The warm home of Cacti and other Soviet memories: Russian workers reflect on the socialist period

Jeremy Morris

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
25 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article examines ‘lay’ memory and understandings of the Soviet Union
within a working-class community in regional Russia. Based on ethnographic
fieldwork and materials, it presents informants’ narratives on the past as
seen through the division of lived experience into the present and the ‘time
before’ 1991. Positive associations of the past refer to the benefits of the
social wage under socialism, the loss of which is keenly felt even while
paternalistic relations continue to be expected by workers from enterprises.
Shared class-based memory is a resource articulating a ‘lay’ reasoning on
the supposed superiority of the socialist social contract, rather than any
articulation of political support for the Soviet system. What endures is
a clearly articulated, morally normative understanding of social justice,
mythical in the past and absent in the present.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)16-31
Number of pages16
JournalCentral Europe
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2014

Keywords

  • working-class culture
  • memory
  • lay normativity
  • Soviet Union
  • Russia
  • ethnography

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