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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLooiLBRR7bVz6ohUgDQwxUlm6Hq8ZUe0h

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I found the information about физкультура incredibly interesting. I thought it provided a lot of insight to better understand Kollontai’s “Tale of Three Loves” because it really shows how contradictory the information about sexual health and wellbeing was in the early part of the nineteenth century. Two of the facts that I found most interesting were: The introduction of radio shows was a successful effort in getting kids and young adults to participate in the programs. I think this is interesting because it shows how young people have always been attracted to technology, even though this seems like a relatively new phenomena. The second fact I learned was that the 1920s was a peak for crime and “hooliganism” for youth in the Soviet Union. It makes sense that the young generation would have energy to burn after so much tension in the previous decades.

-Julia King

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Darius Shaoul - Stuffed Pike Gefilte Fish

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Darius Shaoul - Stuffed Pike Gefilte Fish

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I chose to focus on this dish from the reading because I also have Russo-Jewish heritage (part of my family was from modern-day Belarus). I haven't personally had any experience with yummy gefilte fish, but it is something I've always wanted to make. The recipe in this reading is likely the closest thing to what my family was eating in pre-soviet Russia. I found the reading incredibly insightful, and was really impressed by the writing! I thought it was more of a recipe book, but it is an incredible overview of many aspects of Russian culture and history, through a lens of family history and the ritual of food. This dish was especially important because it represents the author's jewish heritage. Her moment in the jewish kitchen in Odessa is a reminder of the anti-jewish sentiment that still existed, despite the secular enlightenment of Soviet ideology. Making this dish brings her family closer to her roots, and honors the trauma of her past. I hope to one day make a delicious Gefilte fish for my family, with a ton of horseradish. Just have to get my hands on a massive pike....
-Darius Shaoul

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Fitzpatrick - Sex and Revolution

I had no idea that soviet universities consisted of both proletariat and bourgeoisie-background students. The wealthier students would have attended university anyway, but this gave the proletariat students, who were often more experienced in the work force, a chance to become better educated. As is mentioned later in the chapter, the proletariat students struggled to keep up with rigors of university education. 41% only had primary education. Imagine going from fifth or sixth grade level subjects to something like organic chemistry! As expected, this caused a great deal of anxiety for these types of students and self-doubt not only in education but in the work place as well.

Also, it was kind of weird to see how anti-sex Lenin was. The soviets legalized so many things such divorce and abortion to free women from the traditional bourgeoisie-mother role that it seemed strange for Lenin to oppose sexual freedom and thought. I understand his stance as a staunch communist to focus only the collective work of the one. However, I don’t think you can healthily subjugate sexual drive especially when giving people much more liberty in that realm. I think the statistics really helped show this disconnect. There was such a high proportion of marriage in universities. Within those marriages there was also a high amount of infidelity and divorce. In general, as we also saw in Kollontai’s Three Generations, there is a transition to a more loose definition of what constitutes a relationship. At least that’s how it transitioned in the university sphere. As Katya mentioned in class one day, it was much more awkward to have sex in the traditional city life as communal living really impedes the idea of personal privacy. I enjoyed how the author summarized the awkward state for university students at this time. They couldn’t act like their parents had because the political climate would outcast them if they a “bourgeoise marriage”. At the same time, they couldn’t be sexual revolutionaries for the same disdain of the bourgeoise.

P.S: On page 75, it says that women used chemical means of contraception. What chemicals were these people using to prevent conception in the 1920s? Definitely does not sound safe. If anyone knows, please let me know.

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Public Privacy in the Soviet Communal Apartment

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Public Privacy in the Soviet Communal Apartment

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I was shocked by the statistic of 3 meters squared per person after WW2. I would've thought that the destruction of land and the loss of lives would have made the space available be a roughly lateral move, but no.
Furthermore, the concept of one toilet being shared by twenty people is horrifying. I just kind of assumed that there would be more of a dorm-style bathroom deal? Idk.
Learning more about the cramped living condition really makes me sympathize so much less with Dr. Phil from Heart of a Dog. Man was fully living it up and was so mean about it. People are starving, Phil.
Knowing just how many people shared one kitchen and bathroom makes the story "Nervous People" much more believable. I would be ready to throw hands at any time in that situation.

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The first thing that I found super interesting about communal life was that it really evolved and took different forms as new rules/regulations were imposed and as ideologies shifted in the nation. I came to better understand just how deeply communal living was rooted in soviet society, and the statement that Gerasimova refers to from a 1919 article stood out: 'Everything physical is to be controlled by the State when the latter is under reconstruction.' The State and Communist Party exerted massive control over where and how people could live, and they did this using inspections by representatives and by neighbors, as we saw in the beginning of Heart of a Dog along with the other harsh conditions of soviet cities. Communal apartments aided in the complete control of soviet citizens, both socially and politically. I was surprised to learn about the shift in the 1920s, the process of ‘condensation,’ when the Bolshevik authorities reduced space by claiming and dividing the common luxurious apartments of the 'bourgeois' or as  Gerasimova put it, “the formerly well-to-do.” Again, we saw this clearly in Heart of a Dog when the apartment committee visits the Professor. It seems to me that the exception Preobrazhensky receives was not realistic. The Professor represents the anti-revolutionary, conspicuous consumption, type of lifestyle that was being stamped out in this period. I was even MORE surprised to learn that after the apartments had been condensed, doors between rooms were removed and there were sometimes “disciplinary spaces” inside of the apartments. When I think of a living space, I think about privacy, safety, warmth, and it seems like the communal apartment became the opposite of this. Understanding what it may have been to live in these conditions, every text we have read thus far is illuminated as I begin to internalize the feelings I would have had, and even further, the frustration of not necessarily being able to fully express those thoughts for fear of censorship . Particularly, this feeling deepens my grasp on Zoshchenko’s Nervous People. I cannot imagine the weight of the tension between the people living in a packed communal apartment, especially with the underlying aroma of surveillance by those people you are forced to be with.

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Grant - Creation of an Ideal Young Citizen (Owen Webster)

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Grant - Creation of an Ideal Young Citizen (Owen Webster)

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I find the idea behind physical culture to be rather ridiculous. From Grant's article, physical culture was not only meant to create fit, healthy, young citizens, nor just to create a more collectivist society. It was also said to be the best way to discourage masturbation. That they thought that making young people exercise a lot would help discourage masturbation seems absurd. It also seems that deliquency  and hooliganism was a problem among youth at this time. To combat this, physical culture instructors had to be able to both teach exercises and convey socialist teachings. That instructors were competent in both of these things was rare. I was also amused to read that one B. A. Ivanovsky from the Institute of Physical Culture argued that not only was physical culture a good way to distract from sexual relations, but that sexual relations actually weakened muscle strength, with sportsmen, knowing this, abstaining from sex when competing in events as an example. I'm pretty surprised that they were so hardcore about this, and even more so that it was thought to do anything more that make a fit population, and that they kept going with it even when it didn't really work.

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I wanted to focus on the main dish featured in the chapter because I think its interesting the way Bolshevism leaves no space for any other kind of cultural awareness. Even in the soviet food, the utilitarian, meat dominant food of the worker has a forced popularity that I find disarming. It's amazing that food can even be linked entirely to a religious practice and that this connection caused so many new problems. Jewish persecution in Russia is generations old, and the Jewish communities found ways to continue in their faith. I think this dish is symbolic of that. To inundate so much power into a cuisine is extremely eye opening.
-Julia King

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Darius Shaoul - material culture in NEP-era Russia

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Darius Shaoul - material culture in NEP-era Russia

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glossary:

1. Primus Stove -This is the communal house’ cooking implement. It is the source of much tension within kitchen spaces, and requires Kerosene to function

2. Kerosene - Kerosene is used in the Primus Stove. When it burns it produces a lot of smoke, and it cooks food very slowly!

3. Record Player - For listening to music! Some of the records played during the NEP era were still considered non-socialist and taboo.

4. Zhenskoe Delo - This is a women’s magazine from NEP-era Russia meaning “Women’s World”. It carried illustrations of Western European fashion trends, elegant and bourgeois.

5. Russian Lipstick - Considered a bourgeoisie vice, but so popular that it was made by a government monopoly.

6. Flower-patterned skirt - A kind of Flapper skirt which was considered the most fashionable and cultured. This created a divide in culture between people in Russian urban areas.

7. Parasol - another sign of upper-class fashion. Many young people wanted to appear up-to-date in their fashion sense and chose to tote these as an accessory.

8. Make-up - In the NEP-era fashion reading, it was mentioned that even “peasant” groups would have cosmetics in their trunk, showing that many people relied on dressing up to escape their lack of material wealth.

9. Ilyich Light Bulbs - Offered by the government as a part of the Goelro plan. These lamps were connected to the power grid, but many still had kerosene lamps and candles in case.

10. Silk - in general, silk was a sign of Nobility, and looked down upon by many revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, and communists. NEP men were said to have silk undergarments, and some students wore silk-lined jackets, a piece of fashion which was considered highly counterrevolutionary.

I found both readings very interesting. The apartment in 1927 was an amazing way to see a slice of life within the walls of highly packed, communal apartments. The scarcity of government-provided items made the stress even higher, and with the free market trade rampant, there was still a material different between the haves and the have-nots. Many young people desired European flapper fashion, and western influence via movies and music and magazines created new, bourgeois fashion trends. This was very problematic for many leaders in NEP era Russia, and was taken as a sign that the youth was not being successfully socialized.

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One interesting fact I learned was how Geraimova explained in the beginning how the term/ concept of privacy is hard to translate into Russian/Slavic languages as it’s never quite been a concrete thing. The second thing I found interesting was how it's inappropriate to go into other tenant's room and how certain people who’ve lived in communal apartments have related their experience of lack of private living space to a sort of dull indifference.
One connection I found to the stories we’ve read so far in class was the theme of visibility and having no privacy in the public arena whether that be in the form of communal apartment spats or a glass room/dome. I also now understand how absurd it was how the professor had 8 rooms in HOaD and why the housing union was pushing him so hard to give up several of his rooms. It was interesting learning how in peoples rooms in communal apartments had certain pieces of furniture that would symbolize rooms such as a bed for a sleeping room, a desk for a study, a dinner table for dining room, a children's bed/ toys for a children's room.

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I was really surprised at the way that although people in general took more open minded approaches to sexuality in the 1920s in Russia, there was still plenty of stigma and shame involved in discussions of sexuality. I was surprised to learn how taboo masturbation was at the time. In trying to think of how  it could come to be so stigmatized, all I could think of was religious groups who are against masturbation because they consider it "spilling seed." That said, I am not aware of any "be fruitful" messages that the Soviet government sent to young soviets, especially as family life was changing so radically and quickly, I imagine people might be more hesitant to rush into parenthood. I was also saddened to learn that non heterosexual relationships were clearly sensitive subjects as well, since so few study participants indicated same sex attraction. Today, of course, Russia is known in the West for having particularly homophobic state policies, but I'm not sure if that was always the case. One might expect that as work was being done to challenge the binary and the oppression of women, and casual sex was not so taboo if not encouraged, people wouldn't be so concerned about gender roles in sexuality and what kind of sex people were having. I'm curious to know if any Soviet thinkers or writers ever commented on this, or if homosexuality/queerness were ever addressed publicly as part of the creation of the Soviet Union.

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One of the items mentioned in this reading really stood out to me as the author seemed not too fond of it personally, this is Kissel. The author seemed to dread the time when Kissel would be served at the end of a meal, but I actually find this dish quite interesting as it stands. Kissel is a fruit drink/soup which is essentially fruit concentrate/juice which is heated with some potato starch to thicken, and then is served cold of hot, depending on personal taste. I find this extremely interesting as it is so very simple, uses only things that would be very accessible to the people of the USSR, and on paper sounds like it would taste pretty good. I would draw parallel to our modern day "corn syrup" as it often will also aid in thickening up a drink and sweetening it in the process. I would love to try this drink and actually think it sounds pretty appealing, although I am unsure how drinking such a thick liquid would feel like, as the recipe I found actually described this as a liquid meal in some cases.

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I chose this image of Volodia and Kolia playing checkers because I found it symbolic. Although they're playing together, they are also strategically competing against one another to win over Liuda.

Here is the link to my film review.

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NEP-era music was passionate, decadent, and romantic. The songs are filled with smooth and luxurious string melodies and vocalists who sound as though they are swooning with a heart full of desire. It’s the kind of music that makes the listener feel as though they should be dancing or sitting in a darkened, smoky nightclub sipping on a cocktail.

Many of the songs felt very jazzy, a point that I found especially notable. The NEP-era was defined by the return of a free market (albeit in a weakened form) to the Soviet Union. Jazz and capitalism both favor individual voice and ingenuity, as well as promote an image of decadence that coincides with success. Both the great jazz musician and the skilled capitalist are creative thinkers who are fast to adapt and improvise. All this considered, it makes sense that jazz would originate in the capitalist hub that is the United States and then spread to the Soviet Union as it reimplemented (some) capitalist principles.

I also found the prevalence of latin influence interesting as there were several tangos on the playlist, though I’m not able to come up with as clear of a line of influence for that element. Latin music is often very passionate and paired with dramatic and sensual dances. My best guess as to why it was so present in the NEP-era music would be that at this point the Soviet people had been through WWI, a revolution, and a Civil War in just two decades and this was the first time in a long time that they were given the opportunity to let go a bit indulge in their human passions and more frivolous desires, and latin music fit with this impulse very nicely.

My favorite song off of the playlist was "Стаканчики" by Пётр Лещенко (link: https://youtu.be/BxLoHMuufuw). It had that sound of being sad and permeated by love or longing at the same time (which I’m a total sucker for), and I loved the pizzicato bits and the twinkly riff. It sounded very dream-like, and it gave me this picture of people dancing under a streetlamp on a star-filled night. Very cool.

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The overall takeaway I got from the article by Fitzpatrick was the idea that young Russians and university students were kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of sexual and/or romantic relationships. They were already under suspicion of being bourgeois, or meshchanstvo as Fitzpatrick says, by virtue of being university students, but their sexual habits could put them under even more scrutiny. If they pursued a monogamous life of marriage and children, the Komsomol students might view them as preserving bourgeois conventions, while if they were sexually promiscuous, the Old Bolsheviks might accuse them of decadence and a lack of discipline. The party and Lenin himself were very opposed to “free love,” thinking that it was “an essentially bourgeois occupation typical of intellectuals” (69) and that it might distract young Communists from the Revolution and their work. It’s easy in hindsight from an American perspective to think of the soviets as a monolith who toed the part line, but this is obviously one area where there was quite a lot of divergence ideologically. As we saw when we read “Three Generations,” for instance, Kollontai’s views on matters of sex and love were vastly different from the abstinence and monogamy which the party eventually encouraged. There was some very real progress in this sphere as a result of the revolution, such as abortion being legalized (something which Americans aren’t all on board with even a hundred years later), but there were also areas which were more of a mixed, or even didn’t see much progress at all, such as homosexuality.

Another thing which I found interesting was that students at the time, particularly men, were extremely prone to anxiety, depression, and even suicide. This makes sense when you think about it: this was the generation that had just come of age during a time of immense social and political strife. They were also facing unique pressure academically, with many of them being peasants and proletarians who had only received primary education prior to coming to the university. Fitzpatrick also directly connects this general anxiety with the impotence which was prevalent amongst male students and a more specific sexual anxiety, with many of them believing that their current sexual frustrations were physically and mentally harmful to them.

There was a lot more that I found really interesting in this article, but this post is already getting long, so I will leave it there. If you’re still deciding what to do for this choice board, you could do worse than this article.

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A couple other people have already posted about gefilte fish, so I decided to focus instead on salo. It’s only mentioned once or twice in the chapter, but it turns out its very big in Slavic cuisine. It’s very popular in a number of countries, but it’s particularly associated with Ukraine, where it is considered a traditional national dish. There’s even a salo museum in Lviv, Ukraine, they can’t get enough of the stuff. It’s basically a big slab of pork fat, with little to no lean meat. It can be fried or smoked, but more often is simply cured in one metric fuckton of salt. Common seasonings include garlic, pepper, or if you’re fancy, coriander or paprika. It is often eaten in sandwiches and paired with a shot of vodka (yum). Gotta say, the concept of eating just straight fat is wigging me out a little. However, I can see the practical benefits and why it remained popular throughout the Soviet years. I imagine it’s pretty cheap considering there’s no lean meat. And since it’s all fat, it packs a lot of calories and nutrients. A little bit of salo can go a long way in energizing you for a full day of your average Soviet worker’s activities, such as harvesting wheat or tempering steel or fighting your housemates in the communal kitchen. It makes sense that this dish is described in the chapter when the author is describing the food of Odessa, which is in modern day Ukraine. It’s inclusion, through a small detail in Von Bremzen’s story, goes a long way in setting the culinary scene, as it is a dish associated with Ukraine, her grandmother’s home. It also draws a stark contrast with the gefilte fish introduced later in the story, a symbol of the author’s Jewish identity, seeing as it is very not kosher.
- Aiden Blasi

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Buterbrod is an open-faced sandwich. This dish was (and still is) so popular because it uses very basic ingredients and ingredients which can be easily substituted. It is commonly made with black bread (a Russian staple), and essentially any meat, cheese, butter, jam or topping on hand.

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I chose to read the Grant article and a lot of the information in there legitimately surprised me and actually helped me get a better understanding of the culture during this time. The first very interesting thing I learned in this article is that in the 1920s things like masturbating and self pleasure were seen as unclean and too much like the pre-revolutionary times so doctors would prescribe sports to try and mitigate how many people, specifically youth, were masturbating. This holds some very interesting parallels to modern society where many religious groups are violently against the idea of self pleasure and they too see it as unpure. It is interesting to consider that both of these ideologies are so similar, yet one is based in religion and the other in secularism. Another interesting fact I learned is that the "physical" culture that they were trying to get kids involved in at school was nothing more than being social and participating in communal activities like sports and other team building things. The funniest part of this article is that the people who were supposed to be instilling these values in the children were actually hypocrites themselves, as smoking was a banned activity and they all participated anyways. The adult leaders were just doing what they thought was best for the kids without actually following what they preach.

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One of the most interesting parts of the article discusses the sexual liberation movement that the 1920s saw. Divorce and abortion were legalized, and the youth attitude towards sex in general became more liberalized. I also found it interesting that in response to this new wave of ideology, the Party ran a propaganda program specifically to combat and stifle it.
I think that a comparison could be drawn the hippie and feminist waves of the 1960s and 1970s, which also acted as a counterculture that called for increased women's reproductive rights and sexual liberation.

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I had read the piece by Fitzpatrick, which was full of fascinating figures of the university students ranging from the early to late 20’s. The piece talks a lot about the pressures that the students face towards abstaining from sexual relations, as the material conditions that they were presented did not allow for them to be sexually liberated in a way that they would want to. The first figure that I found really fascinating was that (according to the survey, which could be flawed out of fear for getting in trouble with the state) was that about 50% of the men (attempted to) deny themselves masturbation. The students were not asked why this was the case, but it can be inferred that the culture that they were a part of was so oppressive that they felt they were not worth of any sexual appreciation. Due to the guilt from masturbation and the lack of consistent sexual partners, 80% of the respondents had considered giving up sex altogether. The reason that they could not receive sex in the means that they would want is that the traditional ways of having sex, prostitution or marriage, became increasingly unavailable. The former because it was seen as dirty from the views of the party, and the latter was that many were married but could not afford to live with their partners. I don’t know if there is a particular time in American history were sex was oppressed so brutally from the top. What is true, however, is that today less people are getting married because it is economically unsound. The material conditions that are (not) provided by the state do not allow marriage to be feasible. Most can not afford houses, cars, and families like the generations of the past.

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(I think the website is scuffed and won't let me post under the "Think" tab so I am going to post it here)

What I found fascinating about the article by Gerasimova was not something specific, but how the presence of communal spaces pushes the values of Soviet Communism to its limits. In theory, there is no idea of property because all is shared for the glory of the state, but when applied so directly to conflict with personal living space boundaries, it forces people into a position that makes them make a rapid decision about how they fit in within the party. This was not the intention of communal housing, as it was out of necessity due to the rapid urbanization of city areas and there being less to do out in rural areas, but it is a consequence, nonetheless. These values should contradict the idea of “personal spaces” but as the article points out, this was the most essential part of communal living and a constant source of tension. The people living in these apartments did not even have their own rooms, rather just a piece of a room. There was no privacy to do anything productive, as at any minute one could be interrupted for something as menial as boredom or intense as using someone's porcupine brush. This lack of privacy was likely dehumanizing to the inhabitants of these apartments. I would imagine that these people were more likely to submit to the will of the state rather than rebel to justify these conditions. If it is so horrible, then the cause of this horrid must be something great.

I do not know much about the biography of Bulgakov, but I have gleaned from his work that one of his biggest gripes with the USSR was communal housing. These are major aspects in the works of his I have read (HoaD&M+M) and it was clearly something he struggled with. I have a feeling that Bulgakov was a (mostly) grumpy man, like PP in that sense, and resented the people he had to share an apartment with. One really cannot blame him however since living with absolute strangers who you cannot ever run away from fully would be terrible.

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The most surprising detail from this text for me was the dynamics of tables and table ownership in the communal kitchens of these apartments. It clearly felt like a loophole in the ideas of communism and made me consider what even is defined as private property. If everyone has their own table that belongs exclusively to them, what is communal about that experience? I was also surprised to hear that only 23.8% of St. Petersburg lived in communal apartments. I wonder if this furthered housing inequality and inequality in general. My understanding is that plenty of people who migrated towards cities for work ended up in these apartments. In terms of Heart of a Dog, I wonder if this was part of Dr. P's objection to his home becoming communal apartments. It is easy to see him refusing to want to share his house with country bumpkin workers, since he belongs to such an elite level of society. Even in The Lady Aristocrat, we can see how under communism, there were still plenty of individual and guarded items, be it people having their own table in a communal kitchen, or pastries being too expensive for members of the USSR to all enjoy.

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I love Anya von Bremzen’s writing! I thought chapter 2 of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking was so fun to read, and it further illuminated the readings for this unit as it reinforced again the conditions of soviet life in the 1920s and the complete control exerted over citizens that I mentioned in my “Think” post. She was humorous but also called it how it is, stating: “Ascetic food mores a la Rakhmetov carried over, it might be said, into the new Bolshevik state's approach to collective nutrition. Food equaled utilitarian fuel, pure and simple. The new Soviet citizen was to be liberated from fussy dining and other such distractions from his grand modernizing project.” The dish that caught my eye in the chapter was butterbrot, and I was inspired to do more research on it because my family actually owns a meat/charcuterie business back at home, and the recipe often calls for sausage. I learned that it actually earned its popularity in the soviet era, and it was meant to be “easy for housewives”, because it does not take any time to cook, and it became common at breakfast, which I personally cannot say sounds super appealing. A dry piece of bread with caviar and ham on top at 8 am? Idk. but anyways, butterbrot was cool to learn about because it represents the new, efficient way of Soviet life that was upheld in all facets of life, obviously including food.

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A part of the text that I found to be interesting was learning about the utter lack of privacy. I remember my grandmother telling me that on her wedding day, she had to get prepared for her wedding in a communal apartment. She had no privacy, and every single family that lived there was so curious about what was happening. Something else I found to be interesting was the boundaries and markers of communal living; that those who didn't stake a claim to any part of territory were placed lower in the “communal hierarchy”. These people seemed to be taken less seriously than others. The obvious connection between communal life and Heart of a Dog by Bulgakov is the apartments themselves. The professor’s apartment was being turned into a communal apartment, and he was not at all happy about it. Another connection that I found to be less obvious is the relationship between Sharikov, the dog, and the concept of privacy. To me, it seemed like the chaos that the man with the heart of a dog brought to the professor’s apartment was similar to the loss of privacy experienced by those living in communal apartments. Learning about this cultural history allows me to look at the literature from a new perspective.

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HEAR

1. This music evoked a more laissez-faire feeling towards society and culture music was much more apolitical and was far more centered around one’s own emotions. Similar to that of American jazz this music was something that got people excited. This music was far more sentimental and evokes the thoughts of a bygone materialistic era. This music actively accomplishes this through its upbeat rhythm which for me induced a feeling of happiness and delight. To an aspect, the music feels indulgent and deep.

2. My favorite song from the playlist was tango magnolia. While this was my favorite it was my favorite for a strange reason. Out of all of the song for some reason with this one, I conjred a vivid image of how this song could work well in a movie scene and while listening, in my head, I created a movie scene around the song.

3. I think that most blatantly similar to that of the American Roaring ’20s. Both eras of music have similar jazz routes and give off similar feelings of indulgence and both are considerably more upbeat.

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This soup is typically made with burnished-brown lamb, potatoes, paprika, crushed coriander seeds, and zira (Uzbek wild cumin). It’s a very tasty dish, passed down through generations. Because of that, this dish represented ties with their family or childhood for many. It’s a heavy and filling stew, and leftovers can last for days. It takes around two hours to prepare and cook.

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With this first song I feel like I’m having a lot of fun and like it might be a good accompaniment to a silent film. I can definitely tell all this sound comes from before the generations of music that influenced me. It’s foreign yet seems familiar in some far off region of my brain.

I don’t notice anything besides the Russian itself that makes this any different from American music at least from my perspective. I don’t listen to a lot of music made before the 50’s so it is new to me as Soviet music and sort of as a genre of music in general. I might need to spend more time with the equivalent American music of the time in order to compare and contrast.

The first two songs have made me happy, although the second sounds more melancholy than the first. The third song again reminds me of a silent film soundtrack. There is so much life and energy. It makes sense that the songs remind me of a silent film as the NEP era (1930’s) was right after the peak of the silent film era.

There is like a fun loose sexiness to many of the songs. It makes me feel like I’m in some shady tavern where everyone is drunk and the people are enjoying themselves.

I actually am just really enjoying this as background music. I could see myself studying to it. I feel like each song is very busy with trying to tell a story. Wish I knew Russian. It is so playful, joyful, and fun.

My favorite of all the songs was the second on the playlist. It stood out to me because I enjoyed it despite my own beliefs about what type of music I enjoy which is very much NOT this song. Regardless, I found it relaxing and comforting. A very nice song to study too.

I’m not sure if there are equivalent eras in American music because I don’t know too much about eras of music in general. I will say that the fact that the music sounds somewhat familiar to my ears suggests that there are in fact similar eras of American music because it means I must have heard this style of music somewhere before.

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During the early NEP era, the culture around sex was still being decided. Students were being given contradicting messages from society and the world about how they should approach sex and sexual realtionships. On the one hand, there was an aire of sexual liberation in general as laws concerning marriage and abortion changed. However, there was also push for sexual restraint from older party members. I can’t think of a time in US history where two different agendas were being pushed at the same time. Maybe around the Vietnam war with the whole free love movement and the subsequent reactions to that.

Large rates of marriage amongst university aged students at this time in Russia. There was also an incredibly high rate of infidelity among the men in these marriages possibly due to the fact that most of these couples didn’t live together because they couldn’t afford to yet.

A very large percentage of male students in the given studies reported partial or complete impotence and blamed it on the tiring brutal conditions of their lives.

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Fact 1: Posters (which were a form of propaganda) in school were to be colorful, interesting, and eye catching to gain the attention of students. Schools in the US did this and still do this to this day. Now campuses are tobacco free and there are a lot of anti-vape propaganda. Just like Soviet Russia made it eye-catching, the US uses social media and makes it “cool” to not smoke or vape.

Fact 2: Children were encouraged to wear free clothes without any unnecessary fold and clothes should not “Draw attention to the sexual organs,” particularly for girls. This is surprising that they were focused this so early in the century. Girls and boys clothing wasn’t even scandalous. This is very common in the US. There are dress codes for both genders. For guys, in high school, they were allowed to wear tight athletic clothing or muscle tanks that were cut low. For girls in high school, there are a lot more restrictions. Skirts shorts and dresses have to be longer than their fingers by their side, then can’t show shoulder (for example they can’t wear spaghetti straps) and some schools make girls cover their butts if they wear leggings or yoga pants. This is all because it Is “distracting” to learning.

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I really enjoyed this film and this screenshot is from the best scene, shot, and line "it seems you and I ... are scoundrels" https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xc2OebGSWOIONUANEQf9hUAubFRqUPruottjA_vtV8w/edit?usp=sharing

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I was surprised to see the students being labeled as class traitors for their support of Trotsky. Well, not really surprised that it happened, but more surprised about how quickly Stalin consolidated power to make that able to happen.
I was also surprised at how fast the "free sex" movement was immediately labeled as degeneracy as soon as it was beneficial to the ruling party. I think there has recently been a similar era, in which some aspects of sex are liberated but others a still socially taboo, such as polyamory.

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Jenny Aemmer - Material Culture in the NEP era

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Jenny Aemmer - Material Culture in the NEP era

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1. Moscow chic: the Soviet adaptation of the popular and decadent Western fashion during the NEP-era, largely inspired by American movie stars and flappers.
2. NEPmen: entrepreneurs who took advantage of the legalization of private trade that accompanied NEP policies.
3. Mody sezona: in English "Fashions of the season", a popular Russian fashion magazine that showcased what was hot in Western fashion and "bourgeois" culture.
4. Home Dressmaker: **a journal which included printed patterns that those who could not afford the most fashionable clothes themselves could use to imitate them at home.
5. silk stockings: a popular item of women's clothing which was emblematic of the inutility and frivolousness of the Western fashion, as opposed to the utility and modestness of Soviet-promoted fashion.
6. red lipstick: a popular item Western fashion that the Soviet state eventually began producing themselves to create a state-owned monopoly.
7. bobbed hair: a popular Western hair style adopted by many Soviets, seen by some Bolshevik moralists as being too suggestive of sexual liberation.
8. Primus stove: a small stove which used to cook with in communal apartments. each family within the apartment typically had their own. they make a lot of noise and smoke, cook food very slowly, and require considerable effort to light.
9. Bakelite brooch: a piece of jewelry to be clipped to a garment; as it is delicate and serves no purpose other than to be a status symbol and look pretty, such brooches and other forms of jewelry were elements of the "Moscow chic" trend.
10. Ilyich lamp: a lamp powered by a light bulb as opposed to kerosene, made possible by the power stations being built across the USSR (though many held onto their antiquated kerosene lamps in case of emergency).

The 1920s were an awkward time for Soviet society due to the NEP-era policies that defined them. Such awkwardness arose from the fact that the reintroduction of capitalism that the policies were based upon went directly against key communist principles in the name of bolstering the Soviet economy. The Communist Party wanted Soviet citizens to be work and community minded, whereas the reintroduction of private business and permission of articles of Western popular culture promoted decadence, individuality, and consumerism. Despite the contradictions, NEP policy was seen by those in charge as a temporary evil necessary to appease those who thought things were changing too fast and speedrun the stages of capitalism required to achieve full communism.

The contradictory nature of the era shined through in material culture. On one side, there were Soviet citizens who modelled themselves after American movie stars and flappers. They wore silk, red lipstick, and short skirts. Much of the money they made laboring away in the factory was spent on clothes and make-up, to the point that some women were willing to starve in order to fund their wardrobes. On the other side, some (especially Komosol and Party members) wore old wartime shoes and drab clothes to prove their modesty and devotion to communism. Style became highly political, as whether or not someone indulged in material culture became emblematic of their degree of belief in communism itself.

One thing I found particularly interesting was the fact that each family had their own Primus stove in The Apartment. Though a somewhat less obvious symbol of anti-communist ideals, I think it speaks volumes to the fact that the average Soviet was struggling to adapt to the new way of life that was being rapidly forced upon them. As someone who has used that type of stove many times before, I can speak first hand to how frustrating they are. Pumping the kerosene takes forever, it's hard to tell when you've pumped the right amount, the stovetops are extremely small so you can't cook much at once, and it takes forever to heat up. Regardless, Soviet families continued to use them. In a vision of Soviet society where the communal aspect of the communal apartment was more readily adopted by the people, it would make much more sense for cooking and meal time to be an apartment-wide affair, not one contained to the family unit. The reluctance of families to share kitchen appliances even though the kitchens were supposed to be a shared space highlights that many people weren't yet fully behind the level of community that true communism as the Soviet state was seeking to develop requires. Despite the Communist Party's best efforts, there were still many vestiges of individualism and self-preservation present in the hearts and minds of Soviet people.

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I found haunting (not necessarily interesting) the absence of privacy in one's own room. I know cramped spaces had been discussed by катя in class, but the article describing thin walls and always having to be on 'the communal stage' is insane. I did find interesting that it was sort of taboo to enter other people's private rooms, and you rarely if ever visited someone's room. All socialization was done in common spaces, which really runs counter to my like 2021 university idea of a personal room. I'm so accustomed to hanging out in my comrades' rooms and socializing in dorms and whatnot (where else can we discuss revolution in private?). The connection I drew back to regarding bulgakov really is that I retroactively dislike the professor more. "Greedy bastard!" I would've said in class discussion of heart of a dog had I known what I know now of communal spaces. 8 whole ass rooms! Another connection is also concerning heart of a dog, the professor and the company he kept really did not adhere to these norms of living, regarding usage of space and whatnot. He really was not with the times.

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1. I think the most interesting piece of information that I had garnered from this article was how the kitchen often became the epicenter of the communal apartment. Food is something that is so integral to culture as a whole and in the apartment, we can see this turning into the intermingling of families and people. Food is something that everyone needs and the use of the kitchen is a necessity and in a sense requires those in the apartment to interact. Another item I had found interesting was the idea that these once bourgeois apartments were not just subdivided due to the needed housing of an urbanizing Russia as we had discussed in class but also to enact soviet ideals through all aspects of one’s life. Through the institution of communal apartments, it nationally reinforced the idea of the abolition of private possessions and entities. Reading this article brought to light new ideas in regards to have I viewed Bulgakov in particular how ridiculous it was for the professor to refuse to share his space with others while most of Russia at the time was cramming into subdivided communal apartments. Conversely, it made me see books like WE in a different light. For a society that claimed to be the peak of soviet ideals, the apartments were described in a much different way and were far more personal than their real-life counterparts. Overall this article brought a new light to the literary texts and brought a deeper understanding of the ideas they were trying to convey

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One of the dishes Von Bremzen mentions is buterbrodi (бутерброды) which is basically an open faced sandwich which she said became a staple of soviet diets. This dish was so popular because it was simple and practical. Bread is a big staple in Russia and so was mostly not in short supply except during the various famines. The Bolsheviks attempted to make state dining facilities or basically communal cafeterias which served food that kept you alive such as, “ soup with rotten sauerkraut, unidentifiable meat (horse?), gluey millet, and endless volba, the petrified dried Caspian roach fish”.  This picture is from a website with a bunch of бутерброды ideas for the holidays.

https://vdomadobre.info/handmade/kanapki-do-svyata-cikavi-idei.html

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So, immediately it’s necessary to say that this is likely to be the least purely-Russian music playlist this semester. By that, I mean that the genre is not unique to Russia or Russians. This sort of music is common in the 1920s independent of country (which I will discuss more later). Regarding the emotional intention of these songs, they are upbeat and active, pulling from various tunes to put them together into something that seems easy to dance to (for most people). They are what you would expect when you hear “decadent 20s”; they’re the sort of songs that people with no problems or responsibilities would make to show off their lack of problems. Or, relative lack of problems, instead focusing on problems of a more emotional nature.

Regarding my favorite, I would need to go with: Моя красавица (Foxtrot). This is only because of the rabbit hole it is involved in.

Interestingly enough, I heard this before this class. I am a REES major, and understanding cultural aspects of thing is usually my worst skill, so I have a YouTube Music playlist going of a few hundred songs, mostly Russian, that I add to relatively frequently by having YouTube suggest things. Often, and fortunately, these lead to rabbit holes. This song, or at least part of it, is one of them.

The majority of the song consists of a tune which is by no means the only usage. I will now list all of the ones I have found:

·       Original Yiddish version

·       English versions (there are at least 4)

·       Russian version

·       Original German version, from the Yiddish version and was ultimately banned after the government realized it’s origin

·       German remake, commissioned by the Nazi party’s propaganda departments to combat the tendency of Germans to illegally listen to foreign jazz. Unfortunately I have not been able to find a recording of this.

·       Russian remake, made to conflict with the above Nazi remake, titled “Барон фон дер Пшик”. It’s lyrics are quite amusing.

·       Second Russian remake, “В Кейптанском порту”, different subject and written long after WWII, yet the same original tune.

·       There’s more.

This is a song with a lot of interesting history; it’s a generic jazz tune that basically every large country has had a version of.

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Two interesting facts about communal life:

·       I found really interesting the definitions and state stance on privacy. Visibility as a characteristic of the public sphere, and individuality as a characteristic of the private sphere, which is referred to as “public privacy”. Personally, I would not call the Soviet method of housing “privacy” in any sense. There is explicitly no private property, nothing to call one’s own or have sole control over, and they intend to break down the barrier between private and public living. There is a point at which people will need some degree of privacy, some feeling of individuality, that cannot be fixed by pushing them into more collective living. They learned that, making some odd definitions along the way, distinguishing one’s personal life from their private life, and prohibiting the latter.

·       The kitchen was seen as a sort of communal public area. In a college dorm setting I could understand this, but much less so in the setting of adults living in small 5x5m squares meeting strangers while trying to get a meal.

Two connections between the article and stories we have read:

·       It is discussed how it was difficult for Soviet officials to utilize existing buildings for communal living. Knocking down walls, forcing people to move in together, and generally abolishing personal property. This is akin to the Professor’s problem in HoaD, where Soviet officials are constantly trying to move people in, take rooms from him, or otherwise repurpose his home and lab into a communal living space.

·       The first story by Zoshchenko that we read, Nervous People, is centered around a fight in a communal kitchen. People are arguing over a piece of private property in a communal kitchen, property which is only considered private because one of the owners supposedly spent a significant portion of their very small amount of funds in acquiring it. It shows the problem of everything being communal: people who didn’t work for something are going to be a lot more carefree in using it than those who put effort into acquiring or creating it.

How does this cultural history help to illuminate these works of literature?

This cultural history is necessary to understand the themes and specifics of the literature we read. My understanding of Zoshchenko’s stories about communal apartments and the Soviet prescribed mindset around them was significantly improved through reading this document, as well as my understanding of Soviet housing intentions in general. Without context and historical information, we are unable to truly understand the problems faced by these people.

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One of the dishes mentioned in the article was buterbrodi. The author describes buterbrodi as“[An] open-faced sandwich that would become staples of Soviet diets,” The photo is of a particularly fancy kind of buterbrodi (https://www.kachkapdx.com/meals-grocery/baltic-sprat-buterbrodi-1) that is made with tiny smoked fish, parsley mayo, picked red onion, herbs, and a slice of hard-boiled egg on pumpernickel toast. The meal is originally of German origin but was adopted into many Eastern European countries and Russia. Buterbrodi is really just a slice of bread with one ingredient on top of butter. This ingredient tends to be honey, jam, or hazelnut in the mornings. The meal is such a staple as the bread is very soft, and this meal is very diverse and can be made/eaten quickly and works as a meal at any time of the day. The meal is culturally significant as Germans would call the bread in buterbrodi the best bread in the world.

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One interesting fact I learned about communal apartments in Soviet life in the 1920s is that privacy was never a feature of Soviet culture – the term “privacy” is even hard to translate into Russian – this concept was not big in the schemas of Soviet citizens of the time, and it was not only normal but encouraged for this much to be shared. Another interesting thing I learned was that at the time, the idea of the communal apartments was viewed as a temporary phenomenon that would be overcome in the future – this was due to the housing crisis at the time. One connection I noticed between the article and our books were that in Bulgakov, the apartment that the professor lives in is described similarly to the actual photo used in the article as a render of the apartment (see attached). Another interesting connection I noticed was how it also talked in the article about the displeasure behind communal situations, similar to how the professor wanted to keep some things to himself.

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This is a great film, and I chose as a screenshot the scene of Kolya and Volodya playing checkers together. Something about the way that Kolya just happily resigns himself to his situation
still makes me laugh. To put it bluntly, he's playing checkers with the man having sex with his wife!

Here is the link to my review.

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1.     Silk Stockings

2.     Side whiskers

3.     Bright red lipstick

4.     Narrow-toed high-heeled shoes

5.     Double-breasted jackets

6.     Wide-brimmed hats

7.     Parasols

8.     Beaded gowns

9.     Chinese fabrics

10.  Sleek fur-trimmed coats

This material culture was a rebellion against the new government. This material cultured brought people new things starting from fashion, music, movies, books, etc. and ending with changing their views on life. Also, it touched every aspect of their lives, but form my aspect, it was a problem because it didn’t accommodate to the communism. There was poverty and not everyone could afford it.

(Image of silk stockings) https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fvintagedancer.com%2F1920s%2Fthe-various-styles-of-1920s-stockings%2F&psig=AOvVaw2zb2M623kbWAByh044mJag&ust=1615853336538000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCMiy_fKAse8CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAL

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I chose to read the Fitzpatrick piece for this assignment and found it to be illuminating. The broader social currents of the 1920s in the Soviet Union are confusing and often, it seems, even contradictory, and while the Fitzpatrick piece does not necessarily clarify this confusion, it does prove to me that Russians living through this time were just as unsure as to how they were supposed to live.

It strikes me as a common theme in all societies that, while we hate our respective sexual regulations, upon removing them, we usually find that we cannot live without them. This does not seem to have been any different in NEP-era Russia, with the Fitzpatrick article concluding of the students that “what comes through most strongly is their desire to have norms of sexual behavior firmly established.” There seems to be a disconnect in the surveys that the students themselves were aware of between what they would have desired in sexual conduct and what they thought ought to have been done.

For example, while certainly most (at least male) students desired the wide availability of sex, there was also concern over disease and pregnancy, and as a result there was a general consensus that the government needs to regulate sexual relations in one way or another. I cannot help but think of my own generation when seeing this, which seems to be exhausted by extreme sexual liberty, and I suspect would at least implicitly like more societal direction in this area than we are getting.

I was also surprised by the amount of drug use reported in the surveys among students, since this is not something that one would normally associate with the Soviet Union. I would be interested as to what sort of drugs were being used, as the article does not specify, although its reference to the poppy fields of Turkey suggests that the main drug of choice was opium!

While this period obviously has similarities to America in the 60s and also today, I find the general sexual confusion strikingly similar to Nazi Germany in late 30s and 40s. Counter to some perceptions, teenage pregnancy, STD proliferation, and promiscuity were all through the roof during this period insofar as they could be measured. What I found to be particularly similar about the situations, however, is the fact that in both, war is assumed to be the major cause, particularly in the loosening of sexual mores both from the soldiers who have come to expect sex as something they have “earned,” and from the women who see no reason to deny this to the soldiers. I personally do not think that this completely accounts for either situation, but it is an interesting similarity to consider.

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Overall, I think these songs are meant to evoke deep emotions within the listener. Over I think generally the songs had a romantic, idealistic, and whimsical feel. I think the use of a variety of tones allowed for some diversity within the genre. Some songs were more somber with violins and long drawn out notes. Other songs were very upbeat and fast with lots of percussion. Although very different, all of the songs within the NEP era focused around people’s post revolution feelings and the general sense of uncertainty.

My favorite song was Пётр Лещенко: "Блины" вторая половина. I liked the very upbeat rhythm and tone. Although I didn’t really know what the singer was saying the song still made me want to get up and dance. I also really like the incorporation of all the different wind and string instruments.

I think an American equivalent would be music from the Harlem Renaissance. The jazz and blues music of the 1920’s has the same essence. There is a lot of wind and string instruments as well as a prominent use of percussion. I also think that the tones of the music ranges from both somber and jolly similar to the NEP era music.

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One interesting thing from Gerasimova’s discussion on communal apartments was the fact that certain roles were allocated to individuals within the apartments. There was a figure of a senior plenipotentiary who managed sanitation rules. There were also “yard-keepers” who dealt with quarrels between tenants. Basically, there were specific individuals assigned to roles to keep the order of the communal living intact. This reminds me of themes in Bulgakovs writings that discuss conflicts between tenants and how they are handled. For example, in Bulgakovs Nervous People multiple tenants seem to interject themselves into a fight between two women. These roles designed to ensure the success of communal living also display how little privacy there really was. All activities were basically monitored and sometimes deemed not fit for individuals to handle.

The second interesting fact I learned from Gerasimova’s discussion on communal apartments was that possessions could be used as symbols of power. In communal apartments certain objects had specific places where they were kept. Although these items were necessary for everyday use they were also used as markers of one’s own space. Certain rooms like the kitchen were meant to be completely shared yet people still found a way to claim their own space. This created a somewhat hierarchical system of power between tenants. This was a way that people brought some almost innate feelings and beliefs from “their old way of life”. This idea of claiming power through objects was perfectly exemplified in Bulgakovs Nervous People. In Bulgakovs story two women fight over who owns a wire brush that was kept in the kitchen. Both women were almost fighting for what seemed to be a form of dominance. They both wanted to prove that they owned and had possession over the wire brush. The cultural context from Gerasimova's piece helps to explain the seemingly sudden shift in emotions that both women convey.