A space called home: Housing and the management of the everyday in Russia, 1890-1935
Harshman, Deirdre Ruscitti
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/100994
Description
Title
A space called home: Housing and the management of the everyday in Russia, 1890-1935
Author(s)
Harshman, Deirdre Ruscitti
Issue Date
2018-04-16
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Steinberg, Mark D.
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Steinberg, Mark D.
Committee Member(s)
Koenker, Diane P.
Randolph, John W.
Oberdeck, Kathryn J.
Friedman, Rebecca D.
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Russia
Soviet Union
housing
home
everyday life
modernity
history
urban history
Abstract
This dissertation posits that management of the everyday is a fundamental part of the modern project. Far from being a vague or nebulous concept of what life could be, the management of the everyday was linked to concrete programs, which had a tangible effect on ordinary people and the spaces they lived and existed in. Furthermore, although the management of the everyday could be (and was) deployed by states and other institutions for ideological purposes, the overall concept of managing the everyday cannot be linked to any single ideological movement. As a result, it is possible to trace strong continuities in the management of everyday life, even in cases in which there were deep social, political, cultural, and/or economic ruptures.
I examine the management of the everyday in juxtaposition to the concept of the home in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia. I propose that looking at how the home functioned during the tumultuous revolutionary period offers us a new way to understand everyday life and its continuities, even in times of great social and cultural shift. I argue that reformist and revolutionary movements in Russia placed the ‘home’ and related conceptions of belonging at the center of their campaigns to create a new everyday life, and that these campaigns over show remarkable degrees of similarity, despite belonging to radically different political traditions. My dissertation examines how these different visions treated the home as lived space, the built environment and the even unbuilt environment, and how residents reacted to, shaped, and resisted these campaigns. Contests and negotiations unfolded in domestic sites and relations such as the kitchen, the landlord-tenant relationship, and nighttime flophouses.
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