A space called home: Housing and the management of the everyday in Russia, 1890-1935

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Harshman, Deirdre Ruscitti

Contributors dc:contributor

• Steinberg, Mark D.
• Koenker, Diane P.
• Randolph, John W.
• Oberdeck, Kathryn J.
• Friedman, Rebecca D.

• Russia
• Soviet Union
• housing
• home
• everyday life
• modernity
• history
• urban history

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Deirdre Harshman

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/100994

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/100994