Soviet Communal Living: An Oral History of the Kommunalka (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)

"This book brings together fascinating testimonies from thirty inhabitants of the Kommunalka, the communal apartments that were the norm in housing in the cities of Russia during the whole history of the Soviet Union. The Kommunalka was perhaps the most important social experiment undertaken by the Soviet regime, having arguably as much if not more of an effect on the outlook of inhabitants than external political realities. Beginning in 1920, almost overnight, multiple Russian families were crammed together into single apartments, purposefully chosen to represent different classes in the same space. The intent was not just to level out class differences, but also to create spy systems within homes so as to extend the governments surveillance abilities and its control over daily life"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction....Pages 1-5 “Uplotnienie”: Filling Up....Pages 7-10 White Army, Red Army....Pages 11-13 The Visit to Lenin....Pages 15-17 Like Life in Naples....Pages 19-21 I, Princess Golitsyn....Pages 23-24 Spy Stories....Pages 25-29 The Black Crow....Pages 31-32 Even the Baltics....Pages 33-37 The Siege of Leningrad....Pages 39-42 The Denunciation....Pages 43-47 Summer 1948....Pages 49-52 The Ambulance, the Dead, and the Others....Pages 53-56 The American Legacy....Pages 57-59 Jewish Poison in the Pots....Pages 61-65 The Letter....Pages 67-70 New Year’s Eve Celebration....Pages 71-74 How Thirty People Can Share an Apartment....Pages 75-78 The Gulag and the Roslovian Smell....Pages 79-85 Ballad of a Soldier....Pages 87-92 Lenins, Nothing But Lenins....Pages 93-95 Dissidence....Pages 97-102 The Passageway Room....Pages 103-105 The Prostitute....Pages 107-110 The French Lover....Pages 111-114 Masha L. and the Spirit of the Kommunalka....Pages 115-122 The English Girl and the Blackmarketeer....Pages 123-127 An Officer in the Strategic Nuclear Forces....Pages 129-134 From Putsch to Putsch....Pages 135-138 Seventeen Years after the Fall of the USSR....Pages 139-141 Two Sisters through History....Pages 143-144 Back Matter....Pages 145-168