Queuetopia: Second-World Modernity and the Soviet

QUEUETOPIA: SECOND-WORLD MODERNITY AND THE SOVIET CULTURE OF ALLOCATION by Andrew H. Chapman Bachelor of Arts, University of Rochester, 2004 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Andrew H. Chapman It was defended on March 22, 2013 and approved by David J. Birnbaum, Professor and Department Chair, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Nancy Condee, Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Randall Halle, Klaus W. Jonas Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Department of German Nancy Ries, Associate Professor, Colgate University, Department of Anthropology and Peace & Conflict Studies Dissertation Advisor: Vladimir Padunov, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures ii Copyright © by Andrew H. Chapman 2013 iii QUEUETOPIA: SECOND-WORLD MODERNITY AND THE SOVIET CULTURE OF ALLOCATION Andrew H. Chapman, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2013 The social structure of the queue, from its most basic forms as a spontaneous group of people on the street, to the ordered lists of status-based priorities within society, leads to rich discussions on consumption, the behavior of crowds, and everyday life within Soviet society. By viewing how practices such as queuing were encoded in Soviet culture, the dissertation theorizes how everyday life was based on discourses of scarcity and abundance. I contend in my second chapter that second-world modernity was not predicated on the speed and calculation usually associated with modern life. Instead, it stressed a precise social ordering of allocation and a progress defined by the materiality of Soviet life. This notion of modernity operates irrespective of the temporal concerns usually associated with the first-world. In Chapter Three, I discuss how cities themselves served as the ultimate Soviet commodity, allocated to citizens who supported the Soviet project. Central to my analysis is a conceptualization of Soviet subjectivity through the prism of the queue, in which I explore how voices of individual priority operated simultaneously amongst discourses of collectivity. Chapter Four looks at this notion, called ocherednost' (queue priority), which traces how authors expressed their concerns within the very same collective and allocative discourses of queuing. The dissertation also looks at Soviet material culture and what goods meant in a culture of shortage in Chapter Five, titled “Trofeinost' (trophying) and the Phantasmagoria of Everyday iv Consumption.” It details the fantastic, absurd, and imaginative ways in which Soviet consumer culture was depicted in fiction. Commodities themselves become objects of attention and structural devices in narrative. Finally, the concluding chapter looks at the post-Soviet period and the proclamations of the capitalist world’s so-called “culture of abundance.” Vestiges of queuing in the post-Soviet period continued to exist, even after the connection between consumers and a state-ordered system of allocation collapsed. The legacy of second-world modernity continues to permeate the current landscape; habitual practices become transformed into cultural events and performances, such as queuing flash mobs and board games. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE END OF THE LINE ......................................................... 1 2.0 HOW WE STAND: SECOND-WORLD MODERNITY AND THE SOVIET PROMISE OF ALLOCATION ................................................................................................. 11 2.1 ETYMOLOGICAL ORIGINS AND RITUALS OF WAITING .................. 11 2.2 THE COSTS OF WAITING: FIRST- AND SECOND-WORLD RECONCILIATIONS OF EVERYDAY LIFE ............................................................... 18 2.3 THE QUEUE AND SOVIET SPACE: BUYING IN TO THE CROWD, PEOPLE, AND COLLECTIVE ........................................................................................ 27 2.4 BOURDIEU AND CERTEAU: PERPETUATING STRUCTURES AND COUNTERING TACTICS ................................................................................................ 32 3.0 WAITING IN THE CITY: HABITATION AND THE REALLOCATION OF URBAN SPACE .......................................................................................................................... 43 3.1 MAPPING MOVEMENT AND STASIS: THE BUSTLE OF THE CITY AND HABITUAL ROUTINE ........................................................................................... 43 3.2 OUT OF THE STALINIST CITY AND INTO THE HOME: PERSONABLE SPACES OF THAW AND STAGNATION ......................................... 51 vi 3.3 BYT AND THE URBAN DILEMMA: IURII TRIFONOV’S “THE EXCHANGE” ..................................................................................................................... 59 3.4 PERIPHERAL LONGING AND URBAN VAGRANCY: VENEDIKT EROFEEV’S MOSCOW—PETUSHKI ............................................................................ 67 3.5 INTIMACIES OF PUBLIC SPACE IN VLADIMIR SOROKIN’S THE QUEUE... ............................................................................................................................. 74 4.0 FROM OCHERED' TO OCHEREDNOST': INDIVIDUAL PRIORITY AND THE SUBJECTIVITY OF ORDERING .................................................................................. 86 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 86 4.2 OCHEREDNOST' AND THE PRIVILEGE OF TASTE ............................... 91 4.3 HAIL TO THE QUEUE: DISCOVERING THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN ALEKSANDR ZINOV'EV’S THE YAWNING HEIGHTS .. 105 4.4 CASHING IN QUEUE CAPITAL: SOCIAL RECOGNITION, WAITING, AND STRATEGIC MANEUVERING IN VLADIMIR VOINOVICH’S THE IVANKIAD ......................................................................................................................... 114 4.5 THE COLLECTIVE REVOLTS: EL'DAR RIAZANOV’S THE GARAGE………. ............................................................................................................... 119 5.0 TROFEINOST' AND THE PHANTASMAGORIA OF EVERYDAY CONSUMPTION ...................................................................................................................... 127 5.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 127 5.2 PERSONALIZING CONSUPTION: KUL'TURNOST' AND THE REPRISAL OF STALINIST ACQUISITIVENESS ..................................................... 138 vii 5.3 THE ABSURDITIES OF FETISHISM: VLADIMIR VOINOVICH’S THE FUR HAT ........................................................................................................................... 150 5.4 BLAT AND (IN)ALIENABLE OBJECTS: GEORGII DANELIIA’S KIN- DZA-DZA! ......................................................................................................................... 158 5.5 THE NARRATIVE PRESENCES OF LACK: SERGEI DOVLATOV’S THE SUITCASE ................................................................................................................ 164 6.0 VNE OCHEREDI AND NEW ORIENTATIONS OF WAITING ....................... 173 6.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 173 6.2 WAITING AND REFLEXIVE MODERNIZATION: FROM SOCIAL TO CULTURAL STRUCTURES .......................................................................................... 179 6.3 THE HYPERMARKET OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: VÍT KLUSÁK’S AND FILIP REMUNDA’S CZECH DREAM ................................................................ 183 6.4 SHOPPING STRATEGY AS BOARD GAME: THE INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE OF POLAND’S “THE QUEUE” ............................ 191 6.5 CROWD CONVERGENCE REVISITED: QUEUING FLASH MOBS ... 199 7.0 CONCLUSION: THE FRONT OF THE LINE .................................................... 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 210 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. “Olympic Village” in The Crocodile ............................................................................. 50 Figure 2. “The Strengths of Habits” in The Crocodile ................................................................. 55 Figure 3. Queuing for buses in Operation Y and Shurik’s other Adventures ............................... 87 Figure 4. Communal behavior in Operation Y and Shurik’s other Adventures ............................ 87 Figure 5. Absurdities of communal behavior in Operation Y and Shurik’s other Adventures ..... 87 Figure 6. Impatience in Operation Y and Shurik’s other Adventures ........................................... 87 Figure 7. “Competition for the vacant position of the queen” in The Crocodile .......................... 98 Figure 8. Endagered animals in The Garage .............................................................................. 119 Figure 9. Endangered animals in The Garage ............................................................................ 119 Figure 10. “From the Lives of Cucumbers” in The Crocodile

Load more