Style and socialism : modernity and material culture in post-war Eastern Europe / edited by Susan E. Reid and David Crowley.
Contributor(s): Reid, Susan Emily
| Crowley, David.
Material type: 
BookPublisher: Oxford ; New York : Berg, 2000Description: xiii, 213 p. : ill., ports. ; 22 cm. + hbk.ISBN: 1859732348 (hbk.); 1859732399 (pbk.).Subject(s): Material culture -- Europe, Eastern -- History -- 20th century | Socialism and culture -- Europe, Eastern -- History -- 20th century | Europe, Eastern -- History -- 1945-1989DDC classification: 339.470947
| Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Lending | MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending | 339.470947 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00066220 | ||
| General Lending | MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending | 339.470947 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00054787 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
This book explores the material and visual world of the socialist Bloc from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. The essays, by authors from a range of disciplines, examine the forms and uses of material objects that made up the environment of life behind the 'Iron Curtain', and investigates the particular ways in which these objects came to represent the often divergent aspirations of regimes and peoples in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.The two decades after the end of the Second World War considered here constitute two contrasting periods: that of post-war Stalinism and the 'sovietization' or 'stalinization' of Eastern Europe; and, from the mid-1950s, the period of destalinization and relative cultural liberalization known as the Thaw. During the Thaw, consumerism and a moderate fashion consciousness began to be tolerated or even encouraged to varying degrees in different parts of the Bloc. Style, regarded as a suspect notion under Stalin, became a legitimate and even urgent issue. What forms of dress, home furnishings and housing, as well as of fine art, would provide a stimulating environment that could meet the physical and ideological needs of -- and give shape to -- modern, socialist life? Challenging the assumption that all cultural norms were generated and effectively imposed by Moscow, essays in this anthology investigate the interactions and exchanges between the countries of the Eastern Bloc and and ask how, even in socialist economies, the consumption of material objects -- or the refusal to consume -- could project personal and collective identities and even articulate resistance.Anyone who seeks to understand the effects of state socialism on life in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, or who is interested in the intersection of politics with art, design and material culture will find this book absorbing and illuminating.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Preface (p. vii)
- List of Contributors (p. xi)
- 1 Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe (p. 1)
- Notes (p. 18)
- 2 Warsaw's Shops, Stalinism and the Thaw (p. 25)
- Notes (p. 44)
- 3 Stalinism, Working-Class Housing and Individual Autonomy: the Encouragement of Private House Building in Hungary's Mining Areas, 1950-4 (p. 49)
- Notes (p. 61)
- 4 Plastics and the New Society: the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s and 1960s (p. 65)
- Notes (p. 78)
- 5 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (1954-64) (p. 81)
- Notes (p. 100)
- 6 The Exhibition Art of Socialist Countries, Moscow 1958-9, and the Contemporary Style of Painting (p. 101)
- Notes (p. 125)
- 7 Modernism and Socialist Culture: Polish Art in the Late 1950s (p. 133)
- Notes (p. 145)
- 8 Socialist Realism's Self-Reference? Cartoons on Art, C. 1950 (p. 149)
- Notes (p. 163)
- 9 Veils, Shalvari, and Matters of Dress: Unravelling the Fabric of Women's Lives in Communist Bulgaria (p. 169)
- Notes (p. 185)
- 10 All You Need is Lovebeads: Latvia's Hippies Undress for Success (p. 189)
- Notes (p. 205)
- Index (p. 209)
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Susan E. Reid is Lecturer in Russian Visual Arts, University of Sheffield.
David Crowley is Tutor in the History of Design, Royal College of Art.