Borders of Socialism

This fascinating book argues that in Russia the relations between culture and nation, art and life, commodity and trash, often diverged from familiar Western European or American versions of modernity. The essays show how public and private overlapped and shaped each other, creating new perspectives on individuals and society in the Soviet Union.

'"In this unique and fascinating collection of essays, Lewis Siegelbaum and his kollektiv of authors explore the private spaces in socialist society. From cars and pets to apartments and peasant gardens, friendship circles to hooligans, they sketch a canvas that locates where the Soviet heart was and who Soviet man's best friend was. Soviet people found their own outlets for expression of what was most meaningful to them, and privacy survived in a world where the state, often ineffectively, hovered above the individual."

• Ronald Grigor Suny, Professor of History, The University of Michigan

"This is a wonderfully conceived, extraordinarily cohesive, and highly accessible volume. Each of the authors rejects a rigid distinction between public and private, and argues that under Soviet socialism, the distinction is especially fluid. A fascinating reassessment of the 'lived experience' of socialism, in which the Soviet Union's particular characteristics are understood as part of the much broader modern experience of public and private life." - Diane P. Koenker, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

'This lively and innovative volume, offering a fascinating selection of the newest scholarship on Soviet society in the Stalin and Khrushchev periods, will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered about the private lives of Soviet citizens and how they negotiated the boundaries between the private and the public.'

• Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Chicago

  Autorentext
  LEWIS H. SIEGELBAUM is a Professor in the Department of History at Michigan State University, USA.

  Inhalt
  Introduction: Mapping Private Spheres in the Soviet Context; L.H.Siegelbaum PART ONE: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY Claiming Property: The Soviet-Era Private Plots as "Women's Turf"; E.Kingston-Mann The Art Market and the Construction of Soviet Russian Culture; A.Jenks Separate Yet Governed: The Representation of Soviet Property Relations in Civil Law and Public Discourse; C.Hachten Cars, Cars, and More Cars: The Faustian Bargain of the Brezhnev Era; L.H.Siegelbaum PART TWO: DOMESTICITY AND DOMESTIC SPACE Domestic Life and the Activist Wife in the 1930s Soviet Union; R.Neary A Hearth for a Dog: The Paradoxes of Soviet Pet Keeping; A.Nelson The Meaning of Home: "The Only Bit of the World You Can Have to Yourself"; S.E.Reid "I Know All the Secrets of My Neighbors": The Quest for Privacy in the Era of the Separate Apartment; S.E.Harris Private Matters or Public Crimes: The Emergence of Domestic Hooliganism in the Soviet Union, 1939-1966; B.LaPierre PART THREE: BEHAVIOR AND PRIVATE LIFE A Symbiosis of Errors: The Personal, Professional, and Political in the Kirov Region, 1931-1941; L.E.Holmes Friends in Private, Friends in Public: The Phenomenon of the Kompaniia Among Soviet Youth in the 1950s and 60s; J.Fürst The 1959 Liriki-Fiziki Debate: Going Public with the Private?; S.Costanzo