Edward Lin
The fact that the English word private is not easily translated into Russian can be explained by the word’s ambiguity. On one hand, it implies any entity that is not run by the government, which explains its derogative meaning during the Soviet regime. On the other, the term carries individual and confidential connotations and is simply substituted in Russian with personal . As a result, in Soviet terms, private space is not owned by an individual but is considered national. In many ways this explains the bizarre fusion of private and public worlds in everyday Soviet lives. In this essay I attempt to look at the influences of communal living arrangements on the tightly intertwined realms of national and individual identities during the USSR era. Throughout the first years of the Soviet regime, much of the working class was relocated to urban centers and colonised in cramped kingdoms of kommunalkas – large flats that once belonged to the Tsarist nineteenth century bourgeoisie.They were later redistributed among the working class, often leaving as many as fifty people co-existing in ten living rooms, one large kitchen, two water closets and a bathroom. Even though these apartments were similar to dormitories where sharing of public space was part of everyday life, kommunalkas were permanent places where inhabitants could have lived their entire lives. While the name kommunalka is a vernacular short form for a communal apartment, the long mazes had little in common with the Western flat. Firstly, the residents were placed there by the state, which resulted in a diverse and forced social structure of these quarters. Secondly, there was a clear division between what ‘belonged’ to an individual and what ‘belonged’ to nobody (in other words, public). Living and sharing the ‘national territory’ of kommunalka resulted in constant clashes between neighbours and often developed into comical settings. For example, because there were only two water closets shared by numerous inhabitants, it was common to own and carry around one’s personal toilet seat.This seat would have its own hanging place in the safety of a family room. The original grand rooms of nineteenth century bourgeoisie apartments and smaller cramped family corners in kommunalka had very little, if anything, in common. Divided numerously into smaller spaces often inhabited by entire families, many rooms were narrow. High ceilings, chandelier cords hanging unpretentiously in the corner and disproportionately large windows were the only traces of the building’s former use and grandeur.The lack of space made every corner of the room valuable for potential functionality.A window often served as storage for food and the ceiling would house a clothes line. Consequently, the quality of Soviet life was often measured in cubic metres – which generally defined individual desires and needs.
political culture | communal living by kira varvanina
a room in- between the soviet kommunalka
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