We Are The State We Seek: Everyday Life in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, 1945–89

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNEMARIE SAMMARTINO
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Good Effect ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
East European ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
History Of

The study of everyday life has had a particular resonance for historians of state socialism for a variety of reasons. First, the study of everyday life promises to get beyond the notorious doublespeak and rosy scenarios of official discourse. Second, the history of everyday life makes use of the great boon of recent history: the availability of interview subjects. Historians of earlier periods can only look longingly at the surfeit of interview subjects available to those who work on more recent decades. While oral history can have its own problems, the works under consideration in this review largely use them to good effect to get at the lacunae and misrepresentations in official discourse. Third, the study of everyday life offers an important vantage point for understanding the vast majority of citizens who were not resistors and yet challenged the state in important ways. As Sandrine Kott has noted, ‘individual preference . . . constituted a third brake on the “perfect” working of the system’. Finally, the ‘interesting’ events in East European socialism are ones that are people powered, most famously the 1989 revolutions that spanned the region. The history of everyday life offers the promise of explaining the paradox of how supposedly stable regimes which experienced comparatively little open resistance in forty years of existence collapsed in a matter of weeks or even days.

scholarly journals Curtains Up! Shifting Emotional Styles in Gay Men's Venues Since the 1950s

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1–2) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Benno Gammerl
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Variation ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Male Homosexuality ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Oral History Interviews

This opinion piece enquires into the history of male homosexuality in West Germany since the 1950s and focuses on the transition from the homophile bar to the gay disco as a prototypical meeting place for same-sex desiring men. Which emotional shifts did this spatial variation entail? Based on oral history interviews and gay magazines, the analysis explores intricate changes in queer everyday life beyond the all too simple supposition that closeted shame was supplanted by openly gay pride. In addition, the study shows on a methodological level that the allegedly antagonistic approaches in emotion research – constructionism, praxeology, affect-theory and phenomenology – can actually be fruitfully combined with each other, especially when it comes to analysing the interplay between spaces and feelings.

scholarly journals Features of actualizing of sources of personal origin on history of national-cultural movement in Ukrainian Galicia (1848–1914)

2018 ◽  
pp. 104-110
Author(s):  
Liliya Shologon
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
The State ◽  
Systemic Approach ◽  
Second Line ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Movement ◽  
Political Decisions

The article analyses memories, autobiographies, diaries, correspondence both by the influential Galician political, social and cultural figures, and by so-called “second-line” activists in detail, which gave us the ground to make conclusion about important political decisions. But we may also state, that information which was not found in the documents of the official character quite fitted into the source base of the creating of the current models of the “history of everyday life”, and “microhistory”. The author tries to pay special attention to the combination of personal and macro historical and micro historical components in the sources study. The state of the features of the actualizing of the sources of the personal origin by the researchers of the late 19 — early 20 century of the interwar period, Ukrainian foreign and Soviet scientists, modern scientists are revealed. It is necessary to mention, that the actualization of the sources of the personal origin also lacks a systemic approach. The published sources carry mostly “anniversary” character meaning, that the works are dedicated to the anniversary dates of some prominent figures. Despite of the material concerning the prominent figures, the testimony of so called “second-line” activists who were the members of the Ukrainian national-cultural movement in Galicia, are still ignored by the modern archaeological publications.

scholarly journals DISCRIMINATION, OPPORTUNITY, AND MIDDLE-CLASS SUCCESS IN EARLY COMMUNIST HUNGARY

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES MARK
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
The State ◽  
Central European ◽  
Communist State ◽  
Professional Success ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S

This article explores the middle-class response to life under the early Communist state in Hungary. It is based on an oral history of the Budapest bourgeoisie, and challenges some of the dominant indigenous representations of the central European middle class as persecuted victims who were forced into ‘internal exile’ by the Stalinist state. Despite being officially discriminated against as ‘former exploiters’, large numbers achieved educational and professional success. Their skills were increasingly needed in the rapid modernization of the 1950s, and the state provided them with semi-official opportunities to remake themselves into acceptable Communist citizens. Middle-class testimony revealed how individuals constructed politically appropriate public personas to ensure their own upward mobility; they hid aspects of their pasts, created ‘class conscious’ autobiographies, and learnt how to demonstrate sufficient political loyalty. The ways in which individuals dealt with integrating into a system which officially sought to exclude them and which many disliked ideologically is then examined. In order to ‘cope with success’, respondents in this project invented new stories about themselves to justify the compromises they had made to ensure their achievements. These narratives are analysed as evidence of specifically Communist middle-class identities.

scholarly journals KYIV HISTORY IN EGO-DOCUMENTS: HRYHORII GALAGAN’S LETTER TO OLEKSANDR KOCHUBEY, 1857

2017 ◽  
pp. 136-140
Author(s):  
Maryna Budzar
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Significant Source ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
State Council ◽  
Family Issues ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The use of the epistolary heritage is one of the main requirements of the researchers who study Ukrainian cities. An important task is to reconstruct the history of Kyiv through the impressions of its inhabitants. Such a task is realized in the article, which is the publication of one of the letters of Hryhorii Pavlovych Galagan, the great landlord, influential public and cultural figure of the middle and second half of the 19th century, to his wife’s uncle, Oleksandr Vasyliovych Kochubey, the representative of the higher echelons of the imperial elite, a member of the State Council of Russian Empire. The document is a significant source. Apart the main theme of the letter — the visit of Emperor Alexander II to Kyiv in autumn of 1857, here is highlighted a number of socio-political and private-family issues. The publication of the document is important for the study of the Ukrainian elite of the 19th century in multidimensional manifestations of social and everyday life.

scholarly journals New Central and East-European Cinema

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Stojanova
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East European ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Short Films ◽  
History Of

UNE NOUVELLE EUROPE: THE DOUBLE QUEST OF NEW CENTRAL AND EAST-EUROPEAN CINEMA The Berlin Wall collapsed some eight years ago, along with the repressive totalitarian Communist regimes it came to symbolise, thus neatly wrapping up half a century in the history of Eastern Europe. Little has reached our shores, however, about the effects on everyday life of this unprecedented change, brought about by mostly "velvet" revolutions across the region. In March of this year Cinémathèque Québécoise launched Une Nouvelle Europe: A Panorama of Central and Eastern European Cinema, featuring 28 feature and 5 short films from 8 countries.(1) The selection was also presented in Toronto (Cinematheque Ontario, April 4-May 1, 1997) and in Vancouver (Pacific Cinematheque, March 22-May 1), under the title A New Europe: Reeling After The Fall. The organisation of the event was an arduous and time consuming task. It took more than a year and a...

scholarly journals The Neelovs Fond from the State Archive of the Smolensk Region: Russian Public Figures of the 19th Century in the Midst of Rural Everyday Life

2020 ◽  
pp. 995-1006
Author(s):  
Natalia I. Gorskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Role ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Body ◽  
State Archive ◽  
The Family ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article analyzes sources in the family fond “The Neelovs” from the State Archive of the Smolensk Region. The main body of documents relates to the history of the 19th century and has not yet been introduced into scientific use. The Neelovs, nobles of the Gzhatsk uezd, who were included in the first part of the genealogical book of the nobles of the Smolensk gubernia, participated in major events of the 19th century on national and regional level. The article is to describe the content of the fond and to assess the information potential of its sources for studying the history of a noble provincial family in the context of Russian history. It establishes that the documents differ in their origin and significance. Recordkeeping documents and those of personal provenance are numerous and informative. Among recordkeeping documents of particular interest are documents of economic nature and the Neelov brothers’ records of service; among sources of personal provenance of most interest are travel notes and epistolary heritage of the family members. There are numerous documents reflecting the Neelov brothers’ life and career, many of which concern well-known Russian professor of the Military Academy and writer N. D. Neelov and the director of the department of agriculture of the Ministry of State Property and Senator D.D. Neelov. The author concludes that the identified sources allow to recreate the history of a rural noble family before and after the abolition of seldom, to study its economic situation, culture, everyday life, and evolution of the social role of nobility in provincial life. The fond content also clarifies socio-economic processes in the midst of peasantry, history and repercussions of the major events of the 19th century: the war of 1812, the Polish uprising of 1831, preparation of the abolition of seldom, activities of the Zemstvo institutions; it helps to connect the history of the family and the history of the country.

scholarly journals Everyday Life of the Russian Nuns in the Holy Land at the Time of Changes in the Middle East, 1940s–1950s

2021 ◽  
pp. 190-200
Author(s):  
N.A. Beliakova
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This study aims at providing an overview of the everyday life of Russian nuns in Palestine after World War II. This research encompassed the following tasks: to analyze the range of ego-documents available today, characterizing the everyday life and internal motivation of women in choosing the church jurisdiction; to identify, on the basis of written sources, the most active supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to examine the nuns’ activity as information agents of the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet government; to characterize the actors influencing the everyday life of the Russian nuns in the context of the creation of the state of Israel and new borders dividing the Holy Land; to present the motives and instruments of influence employed by the representatives of both secu-lar and church diplomacies in respect to the women leading a monastic life; to describe consequences of including the nuns into the sphere of interest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; to show the specific role of “Russian women” in the context of the struggle for securing positions of the USSR and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region. The sources for the study were prodused by the state (correspondence between the state authorities, meeting notes) and from the religious actors (letters of nuns to the church authorities, reports of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, memoirs of the clergy). By combining the methods of micro-history and history of the everyday life with the political history of the Cold War, the study examines the agency of the nuns — a category of women traditionally unnoticeable in the political history. Due to the specificity of the sources, the study focuses exclusively on a group of the nuns of the Holy Land who came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patri-archate. The majority of the Russian-speaking population of Palestine in the mid-1940s were women in the status of monastic residents (nuns and novices) and pilgrims, and in the 1940s–1950s, they were drawn into the geopolitical combinations of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, staffed with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, becomes a key institution of influence in the region. This article shows how elderly nuns became an object of close attention and even funding by the Soviet state. The everyday life of the nuns became directly dependent on the activities of the Soviet agencies and Soviet-Israeli relations after the arri-val of the Soviet state representatives. At the same time, the nuns became key participants in the inter-jurisdictional conflicts and began to act as agents of influence in the region. The study analyzes numerous ego-documents created by the nuns themselves from the collection of the Council on the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the USSR Council of Ministers. The study shows how nuns positioned themselves as leading a monastic life in the written correspondence with the ROC authorities and staff of the Soviet MFA. The instances of influence of different secular authorities on the development of the female monasticism presented here point to promising research avenues for future reconstruction of the history of women in the Holy Land based on archival materials from state departments, alternative sources should also be found. The study focused on the life of elderly Russian nuns in the Holy Land and showed their activity in the context of the geopolitical transformations in the Near East in the 1940s–1950s.

scholarly journals Leisure in Stalin’s Estonia

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-248
Author(s):  
Olaf Mertelesmann
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
The State ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Harsh Reality

The period of Stalinism is usually overshadowed by accounts of terror and a topic like leisure seems not to be appropriate. Nevertheless, leisure was an important aspect of everyday life in Estonia under Stalin’s reign. Some elements of continuity with the interwar period might be identified. The state struggled to control leisure activities and to re-educate the population but obviously failed. Listening to foreign radio stations or reading forbidden books might have been subversive but were not yet signs of resistance. Many leisure activities bore the character of escaping from a harsh reality and from poverty. The paper is based on archival documents, oral history and life stories.

“SEEING LIKE A STATE”: AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MODERN IRAN

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 61a-61a
Author(s):  
Cyrus Schayegh
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Top Down ◽  
State Action ◽  
History Of ◽  
Iranian State ◽  
Pahlavi Dynasty

This essay argues that with the rise of the autocratic Pahlavi dynasty (1921–79), the state started to cast a long shadow over the historiography of modern Iran. Drawing on dynastic nationalism, modernization policies, and repression, the Pahlavi shahs and their bureaucratic elites produced an image of an all-powerful state completely detached from society. Scholars often reflexively replicated this top-down perspective. The resulting methodological statism, a metanarrative of state action as the inevitable ultimate reference point of all things Iranian, has reified our understanding of the modern Iranian state and, more generally, limited our vision of “the history of Pahlavi Iran.” Fixated on autocratic policymaking, we have ignored routine citizen–government interactions; equally, we lack microhistories of the complex facets of everyday life. By illuminating the politics and history of methodological statism, this essay hopes to prepare the ground for the assimilation of such alternative perspectives into the historiography of modern Iran.

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