Socialist spaces
Subtitle: sites of everyday life in the Eastern Bloc
By: edited by David Crowley and Susan E. Reid.
Contributors: Crowley, David, 1966-; Reid, Susan Emily.
Publisher: Berg Publishers
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 261
Subjects: Communism and architecture -- Europe, Eastern; Communism and architecture -- Soviet Union; Space (Architecture) -- Europe, Eastern; Space (Architecture) -- Soviet Union
Description: "What were Socialist Spaces? The Eastern Bloc produced distinctive spaces, some of which were fashioned from ideological templates, such as the monumental parade grounds and Red Squares where communist leaders could receive tributes, or new factory cities with towering chimneys and glittering palaces of culture. But what of the grimy toilet in the communal apartment or the forlorn ruins left after the Second World War?This book explores the representation, meanings and uses of space in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union between 1947 and 1991. The essays - written from different disciplinary perspectives - investigate the extent to which actual spaces conformed to the dominant political order in the region. Should, for instance, the creation of private spaces, such as the Russian dacha and the Czech chata, be understood as acts of appropriation in which lives were fashioned against the collective or, alternatively, as 'gifts' given by the State in return for quiescence? Whilst monuments and public spaces were designed to relay official ideology, one of the most notable features of the events that marked the end of the Bloc was the way that they became sites of dissent. Examining the myriad ways in which space was used and conceived within socialist society, this book makes an essential contribution to Eastern European and Soviet Studies and provides significant new angles on the factors that underpinned socialism's eventual downfall."--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Socialist spaces : sites of everyday life in the Eastern Bloc / David Crowley and Susan E. Reid; title: Accommodation and agitation in Sevastopol : redefining socialist space in the postwar 'city of glory' / Karl D. Qualls; title: Living in the Russian present with a German past : the problems of identity in the city of Kaliningrad / Olga Sezneva; title: The role of monumental sculpture in the construction of socialist space in stalinist Hungary / Reuben Fowkes; title: Wandering the streets of socialism : a discussion of the street photography of Arno Fischer and Ursula Arnold / Astrid Ihle; title: Soviet exurbia : dachas in postwar Russia / Stephen Lovell; title: Weekend getaways : the chata, the tramp and the politics of private life in post-1968 Czechoslovakia / Paulina Bren; title: Khrushchev's children's paradise : the Pioneer Palace, Moscow, 1958 / Susan E. Reid; title: Warsaw interiors : the public life of private spaces, 1949 / David Crowley; title: Public privacy in the Soviet communal apartment / Katerina Gerasimova; title: Curtains : decor for the end of empire / Mark A Avede.