HSE Publishing House

The monograph reveals the basic aspects of everyday life in the Soviet Union in the context of accelerated and distorted modernization of the country. The world of Soviet everyday life is reconstructed from basic aspects such as domestic service and household practices, work experience and labor relations, leisure and active forms of recreation, family experience and family strategy, “domestic statism” and so on. Reconstructive research is augmented by extensive use of materials from the leading Russian archives which were previously unknown to the scientific community. Application of micro historical approach and methods of oral history helped in studying of these neglected aspects of Soviet everyday life, such as the practices of basic survival in both normal and force majeure periods of Russian history. Social statistical data provided an opportunity to move up from the micro level to the macro level of Soviet everyday life.

For teachers and students of humanitarian faculties in the specialties of “History”, “Social Anthropology”, “Cultural Study”, “Sociology” and “Politics”, as well as for anyone interested in the life of Russians in the 20th century.