conclusions: Soviet Objects and Socialist Modernity

Notes 169 Selected Bibliography 201 Index 217

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F i g u r e s

1.1. “Turbogenerator manufacturing plant in Novosibirsk: Turbogenerator rotor windings.” 1.2. A caricature on the current state of the Russian space program. 2.1. Box cover design of the Fairey Barracuda produced in the USSR for Western European markets. 2.2. Box cover design of the Fairey Barracuda produced in the USSR for the domestic market. 2.3. Scale models of historical armored vehicles and a fragment of a World War II–era themed diorama. 3.1. The Narkomfin Building. 3.2. Kizhi Pogost. 3.3.Subbotnii den’[Saturday]. 3.4. Restoration works of the Church of the Transfiguration. 3.5. Members of the club Polar Odysseus examining a Pomor fishing boat in the village of Niukhcha in Karelia. 3.6. ThePomoron its way back to Petrozavodsk from a voyage to the Barents Sea, September 1990. 3.7. The 1936 building of a children’s clinic in the center of Petrozavodsk. 4.1. Stairwell of a 1959 khrushchevka in Petrozavodsk. 4.2. Graffiti in a Leningrad backstreet. 5.1. Vitalities of the Ilizarov apparatuses. 5.2. A basement gym in a Khrushchevera apartment block. 5.3. A basement gym in Liubertsy. 6.1. “We used to know how to fly.”

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