Synopses & Reviews
In 1918 the People’s Commissariat of Public Health began a quest to protect the health of all Soviet citizens, but health became more than a political platform or a tactical decision. The Soviets defined and categorized the world by interpreting political orthodoxy and citizenship in terms of hygiene. The assumed political, social, and cultural benefits of a regulated, healthy lifestyle informed the construction of Soviet institutions and identity. Cleanliness developed into a political statement that extended from domestic maintenance to leisure choices and revealed gender, ethnic, and class prejudices. Dirt denoted the past and poor politics; health and cleanliness signified mental acuity, political orthodoxy, and modernity. Health, though essential to the revolutionary vision and crucial to Soviet plans for utopia, has been neglected by traditional histories caught up in Cold War debates. The Body Soviet recovers this significant aspect of Soviet thought by providing a cross-disciplinary, comparative history of Soviet health programs that draws upon rich sources of health care propaganda, including posters, plays, museum displays, films, and mock trials. The analysis of propaganda makes The Body Soviet more than an institutional history; it is also an insightful critique of the ideologies of the body fabricated by health organizations.
Review
“The Body Soviet is the first sustained investigation of the Bolshevik government’s early policies on hygiene and health care in general.”—Louise McReynolds, author of Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era
Review
“A masterpiece that will thoroughly fascinate and delight readers. Starks’s understanding of propaganda and hygiene in the early Soviet state is second to none. She tells the stories of Soviet efforts in this field with tremendous insight and ingenuity, providing a rich picture of Soviet life as it was actually lived.”— Elizabeth Wood, author of From Baba to Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia
Review
“Starks has produced a meticulous examination of written and visual propaganda, published sources, and archival holdings on public health and hygiene that assesses the goals and achievements of Soviet health policy as well as popular resistance to them. The volume provides a welcome contribution to the growing historical scholarship on everyday life in the early Soviet period. . .Well written and richly illustrated with reproductions of hygiene posters, it should find a wide audience among scholars interested in issues of public health, hygiene, sexuality, modernization, state intervention, and women’s issues.” —Sharon A. Kowalsky, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
“A welcome contribution to a now extensive literature on the New Economic Policy, building in particular on the existing scholarship of propaganda and posters, sexuality, public health, and women. Starks’s account is engaging (and sometimes humorous), and the volume as a whole provides a vibrant portrait of a wide range of propaganda sources.”—Susan K. Morrissey, Medical History
Review
“Stark’s prose is vivid, and her analytical tools sharp when she dissects theorists’ contradictory and muddled recommendations. Readers learn much about the messy reality of the Soviet byt in the 1920’s.”—Slavic Review
Review
“Serves to show how the ideals of those in power were far removed from the harsh realities experienced by those living in the filthy streets and overcrowded homes of the Soviet state.”—Susan Grant, Revolutionary Russia
Review
andldquo;A beautifully written, compact history of the Soviet Circus.andrdquo;andmdash;Janet M. Davis, author of The Circus
Review
andldquo;With its . . . refreshing eye for detail . . . Neirickandrsquo;s book is a valuable read. . . . This book is a significant addition to the body of recent works that transgress standard dichotomies of official and popular culture.andrdquo;andmdash;
American Historical ReviewReview
andldquo;A pleasure to read and a long-awaited, welcome contribution to the fields of eighteenth-century studies, womenandrsquo;s history, the history of education, and the history of medicine.andrdquo;andmdash;Rebecca Friedman, author of Masculinity, Autocracy and the Russian University, 1804andndash;1863
Review
andldquo;Anna Kuxhausen combines meticulous and pathbreaking research with sophisticated argument to shed new light on little-known aspects of eighteenth-century Russian history.andrdquo;andmdash;Adele Lindenmeyr, Villanova University
Review
andldquo;Kuxhausen has provided a good guide to the rapid entry of Enlightenment discourses into Russian intellectual life . . . and she has done so with an overarching theme that reveals the mutually reinforcing effects and aspirations for national assertion of the Russian court.andrdquo;andmdash;
The Russian ReviewSynopsis
Health, though essential to the revolutionary vision and crucial to Soviet plans for utopia, has been neglected by traditional histories caught up in Cold War debates. The Body Soviet recovers this significant aspect of Soviet thought by providing a cross-disciplinary, comparative history of Soviet health programs that draws upon rich sources of health care propaganda, including posters, plays, museum displays, films, and mock trials.
Synopsis
For more than seven decades the circuses enjoyed tremendous popularity in the Soviet Union. How did the circusandmdash;an institution that dethroned figures of authority and refused any orderly narrative structureandmdash;become such a cultural mainstay in a state known for blunt and didactic messages? Miriam Neirick argues that the variety, flexibility, and indeterminacy of the modern circus accounted for its appeal not only to diverse viewers but also to the Soviet state. In a society where government-legitimating myths underwent periodic revision, the circus proved a supple medium of communication.
and#160;and#160;and#160; Between 1919 and 1991, it variously displayed the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution, the beauty of the new Soviet man and woman, the vulnerability of the enemy during World War II, the prosperity of the postwar Soviet household, and the Soviet mission of international peaceandmdash;all while entertaining the public with the acrobats, elephants, and clowns. With its unique ability to meet and reconcile the demands of both state and society, the Soviet circus became the unlikely darling of Soviet culture and an entertainment whose usefulness and popularity stemmed from its ambiguity.
Synopsis
In Russia during the second half of the eighteenth century, a public conversation emerged that altered perceptions of pregnancy, birth, and early childhood. Children began to be viewed as a national resource, and childbirth heralded new members of the body politic. The exclusively female world of mothers, midwives, and nannies came under the scrutiny of male physicians, state institutions, a host of zealous reformers, and even Empress Catherine the Great.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Making innovative use of obstetrical manuals, belles lettres, childrenandrsquo;s primers, and other primary documents from the era, Anna Kuxhausen draws together many discoursesandmdash;medical, pedagogical, and politicalandmdash;to show the scope and audacity of new notions about childrearing. Reformers aimed to teach women to care for the bodies of pregnant mothers, infants, and children according to medical standards of the Enlightenment. Kuxhausen reveals both their optimism and their sometimes fatal blind spots in matters of implementation. In examining the implication of women in public, even political, roles as agents of state-building and the civilizing process, From the Womb to the Body Politic offers a nuanced, expanded view of the Enlightenment in Russia and the ways in which Russians imagined their nation while constructing notions of childhood.
About the Author
Miriam Neirick is assistant professor in the Department of History at California State University, Northridge.
Table of Contents
Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. Revolution: Destruction, Cleansing, Creation 2. State: Diagnosing, Monitoring, Disciplining 3. City: Instruction, Regulation, Isolation 4. Family: Housekeeping, Social Duty, Public Concern 5. Home: Maternity, Birth, Parenthood 6. Body: Hygiene, Discipline, MentalityEpilogue Notes Bibliography Index