Description

Set against the backdrop of the mass transition from communal to single-family housing that Khrushchev ushered in in 1957, this talk traces the everyday experiences and hopes of Soviet citizens who continued to live in the old housing stock as the supply of new apartments failed to keep pace with demand. Drawing upon housing petitions and official responses to them, it also depicts individuals challenging public rhetoric about building Communism, while demanding the realization of a long-awaited postwar normalcy. At the same time, the talk demonstrates the ways in which the housing question constituted a point of convergence for popular expectations and state promises during the Thaw.

Christine Varga-Harris is an Associate Professor at Illinois State University specializing in postwar Soviet history. Her research examines the intersection of Khrushchev-era housing policy with official ideology, society, and identity. Among her publications are chapters in the volumes Divided Dreamworlds? (University of Amsterdam Press, 2012) and The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization (Routledge, 2006), as well as the article “Homemaking and the Aesthetic and Moral Perimeters of the Soviet Home during the Khrushchev Era,” which appeared in the Journal of Social History (2008). She recently completed the monograph, Stories of House and Home: Socialism, Society and the Soviet Person during the Khrushchev Years (Cornell University Press, forthcoming). Her new research project focuses on Soviet relations with non-aligned countries, from the perspective of gender.