Dropping out of socialism: the creation of alternative spheres in the soviet bloc

353 Pages·2017·4.639 MB·English

by  Ostblock;Furst, Juliane;McLellan, Josie

Dropping out of Socialism

Dropping out of Socialism
The Creation of Alternative
Spheres in the Soviet Bloc
Edited by
Juliane Fürst and Josie McLellan
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fürst, Juliane, 1973- editor. | McLellan, Josie, editor.
Title: Dropping out of socialism : the creation of alternative spheres in the Soviet
bloc / edited by Juliane Fürst and Josie McLellan.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037411 (print) | LCCN 2016051561 (ebook) (print) |
LCCN 2016051561 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498525145 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781498525152 (Electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe, Eastern—Social conditions. | Communism and
individualism—Europe, Eastern. | Communism and liberty—Europe,
Eastern. | Post-communism—Europe, Eastern.
Classification: LCC HN380.7.A8 D76 2016 (print) | LCC HN380.7.A8 (ebook) |
DDC 306.09437—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037411
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: To Drop or Not to Drop? 1
Juliane Fürst
PART I: DROPPING OUT IN SPIRIT 21
1 The Biography of a Scandal: Experimenting with Yoga during
Romanian Late Socialism 23
Irina Costache
2 The Imaginary Elsewhere of the Hippies in Soviet Estonia 41
Terje Toomistu
3 Art and “Madness”: Weapons of the Marginal during
Socialism in Eastern Europe 63
Maria-Alina Asavei
4 Student Activists and Yugoslavia’s Islamic Revival:
Sarajevo, 1970–1975 85
Madigan Andrea Fichter
PART II: DROPPING OUT INTELLECTUALLY 105
5 Reader Questionnaires in Samizdat Journals:
Who Owns Aleksandr Blok? 107
Josephine von Zitzewitz
6 The Spirit of Pacifism: Social and Cultural Origins of the
Grassroots Peace Movement in the Late Soviet Period 129
Irina Gordeeva
v
vi Contents
7 Dropping Out of Socialism with the Commodore 64:
Polish Youth, Home Computers, and Social Identities 157
Patryk Wasiak
PART III: DROPPING OUT IN STYLE 177
8 “We All Live in a Yellow Submarine”: Dropping Out
in a Leningrad Commune 179
Juliane Fürst
9 Ignoring Dictatorship? Punk Rock, Subculture,
and Entanglement in the GDR 207
Jeff Hayton
10 “Under Any Form of Government, I Am Partisan”:
The Siberian Underground from Anti-Soviet
to National-Bolshevist Provocation 233
Evgenyi Kazakov [Ewgeniy Kasakow]
PART IV: DROPPING OUT ECONOMICS 253
11 Living in the Material World: Money in the Soviet
Rock Underground 255
Anna Kan
12 Socialism’s Empty Promise: Housing Vacancy and Squatting
in the German Democratic Republic 277
Peter Angus Mitchell
Conclusion: Dropping Out of Socialism? A Western Perspective 303
Joachim C. Häberlen
Bibliography 319
Index 327
About the Contributors 341
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to thank the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board
(AHRC) for their generous support of the project “Dropping out of Social-
ism: The Creation of Alternative Sphere in the Soviet Bloc” (grant number
AH/I002502/1) with a generous Early Career Research Grant, which ran at
the University of Bristol from 2011 to 2015. The editors would further like
to thank the School of Humanities and Faculty of Arts at the University of
Bristol, which hosted the project. We are particularly grateful to Sam Barlow
of the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts (BIRTHA),
who supported the workshop “Dropping out of Socialism,” held 6–8 June
2014. Many of our colleagues in Bristol and elsewhere have offered sup-
port and advice at various stages of the project and advanced our thinking
with their own research. We are also very grateful to our copy editor Kim
Friedlander for getting articles written by people with so many different
mother tongues into shape, Brian Hill, for his enthusiasm and support for
the book and Eric Kuntzman for patience and help in the publishing process.
vii

Introduction
To Drop or Not to Drop?
Juliane Fürst
What does it mean to “drop out”? How does one “drop out”? “Dropping
out” from what? Google only has two answers to such questions. Either the
researcher is referred to Timothy Leary and the many pages dedicated to his
famous LSD-hailing mantra of “dropping out, turning on and tuning in.” Or
paradoxically, the reader is directed to the vast debate concerning school
drop-outs and the social and societal problems their existence poses. The
irony is, of course, that the latter might very well be adherents of the former.
What is utopia to some is a failed existence to others. Clearly, visions of what
“dropping out” entails and how to evaluate it differ significantly. Salvation
for one is condemnation for the other. Finding oneself can also mean being
lost. Cutting ties can be liberating, or the first step to a future without choice.
As different as these and other interpretations of “dropping out” are, they
have one major assumption in common. Almost all existing discussions
surrounding “dropping out” are conducted with a highly developed capital-
ist Western world in mind. Dropping out is a luxury that can only take place
against a backdrop of societal wealth. It is assumed that only in modern,
liberal societies do people have the choice to “drop out” and reject what so
many in the developing world are striving for: wealth, career, and success.
Both poor people and people living in authoritarian regimes are assumed
not to enjoy the freedom to exit. What do you rebel against, if you are busy
feeding your family? Who would risk everything to live a life which is not
only materially uncomfortable, but highly dangerous in an authoritarian or
impoverished context?
While the question of “dropping out” in the developing, global South is
the subject of a separate book, this collected volume sheds light on whether,
where, and how people “dropped out” from the socialist East. Our contribu-
tors put an end to the assumption that it was only possible to “drop out” out of
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