-Julia King

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

            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. 

 

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.

 

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. 

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.

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

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.

·       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.

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

            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. 

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.

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.