Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev's Russia PDF Download

Author: Deborah A. Field
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820495026
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

View

Book Description
Drawing on previously inaccessible records, this book discusses love, sex, marriage, divorce, and child-rearing during Khrushchev's «thaw» of the 1950s and early 1960s. It analyses the Soviet government's attempts to supervise private life and enforce communist morality, and it describes the diverse ways in which people responded to official prescriptions. Written in a lively and accessible style, this book provides an innovative exploration of the interactions between Soviet ideology and everyday life.

Author: Maria Rogacheva
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107196361
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

View

Book Description
A major new contribution to understanding the transition of Soviet society from Stalinism to a more humane model of socialism.

Author: Brian LaPierre
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299287432
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

View

Book Description
Swearing, drunkenness, promiscuity, playing loud music, brawling—in the Soviet Union these were not merely bad behavior, they were all forms of the crime of "hooliganism." Defined as "rudely violating public order and expressing clear disrespect for society," hooliganism was one of the most common and confusing crimes in the world's first socialist state. Under its shifting, ambiguous, and elastic terms, millions of Soviet citizens were arrested and incarcerated for periods ranging from three days to five years and for everything from swearing at a wife to stabbing a complete stranger. Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia offers the first comprehensive study of how Soviet police, prosecutors, judges, and ordinary citizens during the Khrushchev era (1953–64) understood, fought against, or embraced this catch-all category of criminality. Using a wide range of newly opened archival sources, it portrays the Khrushchev period—usually considered as a time of liberalizing reform and reduced repression—as an era of renewed harassment against a wide range of state-defined undesirables and as a time when policing and persecution were expanded to encompass the mundane aspects of everyday life. In an atmosphere of Cold War competition, foreign cultural penetration, and transatlantic anxiety over "rebels without a cause," hooliganism emerged as a vital tool that post-Stalinist elites used to civilize their uncultured working class, confirm their embattled cultural ideals, and create the right-thinking and right-acting socialist society of their dreams.

Author: Rustam Alexander
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526155753
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

View

Book Description
This ground-breaking book challenges the widespread view that sex and homosexuality were unmentionable in the USSR. The Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras (1956–82) have remained obscure and unexplored from this perspective. Drawing on previously undiscovered sources, Alexander fills in this critical gap. The book reveals that from 1956 to 1991, doctors, educators, jurists and police officers discussed homosexuality. At the heart of discussions were questions which directly affected the lives of homosexual people in the USSR. Was homosexuality a crime, disease or a normal variant of human sexuality? Should lesbianism be criminalised? Could sex education prevent homosexuality? What role did the GULAG and prisons play in homosexuality across the USSR? These discussions often had practical implications – doctors designed and offered medical treatments for homosexuality in hospitals, and procedures and medications were also used in prisons.

Author: Choi Chatterjee
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253012600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443

View

Book Description
A panoramic, interdisciplinary survey of Russian lives and “a must-read for any scholar engaging with Russian culture” (The Russian Review). In this interdisciplinary collection of essays, distinguished scholars survey the cultural practices, power relations, and behaviors that characterized Russian daily life from pre-revolutionary times through the post-Soviet present. Microanalyses and transnational perspectives shed new light on the formation and elaboration of gender, ethnicity, class, nationalism, and subjectivity. Changes in consumption and communication patterns, the restructuring of familial and social relations, systems of cultural meanings, and evolving practices in the home, at the workplace, and at sites of leisure are among the topics explored. “Offers readers a richly theoretical and empirical consideration of the ‘state of play’ of everyday life as it applies to the interdisciplinary study of Russia.” —Slavic Review “An engaging look at a vibrant area of research . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice “Volumes of such diversity frequently miss the mark, but this one represents a welcomed introduction to and a ‘must’ read for anyone seriously interested in the subject.” —Cahiers du Monde russe

Author: Miriam Dobson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801457270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

View

Book Description
Between Stalin's death in 1953 and 1960, the government of the Soviet Union released hundreds of thousands of prisoners from the Gulag as part of a wide-ranging effort to reverse the worst excesses and abuses of the previous two decades and revive the spirit of the revolution. This exodus included not only victims of past purges but also those sentenced for criminal offenses. In Khrushchev's Cold Summer Miriam Dobson explores the impact of these returnees on communities and, more broadly, Soviet attempts to come to terms with the traumatic legacies of Stalin's terror. Confusion and disorientation undermined the regime's efforts at recovery. In the wake of Stalin's death, ordinary citizens and political leaders alike struggled to make sense of the country's recent bloody past and to cope with the complex social dynamics caused by attempts to reintegrate the large influx of returning prisoners, a number of whom were hardened criminals alienated and embittered by their experiences within the brutal camp system. Drawing on private letters as well as official reports on the party and popular mood, Dobson probes social attitudes toward the changes occurring in the first post-Stalin decade. Throughout, she features personal stories as articulated in the words of ordinary citizens, prisoners, and former prisoners. At the same time, she explores Soviet society's contradictory responses to the returnees and shows that for many the immediate post-Stalin years were anything but a breath of spring air after the long Stalinist winter.

Author: Choi Chatterjee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317221230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

View

Book Description
Covering the sweep of Russian history from empire to Soviet Union to post-Soviet state, Russia's Long Twentieth Century is a comprehensive yet accessible textbook that situates modern Russia in the context of world history and encourages students to analyse the ways in which citizens learnt to live within its system and create distinctly Soviet identities from its structures and ideologies. Chronologically organised but moving beyond the traditional Cold War framework, this book covers topics such as the accelerating social, economic and political shifts in the Russian empire before the Revolution of 1905, the construction of the socialist order under Bolshevik government, and the development of a new state structure, political ideology and foreign policy in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors highlight the polemics and disagreements that energize the field, discussing interpretations from Russian, émigré, and Western historiographies and showing how scholars diverge sharply in their understanding of key events, historical processes, and personalities. Each chapter contains a selection of primary sources and discussion questions, engaging with the voices and experiences of ordinary Soviet citizens and familiarizing students with the techniques of source criticism. Illustrated with images and maps throughout, this book is an essential introduction to twentieth-century Russian history.

Author: Yasuhiro Matsui
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137547235
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

View

Book Description
In modernizing Russia, obshchestvennost', an indigenous Russian word, began functioning as a term to illuminate newly emerging active parts of society and their public identities. This volume approaches various phenomena associated with the term throughout the revolution, examining it in the context of the press, public opinion, and activists.

Author: Melanie Ilic
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134023634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

View

Book Description
This book examines the social and cultural impact of the 'thaw' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. With individual case studies exploring key aspects of Khrushchev's period of office, it offers an important new perspective on the Khrushchev era.

Author: Rob Hornsby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107030927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

View

Book Description
Robert Hornsby draws on a range of declassified archival material to analyse political protest and government repression in post-Stalin USSR.