Reconstructing the House of Culture: Community, Self, and the Makings of Culture in Russia and Beyond

351 Pages·2011·3.076 MB·English

by  Brian Donahoe (editor), Joachim Otto Habeck (editor)

RECONSTRUCTING THE HOUSE OF CULTURE

R H C
ECONSTRUCTING THE OUSE OF ULTURE
Community, Self, and the Makings of Culture
in Russia and Beyond
(cid:1)
Edited By
Brian Donahoe and Joachim Otto Habeck
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
Published in 2011 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2011 Brian Donahoe and Joachim O(cid:308) o Habeck
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without wri(cid:308) en permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reconstructing the house of culture : community, self, and the makings of
culture in Russia and beyond / edited by Brian Donahoe and Joachim O(cid:308) o
Habeck.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-85745-275-7 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-85745-276-4
(ebook)
1. Ethnology—Russia (Federation) 2. Art and anthropology—Russia
(Federation) 3. Art and society—Russia (Federation) 4. Art centers—
Russia (Federation) 5. Community centers—Russia (Federation) 6. Post-
communism—Russia (Federation) 7. Russia (Federation)—Social life and
customs. I. Donahoe, Brian. II. Habeck, Joachim O(cid:308) o.
DK510.33.R4 2012
306.0947—dc22
2011006632
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN 978-0-85745-275-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-85745-276-4 (ebook)
(cid:1)
C
ONTENTS
List of Figures vii
Editors’ Preface ix
A Note on Transliteration xiii
Introduction. Cultivation, Collective, and the Self 1
Joachim O(cid:308) o Habeck
Part I. The Siberian House of Culture in Comparative Perspective
1. From Collective Enthusiasm to Individual Self-Realization:
History of and Experience in the House of Culture, Anadyr’
(Chukotka) 29
Virginie Vaté and Galina Diatchkova
2. “Thank You for Being”: Neighborhood, Ethno-Culture,
and Social Recognition in the House of Culture 55
Joachim O(cid:308) o Habeck
3. Pokazukha in the House of Culture: The Pattern of Behavior
in Kurumkan, Eastern Buriatiia 75
István Sántha and Tatiana Safonova
4. Three Houses of Culture in Kosh-Agach: Accounting for
Culture Work in a Changing Political Setting 97
Agnieszka Halemba
5. In the Face of Adversity: Shagonar’s Culture Workers
Bear the Torch of Culture 117
Brian Donahoe
6. Constellations of Culture Work in Present-Day Siberia 137
Joachim O(cid:308) o Habeck, Brian Donahoe, and Siegfried Gruber
Part II. Expanding the Stage: The House of Culture in Broader
Historical and Geographical Context
7. The Emergence of Soviet Houses of Culture in Kyrgyzstan 163
Ali F. İğmen
vi | Contents
8. Palana’s House of Koryak Culture 189
Alexander D. King
9. Transformations of the House of Culture in Civil Society:
A Case Study of Rural Women’s Culture Projects in Latvia 213
Aivita Putniņa
10. Heritage House Guarding as Sustainable Development:
Community Arts and Architectures within a World
Cultural Net(work) 237
Nadezhda D. Savova
Epilogue. Recognizing Soviet Culture 263
Bruce Grant
Appendix 1. Research Design and Methodology of the
Comparative Research Project “The Social Signifi cance
of the House of Culture” 277
B. Donahoe, J.O. Habeck, A. Halemba, K. Istomin,
I. Sántha, and V. Vaté
Appendix 2. Survey Form and Instructions 293
Appendix 3. Questionnaire 1 (Q1) and Instructions 305
Appendix 4. Questionnaire 2 (Q2) and Instructions 309
Appendix 5. Fieldwork Checklist 313
Notes on Contributors 319
Index 323
(cid:1)
L F
IST OF IGURES
ILLUSTRATIONS
I.1. Seeing off the recruits (Kolyvan’) xiv
I.2. Locations of the cultural institutions described in
this volume 3
1.1. The new House of Culture of Anadyr’ 32
1.2. Consuming “culture” and cotton candy (Anadyr’) 50
2.1. Certifi cates for participants of a lay-artists’ competition
(Kolyvan’) 58
2.2. Celebrating the Day of the City (Novosibirsk) 62
3.1. The House of Culture of Kurumkan 76
3.2. Selling perfume in the House of Culture (Kurumkan) 90
4.1. Members of the Chuia dance group (Kosh-Agach) 107
4.2. Blueprint for the projected new House of Culture in
Kosh-Agach 113
5.1. Derelict construction site of the unfi nished House of
Culture in Shagonar 119
5.2. Caravan of Shagonar’s culture workers leaving for Kyzyl 124
5.3. Participants of the Tyva—Bisting Örgeevis competition
in Kyzyl 125
6.1. Performance of the agitbrigada (Kolyvan’) 155
7.1. Likbez campaign in a Kyrgyz House of Culture 176
8.1. The Okrug House of Culture building in Palana 193
8.2. The uncompleted replacement for Palana’s Okrug House
of Culture 194
8.3. Culture workers celebrating a successful string of shows
(Palana) 196
8.4. Partying at the site of the long gone Okrug House of
Culture (Palana) 196
9.1. Georgian dance group at a local holiday in Sigulda 218
viii | List of Figures
10.1. Folk dancing at the Bulgarian chitalishte (Bistritsa) 238
10.2. House-guarding heritage (Bistritsa) 243
10.3. Shaking the shekere at the Casa do Samba in Santo Amaro,
Bahia 255
N.1. Final curtain call (Kolyvan’) 318
GRAPHS
6.1. Frequency of visits to the House of Culture by location 139
6.2. Frequency of visits to the House of Culture by
occupational status 140
6.3. “The House of Culture is important for our community” 148
6.4. “The House of Culture hosts interesting events” 149
6.5. “The House of Culture needs more support” 150
6.6. “The House of Culture is a remnant of old times” 151
TABLES
A1.1 Fieldwork sites and timing of the comparative
research project 286
(cid:1)
P
REFACE
This book—in a nutshell—is about the postsocialist condition of culture.
A few words are in order to unpack these two key terms, so much con-
tested in anthropology, and to explain how they play out in our story.
Postsocialist . . .
All the chapters in this volume investigate the makings of public cul-
ture as exemplifi ed by a particular institution: the House of Culture.
There is one question that has consistently popped up throughout this
research: to what extent can we identify lines of continuity that run from
early-Soviet to late-Soviet and through to post-Soviet modes of cultural
practice? Clearly, such labels as postsocialist and post-Soviet have been
worn thin from unrefl ective overuse. In the last twenty years, states and
people(s) have embarked upon very divergent trajectories; some social
scientists talk about fi rst-generation and second-generation change in
erstwhile socialist societies, while in some states socialism is alive and
very “real” even today. The explanatory clout of “transitology”—the
scientifi c study of large-scale political and economic transformation
towards market economy that was the approach du jour of the main-
stream Western academic set in the 1990s—has been largely discredited
because of its Eurocentrism, teleological and normative assumptions of
unidirectional transition, and tendency to overgeneralize. “Postsocial-
ist” as an a(cid:308) ribute can no longer do justice to the entangled political
and social realities of present-day life in the countries that once were
under the infl uence of the Soviet Union (nor for any other part of the
world). And yet, some commonalities appear to have “survived,” like
sublime leitmotifs that come up even though the tune, the language,
and the orchestra have changed. Part of the story that we and the con-
tributors to this volume want to tell is about how such seemingly small
and peripheral phenomena linger on. The se(cid:308) ing of this story is the
sphere of culture (more exactly, the public sphere of culture work and
cultural production, as shall be specifi ed below). This is not to say that
the sphere of culture is the main or only sphere where the tenacity of