Public Life in a Private Space: Housing and Gender in 20th Century Russia
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Languages Linguistics and Cultures
Abstract
This project explores urban housing, the home and the concept of 'private life' in 20th Century Russia, paying particular attention to the differential experiences and attitudes of men and women in relation to housing and daily life. It will show how Soviet ideology on gender, combined with the peculiarities of Russian urban housing, continually complicated the traditional distinction between male/public and female/private space, as well as challenging the distinction between public and private space itself.
Private life, housing and the home have received considerable attention in relation to Western democracies. Most notably, a five-volume study on the subject by French historians was published in the 1980s/1990s. Yet although the volume IV identifies 'the despotism of totalitarian states' as one reason for the growth in interest in private life [Michelle Perrot (ed.) A History of Private Life Volume IV (1990) p 1], Soviet Russia is not one of the countries included in the study.
In general there has been relatively little research on these subjects in relation to Russia. Much of the work on housing in the Soviet Union has been concerned with economic and social issues, with analysts of the post-Soviet situation looking at housing as one aspect of Russia's move to a market economy. One edited collection has taken a broader view of the subject (W.C. Brumfield and BA Ruble, eds., Russian Housing in the Modern Age, 1993), and recent interest in daily life in the Soviet Union has inevitably looked at housing and home life as one aspect of daily life: this is most notable in the work of S. Boym, S. Fitzpatrick, S. Kotkin, and S. Reid. There is also an increasing amount of work in Russian on the subject of daily life and the peculiarities of Soviet housing. Some reference has been made to ways in which the Russian home has been differentially experienced by men and women (e.g. by B. Holmgren and L. Lissyutkina), but there has been no systematic study of this issue. There has also been no work on the ways in which official ideas on housing and family life in Russia have been propagandised through the media, or on media representations of the 'new Russian' home.
This study will therefore constitute a major addition to work on the public and private.
Private life, housing and the home have received considerable attention in relation to Western democracies. Most notably, a five-volume study on the subject by French historians was published in the 1980s/1990s. Yet although the volume IV identifies 'the despotism of totalitarian states' as one reason for the growth in interest in private life [Michelle Perrot (ed.) A History of Private Life Volume IV (1990) p 1], Soviet Russia is not one of the countries included in the study.
In general there has been relatively little research on these subjects in relation to Russia. Much of the work on housing in the Soviet Union has been concerned with economic and social issues, with analysts of the post-Soviet situation looking at housing as one aspect of Russia's move to a market economy. One edited collection has taken a broader view of the subject (W.C. Brumfield and BA Ruble, eds., Russian Housing in the Modern Age, 1993), and recent interest in daily life in the Soviet Union has inevitably looked at housing and home life as one aspect of daily life: this is most notable in the work of S. Boym, S. Fitzpatrick, S. Kotkin, and S. Reid. There is also an increasing amount of work in Russian on the subject of daily life and the peculiarities of Soviet housing. Some reference has been made to ways in which the Russian home has been differentially experienced by men and women (e.g. by B. Holmgren and L. Lissyutkina), but there has been no systematic study of this issue. There has also been no work on the ways in which official ideas on housing and family life in Russia have been propagandised through the media, or on media representations of the 'new Russian' home.
This study will therefore constitute a major addition to work on the public and private.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Lynne Attwood (Principal Investigator) |