Daily life in the USSR
October 19, 2016 1:44 AM Subscribe
What books give a sense of what daily life was like in the USSR?
In past AskMe questions, Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick has been highly recommended. What I'm looking for is something that answers questions like how to buy a car, how to get a television, how to go on holiday etc etc, as well the overall geopolitical events. Will the Remnick book do that, or would I be better with something else? I'm looking for something relatively easy to read rather than heavily academic. I'm primarily interested in books, but open to other resources.
Thanks!
In past AskMe questions, Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick has been highly recommended. What I'm looking for is something that answers questions like how to buy a car, how to get a television, how to go on holiday etc etc, as well the overall geopolitical events. Will the Remnick book do that, or would I be better with something else? I'm looking for something relatively easy to read rather than heavily academic. I'm primarily interested in books, but open to other resources.
Thanks!
Best answer: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Probably not exactly what you had in mind but it's a powerful book about the daily life of a select group of Russians. It's pretty short but fascinating.
You probably can't understand the life of Russians without understanding the constant threat of being sent to the Gulag. Many Russians listened to foreign radio or passed around western literature and risked Siberia.
posted by H21 at 2:28 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
You probably can't understand the life of Russians without understanding the constant threat of being sent to the Gulag. Many Russians listened to foreign radio or passed around western literature and risked Siberia.
posted by H21 at 2:28 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Limonov (Penguin Modern Classics) by Emmanuel Carrère
Unputdownable!
Lifted from one of the Amazon comments "Born on the Volga just days before the German surrender at Stalingrad, Limonov was the son of a Chekist, and at various points in his colorful life: a street punk, a radical underground poet, an emigre, a lionized writer, a notorious fighter alongside heinous Serbs, and a jailed faux revolutionary. Today he is a more or less tolerated radical oppositionist. He has lived 10 lives in the space most people reserve for one, yet has never attained the power and notoriety that he sought. He wanted to be a soldier or lead a revolution. Instead, he was merely a colorful sideshow."
Fun fact: "Solzhenitsyn described Limonov as 'a little insect who writes pornography,' while Limonov described Solzhenitsyn as a traitor to his homeland who contributed to the downfall of the USSR."
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:24 AM on October 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Unputdownable!
Lifted from one of the Amazon comments "Born on the Volga just days before the German surrender at Stalingrad, Limonov was the son of a Chekist, and at various points in his colorful life: a street punk, a radical underground poet, an emigre, a lionized writer, a notorious fighter alongside heinous Serbs, and a jailed faux revolutionary. Today he is a more or less tolerated radical oppositionist. He has lived 10 lives in the space most people reserve for one, yet has never attained the power and notoriety that he sought. He wanted to be a soldier or lead a revolution. Instead, he was merely a colorful sideshow."
Fun fact: "Solzhenitsyn described Limonov as 'a little insect who writes pornography,' while Limonov described Solzhenitsyn as a traitor to his homeland who contributed to the downfall of the USSR."
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:24 AM on October 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Best answer: If you're interested in branching out beyond books, I'd highly recommend pursuing Soviet movies. Two in particular that I can think of right now: "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" This is a bit of a farce on the Soviet lifestyle to a point, but it's the equivalent to the American "It's a Wonderful Life." It's a big tradition to watch it around New Years for families, is shown on tv in full, etc.
The other I'd recommend is "Office Romance," which is a pretty traditional romantic comedy, but the office life depicted is not so far from the truth according to the Soviet ex-pats I had for professors in college.
posted by zizzle at 3:51 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
The other I'd recommend is "Office Romance," which is a pretty traditional romantic comedy, but the office life depicted is not so far from the truth according to the Soviet ex-pats I had for professors in college.
posted by zizzle at 3:51 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: You might want to look at The Russians. It was written in the mid 1970's by Hedrick Smith the NYT bureau chief in Moscow. This was the height of the soviet era and if I recall correctly dealt with everyday life as much as the bigger political issues.
posted by mygoditsbob at 3:52 AM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by mygoditsbob at 3:52 AM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
Best answer: I haven't read Red Plenty, but it's supposed to be a very good book. A mix of fiction and nonfiction, very readable.
If you skim through the Amazon reviews there are some people who lived in the USSR during the 50s-70s being totally amazed that the author captured the day-to-day feel of things so accurately.
posted by vogon_poet at 4:44 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you skim through the Amazon reviews there are some people who lived in the USSR during the 50s-70s being totally amazed that the author captured the day-to-day feel of things so accurately.
posted by vogon_poet at 4:44 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The books of Martin Cruz Smith are detective stories, not books about daily life in the Soviet Union, but they do have a lot of daily life. I have no way to evaluate the accuracy of the detail, but it seems plausible.
posted by Bruce H. at 5:18 AM on October 19, 2016
posted by Bruce H. at 5:18 AM on October 19, 2016
Best answer: Specific to a particular time period, and a little more academic, Sheila Fitzpatrick's:
Everyday Stalinism - Ordinary life in extraordinary times : Soviet Russia in the 1930s
It gets into things like the "blat" system and how it was used to grease the wheels of everyday commerce.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:01 AM on October 19, 2016
Everyday Stalinism - Ordinary life in extraordinary times : Soviet Russia in the 1930s
It gets into things like the "blat" system and how it was used to grease the wheels of everyday commerce.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:01 AM on October 19, 2016
Oh! And...you might also be interested in this thread: How to buy a car in the U.S.S.R., particularly this first-hand comment about car buying under Soviet rule.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:13 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:13 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If you want more casual writing, Mastering the art of Soviet cooking by Anya Von Brenzen is a lovely memoir of growing up in the Soviet Union. Plus, lots of food!
posted by Valancy Rachel at 7:25 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Valancy Rachel at 7:25 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: One of my favorites is a photo book: A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union.
Be advised that this question depends heavily on the decade and the region you're talking about. Smolensk 1960 vs. Leningrad 1945 vs. Alma-Ata in 1928... this is like asking "what was life like in the Roman Empire."
posted by SMPA at 8:01 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Be advised that this question depends heavily on the decade and the region you're talking about. Smolensk 1960 vs. Leningrad 1945 vs. Alma-Ata in 1928... this is like asking "what was life like in the Roman Empire."
posted by SMPA at 8:01 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I second the recommendations for Soviet movies and Hedrick Smith's The Russians; also early writing by Vasily Aksyonov and anything by Sergei Dovlatov (who is hilarious as well as sharp as a tack) should help.
> Probably not exactly what you had in mind but it's a powerful book about the daily life of a select group of Russians.
It's not at all what he had in mind. Can we please not default to "Soviet Union = Gulag" for once? Thanks!
> The books of Martin Cruz Smith are detective stories, not books about daily life in the Soviet Union, but they do have a lot of daily life.
But they're not by a Russian, and there's no point immersing yourself in possibly inaccurate details by a foreigner when there is more writing by actual Soviet citizens than you could ever hope to read.
posted by languagehat at 8:02 AM on October 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
> Probably not exactly what you had in mind but it's a powerful book about the daily life of a select group of Russians.
It's not at all what he had in mind. Can we please not default to "Soviet Union = Gulag" for once? Thanks!
> The books of Martin Cruz Smith are detective stories, not books about daily life in the Soviet Union, but they do have a lot of daily life.
But they're not by a Russian, and there's no point immersing yourself in possibly inaccurate details by a foreigner when there is more writing by actual Soviet citizens than you could ever hope to read.
posted by languagehat at 8:02 AM on October 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
Best answer: One start is The Russian Context (there is still a lot of cultural stuff that overlaps with current times)
Older editions of co-author Genevra Gerhart's The Russian's World are much more Soviet oriented.
One that I've read more recently, which covers life in the boonies, is an American travelogue through late-Soviet (1989? 1990?) rural Ukraine. (I will post the title when I find it again)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:57 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Older editions of co-author Genevra Gerhart's The Russian's World are much more Soviet oriented.
One that I've read more recently, which covers life in the boonies, is an American travelogue through late-Soviet (1989? 1990?) rural Ukraine. (I will post the title when I find it again)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:57 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Venedikt Yerofeyev's Moscow Stations, while actively absurdist, is a day-in-the-life book that was popular as samizdat. Several translations exist with slightly different titles: Moscow-Petushki, Moscow to the End of the Line, and Moscow Circles.
posted by scruss at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: It sounds like a Mefite is writing that book (or fairly close; the fall) - maybe they might be open to answering some questions from you directly (perhaps it might be useful to their writing to hear specific things people are curious about)?
posted by anonymisc at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2016
posted by anonymisc at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2016
Best answer: I heartily second The Russian Context and The Russian's World; they expect but don't require an interest in the Russian language. For the early Soviet period, I'd suggest Viktor Shklovsky's A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs, 1917-1922; for the NEP period of the '20s, the hilarious Ostap Bender novels of Ilf and Petrov (The Twelve Chairs and The Little Golden Calf); for the '30s, Sheila Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s and Karl Schlögel's Moscow 1937 (my review here); for the '50s Vladislav Zubok's Zhivago's Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia (my review here); for the '60s Mihajlo Mihajlov's Moscow Summer (1966; my review here) and (for a foreigner's immersed point of view) Leona Schecter's An American Family in Moscow (1968-70). Colin Thubron's Among the Russians reports on a journey around the USSR he took in 1980. For the very end of the Soviet period, Susan Richards's Epics of Everyday Life: Encounters in a Changing Russia and (for culture) Thomas Lahusen's (edited) Late Soviet Culture: From Perestroika to Novostroika. For popular culture, Richard Stites's Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900. Fitzroy Maclean's Portrait of the Soviet Union is wonderfully illustrated. Useful anthologies are Carl R. Proffer's Contemporary Russian Prose and Helena Goscilo's Glasnost: An Anthology of Russian Literature Under Gorbachev.
Also, I wrote to an ex-Soviet Russian friend, who recommended the Moscow cycle of Yuri Trifonov novels as well as his short stories; Vera Panova; Anatoly Rybakov's Children of the Arbat cycle; for life in the country, the village writers, like Fedor Abramov, Boris Vasiliev, and Yuri Kazakov; Vasily Grossman (tons of details of how life was organised, passport controls, propiska, food distribution, etc.); Vladimir Voinovich; and Voslensky's Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class.
That should hold you for a while, but if you want further recommendations (say, if you get interested in a particular city), hit me up for more!
posted by languagehat at 12:09 PM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
Also, I wrote to an ex-Soviet Russian friend, who recommended the Moscow cycle of Yuri Trifonov novels as well as his short stories; Vera Panova; Anatoly Rybakov's Children of the Arbat cycle; for life in the country, the village writers, like Fedor Abramov, Boris Vasiliev, and Yuri Kazakov; Vasily Grossman (tons of details of how life was organised, passport controls, propiska, food distribution, etc.); Vladimir Voinovich; and Voslensky's Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class.
That should hold you for a while, but if you want further recommendations (say, if you get interested in a particular city), hit me up for more!
posted by languagehat at 12:09 PM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Seconding reading actual Russian, Ukrainian etc authors. You simply cannot get the feel of the country by reading only Western authors.
I recommend books by Svetlana Alexievich - a Nobel prize laureate in 2015.
posted by M. at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I recommend books by Svetlana Alexievich - a Nobel prize laureate in 2015.
posted by M. at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks all, and thanks especially languagehat for going to such efforts!
posted by StephenF at 3:41 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by StephenF at 3:41 PM on October 19, 2016
You've had some good book suggestions, so forgive me if I link a couple of perhaps relevant MetaFilter threads
Filming everyday life near the end of the Soviet Union
The blog at this link is now dead, but can be browsed (clunkily) here.
posted by Rumple at 4:18 PM on October 19, 2016
Filming everyday life near the end of the Soviet Union
The blog at this link is now dead, but can be browsed (clunkily) here.
posted by Rumple at 4:18 PM on October 19, 2016
Not exactly the Soviet Union, but a good movie about a clash between communism and capitalism is Goodbye Lenin.
It is set in East Germany (well Germany because it has been reunified) where someones mother wakes up after being in a coma for 10 years. The doctors say that she is quite fragile mentally and might not cope with the huge changes, so the son and his friends timewarp her life back to living in 1980's East Germany. They revert the apartment back to the old style and remove the nice modern furniture and also buy old east german food to stock the shelves in the pantry. It is a comedy, in German, and well worth a watch even if not quite applicable to the question directly.
posted by koolkat at 1:12 AM on October 20, 2016
It is set in East Germany (well Germany because it has been reunified) where someones mother wakes up after being in a coma for 10 years. The doctors say that she is quite fragile mentally and might not cope with the huge changes, so the son and his friends timewarp her life back to living in 1980's East Germany. They revert the apartment back to the old style and remove the nice modern furniture and also buy old east german food to stock the shelves in the pantry. It is a comedy, in German, and well worth a watch even if not quite applicable to the question directly.
posted by koolkat at 1:12 AM on October 20, 2016
seconding Goodbye Lenin; it's the only feelgood film about totalitarianism you'll ever see!
posted by scruss at 10:09 AM on October 21, 2016
posted by scruss at 10:09 AM on October 21, 2016
Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is a great movie made in 1979 about the lives of 3 women.
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 3:56 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 3:56 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
ah, I finally found the Soviet Ukraine travelogue again! Soviet Laughter, Soviet Tears by Christine & Ralph Dull.
I consider it vital both for an outsider's perspective (it includes both the Dulls' account of their time in Ukraine, and a couple of Ukrainian farmers' account of their time on the Dulls' Ohio farm), and for a weird snapshot of the very last days of the Soviet system (it was published in 1992!).
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:26 AM on October 25, 2016
I consider it vital both for an outsider's perspective (it includes both the Dulls' account of their time in Ukraine, and a couple of Ukrainian farmers' account of their time on the Dulls' Ohio farm), and for a weird snapshot of the very last days of the Soviet system (it was published in 1992!).
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:26 AM on October 25, 2016
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