Synopses & Reviews
What is the "real Russia"? What is the relationship between national dreams and kitsch, between political and artistic utopia and everyday existence? Commonplaces of daily living would be perfect clues for those seeking to understand a culture. But all who write big books on Russian life confess their failure to get properly inside Russia, to understand its "doublespeak."
Boym is a unique guide. A member of the last Soviet Generation, the Russian equivalent of our Generation X, she grew up in Leningrad and has lived in the West for the past thirteen years. Her book provides a view of Russia that is historically informed, replete with unexpected detail, and everywhere stamped with authority. Alternating analysis with personal accounts of Russian life, Boym conveys the foreignness of Russia and examines its peculiar conceptions of private life and common good, of Culture and Trash, of sincerity and banality. Armed with a Dictionary of Untranslatable Terms, we step around Uncle Fedia asleep in the hall, surrounded by a puddle of urine, and enter the Communal Apartment, the central exhibit of the book. It is the ruin of the communal utopia and a unique institution of Soviet daily life; a model Soviet home and a breeding ground for grassroots informants. Here, privacy is forbidden; here the inhabitants defiantly treasure their bits of "domestic trash," targets of ideological campaigns for the transformation (perestroika) of everyday life.
Against the Russian and Soviet myths of national destiny, the trivial, the ordinary, even the trashy, take on a utopian dimension. Boym studies Russian culture in a broad sense of the word; she ranges from nineteenth- and twentieth-century intellectual thought to art and popular culture. With her we go walking in Moscow and Leningrad, eavesdrop on domestic life, and discover jokes, films, and TV programs. Boym then reflects on the 1991 coup that marked the end of the Soviet Union and evoked fin de siècle apocalyptic visions. The book ends with a poignant reflection on the nature of communal utopia and nostalgia, on homesickness and the sickness of being home.
Synopsis
Boym provides a view of Russia that is historically informed, replete with unexpected detail, and everywhere stamped with authority. Alternating analysis with personal accounts of Russian life, she conveys the foreignness of Russia and examines its peculiar conceptions of private life and common good, of Culture and Trash, of sincerity and banality.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-342) and index.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Theoretical Common Places Rubber Plants and the Soviet Order of Things
Archeology of the Common Place
A Labyrinth without a Monster
The Mythologist as Traveler
1. Mythologies of Everyday Life
Byt: Daily Grind and Domestic Trash
Poshlost': Banality, Obscenity, Bad Taste
Meshchanstvo: Middle Class, Middlebrow
Private Life and Russian Soul
Truth, Sincerity, Affectation
Kul'turnost': The Totalitarian Lacquer Box
Soviet Songs: From Stalin's Fairy Tale to "Good-bye, Amerika"
2. Living in Common Places: The Communal Apartment
Family Romance and Communal Utopia
Art and the Housing Crisis: Intellectuals in the Closet
Welcome to the Communal Apartment
Psychopathology of Soviet Everyday Life
Interior Decoration
The Ruins of Utopia
A Homecoming, 1991
3. Writing Common Places: Graphomania
History of the Literary Disease
The Forgotten Classics
The Genius of the People and the Conceptual Police
Glasnost', Graphomania, and Popular Culture
A Taxi Ride with a Graphomaniac
4. Postcommunism, Postmodernism
The End of the Soviet World: From the Barricades to the Bazaar
Glasnost' Streetwalking: Fallen Monuments and Rising Dolls
Stalin's Cinematic Charisma, or History as Kitsch
Trashy Jewels of Women Artists
Merchant Renaissance and Cultural Scandals
The Obscure Object of Advertisement
Conclusion: Nostalgia for the Common Place
Notes
Index