You are cordially invited to the online workshop on practices and performances of late-Soviet institutions — from communist party structures and government ministries to plants, collective farms, schools and pioneer camps, the military and the police, and to the institutions of science and cultural production. We explore such institutional cases from the broadest range of perspectives, including microhistory, microethnography and historical sociology, and in doing so address a significant conceptual gap in the anthropology of the state and historiography of late socialism.
KEYNOTE ADDRESSES
Alexei Yurchak (UC Berkeley) ‘Bodies Lenin: a laboratory of Soviet sovereignty’
Sergey Abashin (European University at St Petersburg) ‘Soviet kishlak- Soviet kolkhoz: towards institutional ethnography
Links to the workshop webpage, including its conceptual summary and programme with paper abstract is here (as well as further below in this message):
https://spb.hse.ru/humart/chr/news/488812040.html
*The conference is bilingual, with simultaneous translation provided. Конференция двуязычна, с синхронным переводом.
*In the order of appearance of the Russian or English paper titles and the names of presenters, the first is the language in which the paper will be given, and the language of its abstract. В двуязычном тексте программы, доклад первым упоминается на языке, на котором он подан на конференцию и на котором написано его резюме (абстракт).
*Timetable follows Moscow time zone / Время московское!
To receive zoom link to attend, please register here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSew_vI2uX-xymDK0s5CWTUAhP04oENc__F6Zieo94lLpWC3NQ/viewform
Workshop summary:
[Epigraph] "The state is not the reality which stands behind the mask of political practice. It is itself the mask which prevents our seeing political practice as it is. There is a state-system: a palpable nexus of practice and institutional structure centred in government and more or less extensive, unified and dominant in any given society. There is, too, a state-idea, projected, purveyed and variously believed in in different societies at different times. We are only making difficulties for ourselves in supposing that we have also to study the state - an entity, agent, function or relation over and above the state-system and the state-idea. The state comes into being as a structuration within political practice; it starts its life as an implicit construct; it is then reified - as the res publica, the public reification, no less - and acquires an overt symbolic identity progressively divorced from practice as an illusory account of practice."
— Philip Abrams, Notes on the Difficulty of the Studying the State(1988 [1977])
Philip Abrams has been seminal for outlining what is now a flourishing field of ethnographies of the state. Yet, if these insights have been instrumental in generating research into the ‘imagined state’ (Gupta 1995) — what Abrams described as the reified life of the state-idea — they have ironically been much less conducive to institutional ethnography. There is important work which details the circulation of the state ‘as if’ an entity or agent beyond state institutions (Navaro-Yashin 2002; Ssorin-Chaikov 2003; Reeves 2014). But what happens within the institutions themselves? The analytics of sovereignty (Hansen and Stepputat 2005; Bryant and Reeves 2021) has been effective in the exploration of subject/citizen/refugee/outcast, etc., but less so in what Abrams called the ‘palpable nexus of [institutional] practice and structure’. Paradoxically, while the anthropology of the state has been recently advanced by research into everyday life and materiality of documents within state institutions (Messick 1996; Riles 2006; Hull 2012; Reeves 2013; Mathur 2016), it stops short of generating its own institutional analysis thus effectively relegating it to institutional economics and political science.
The Anthropology of the State
The workshop aims at addressing this asymmetry. We call for papers that will do so from a particular local and temporal vantage point: we are interested in charting the workings of late-Soviet institutions. The workshop hails from a basecamp of a major research project ‘The social anthropology of the late-Soviet institutions’ that we have just started at the HSE. Its aim is to fill the gap in the historiography of Soviet and Soviet-type societies which s contours very much, if surprisingly, resemble those just outlined for the anthropology of the state more generally.
Soviet Historiography
Everyone agrees that the state plays the key role in the organisation of Soviet order but there is precious little actually done on state institutions (including communist party institutions) of the late-Soviet period. Exceptions include Humphrey (1984), Ssorin-Chaikov (2003 and 2016), and Abashin (2015) on collective farms; or Mitrokhin (2021) the party apparatus and industrial ministries. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Important research has been done on knowledge production, including economic mathematics and cybernetics (Leeds 2016 Kirtchik and Gouarné 2021) and on late-Soviet subjectivity (following Yurchak 2006). Yet in focus is knowledge rather than power in the Foucauldian knowledge/power nexus, and citizen/subject rather than the institutional locations and practices (but see Verdery 2014; 2018). Institutional microhistories, microethnographies and historical sociologies thus remain unexplored systematically despite (or perhaps indeed because) bureaucracy, red tape, overregulation and secrecy have been a cliche that is inseparable from the image of late socialism, if not all Soviet order. There are assumptions about institutional structure and practices that implicitly underpin the analyses of Soviet subjectivities, materialities, economies, science and knowledge, and ideological hegemonies. But these assumptions remain taken for granted, rather than being explicitly addressed.
Institutional Analysis
Soviet order comprised and saw itself(in the sense of Scott [1998]) through different collective organisations — perhaps even modes of existence/collectivesin the usage of Latour (2013). These were various establishments, factories, work collectives, kolkhoz brigades, housing cooperatives, party cells, construction bureaus, amateur hobby circles, etc. Yet all these have been integrated into a complex institutional system of state socialism — interconnected, and constituted through, formal and informal administrative and governance procedures. These might be called grammars of state socialism(to paraphrase Samanani, Fedirko, and Williamson 2021) with dependent and independent clauses, as in complex sentences, and various organisational orders. Tellingly, this system has never been systematically examined neither from the perspective of classic Durkheimian or Parsonian sociology nor from to those of institutional economics, theories if institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983), Weberian approaches to bureaucracy and the ANT. Pertinent questions such as how institutions think(Douglas 1986), how the states write (Messick 1996) and what is the agency of state documents (Hull 2012) have been hardly asked about state socialism.
Programme (*Timetable follows Moscow time zone / Время московское!):
*The conference is bilingual, with simultaneous translation provided. Конференция двуязычна, с синхронным переводом.
*In the order of appearance of the Russian or English paper titles and the names of presenters, the first is the language in which the paper will be given, and the language of its abstract. В двуязычном тексте программы, доклад первым упоминается на языке, на котором он подан на конференцию и на котором написано его резюме (абстракт).
16 DECEMBER
10:00: Welcome coffee
10:30 Introduction: Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (HSE St Petersburg)
PANEL #1 ВИТРИНЫ И КУЛУАРЫ /BACK-STAGE AND FRONT LOBBY ACTIVITIES
11:00 Natasha Wilson (University of Melbourne) Cultures of Reform and Dissent: The Affair of the Young Socialists at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) in the Late Brezhnev Years.
Наташа Уилсон (Университет Мельбурна) Культуры реформы и инакомыслия: дело «Молодых социалистов» в Институте мировой экономики и международных отношений (ИМЭМО) в позднебрежневскую эпоху
11:20 Amy Garey: (University of Chicago / Moscow State Pedagogical University) Forbidden but Possible: State Traditions of a Banned Pastime
Эми Гэри (Университет Чикаго / МГПУ) Запретное, но возможное: государственные традиции запрещенных занятий (доклад на английском)
10:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
12:00 Белякова Надежда (Институт всеобщей истории РАН, Сеченовский медицинский университет) и Клюева Вера (Тюменский научный центр РАН) Практики сохранения культурного наследия в СССР в конце 1960 – середине 1970-х гг.: микрокейс студенческого строительно-реставрационного отряда МИФИ
Belyakova Hadezhda (Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences) and Vera Klueva (Tumen Scientific Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences) Soviet Heritage Preserving Practices in the late 1960s – mid 1970s: Microcase of Student Reconstruction-construction Brigade of MEPhi
12:20 Илья Кукулин, Мария Майофис, Мария Четверикова (НИУ ВШЭ Москва) Позднесоветский литературно-издательский процесс и роль «кулуарных» коммуникаций в его институциональной структуре
Ilya Kukulin, Maria Mayofis, Maria Chetverikova (HSE Moscow) Late Soviet Literary and Publishing Process and the Role of «Backstage» Communications in Its Institutional Structure
12:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
13:00-14:30 Lunch/обед
PANEL #2 THE INSTITUTIONAL INSIDE / ИЗНАНКА ИНСТИТУТОВ
14:30 Catriona Kelly (University of Cambridge) Working Like a State: The Management of the Movie Industry in the Brezhnev Era
Катриона Келли (Кембриджский университет) Работать как государство: управление киноиндустрией в брежневскую эпоху
14:50 Elena Kochetkova (HSE St Petersburg) Industrial Creativity and the Functioning of Soviet Industrial Enterprises, 1940s-80s
Елена Кочеткова (ВШЭ Санкт-Петербург) Промышленное творчество и функционирование советских промышленных предприятий, 1940-1980-е гг.
15:10 Discussion / Дискуссия
15:30 Alexey Golubev (University of Houston) Knowledge and Money: Funding the Soviet Mass Scientific Literacy Campaign
Алексей Голубев (Хьюстонский университет) Знания и деньги: финансирование советской массовой кампании по повышению научной грамотности
15:50 Александр Фокин (ТюмГУ) Институт советских выборов: нормы и практика
Alexander Fokin (University of Tumen) Soviet Elections Institute: Norms and Practices
16:10 Discussion / Дискуссия
16:30 Coffee break
PANEL #3 ЛАБОРАТОРИИ ПОЗДНЕГО СОЦИАЛИЗМА / LABORATORIES OF LATE SOCIALISM
17:30 Katerina Kulinicheva (HSE Moscow) Experimental sports equipment industry in the late USSR
Екатерина Кулиничева (ВШЭ, Москва) Экспериментальная индустрия по производству спортивной экипировки в позднем СССР
17:50 Tamar Qeburia (Ilia State University & University of Göttingen) “Zetaponi’s Ferroalloy factory supports our institute and operates as a true factory-laboratory”
Тамар Кебурия (Государственный университет Ильи и Гёттингенский университет) «Зестафонский ферросплавный завод поддерживает наш институт и выступает в качестве настоящего завода-лаборатории»
18:10 Discussion / Дискуссия
18:30 Coffee break
KEYNOTE ADDRESS / ПЛЕНАРНЫЙ ДОКЛАД
19:00 -19:45 Akexei Yurchak (UC Berkley) Bodies Lenin: a laboratory of Soviet sovereignty
Алексей Юрчак (Калифорнийский университет в Беркли) Ленинские тела: лаборатория советской суверенности
19:45 Discussion / Дискуссия
17 DECEMBER
PANEL #4 ON THE PLANTATION / НА КАРТОШКУ
10:00 Alexandra Kasatkina (HSE St Petersburg) Institutions in the mundane: institutional design of Soviet collective gardens of factory and office workers
Александра Касаткина (ВШЭ, Санкт-Петербург) Институты в миру: институциональный дизайн садовых товариществ советских рабочих и служащих
10:20 Tania Voronina (Университет Цюриха) Комсомол в вологодской деревне: сельские миры и социалистическая модерность в позднем социализме
Tatiana Voronina (University of Zurich) Komsomol in Vologda Village: Rural Myths and Socialist Modernity in the Late Socialism (доклад на русском)
10:40 Costanza Curro (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Vakht’ang K’ek’oshvili (Georgian American University, Tbilisi, Georgia) Missing the good life: The labour colony of Khoni, Georgia
Констанца Курро (Хельсинкский университет, Финляндия) и Вахтанг Кекошвилли (Грузинский американский университет, Тбилиси, Грузия) Тоска по хорошей жизни: исправительно-трудовая колония в Хони, Грузия
11:00 Discussion / Дискуссия
11:30 coffee break / Кофе-брейк
PANEL #5 DOCUMENT WORLDS OF SOVIET PLANNING AND DESIGN / ДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНЫЕ МИРЫ СОВЕТСКОГО ПРОЕКТИРОВАНИЯ
12:00 Вячеслав Некрасов (СурГПУ/Фонд научно-технологического развития Югры) «Церберы» Госплана: практики принятия экономических решений в начале 1960-х гг.
Vyacheslav Nekrasov (Ugra Science and Technology Development Fund) Gosplan «сerberus»: Decision-making Practices in the early 1960s
12:20 Алексей Сафронов (РАНХиГС) Практики работы Госплана СССР в Брежневский период
Alexey Safronov (RANEPA) Gosplan Work Practices in the Brezhnev Era
12:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
13:00 Ksenia Litvinenko (University of Manchester) Paper Collaborations: Materialities of Paperwork of a Soviet Design Institute
Ксения Литвиненко (Манчестерский университет) Сотрудничество на бумаге: материальность бумажной работы советского института дизайна
13:20 Yi Lu (Oxford University) Documentism and its Discontents: Managing Bureaucratic Information in Mao's China
И Лу (Оксфордский университет) Документизм и его связанные с ним проблемы: управление бюрократической информацией в Китае при Мао
13:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
14:00 Lunch / Обед
KEYNOTE ADDRESS/ ПЛЕНАРНЫЙ ДОКЛАД
15:00 Сергей Абашин (ЕУСПб) Советский кишлак — советский колхоз: об инстуциональной этнографии
Sergei Abashin (EUSPb) ‘Soviet kishlak- Soviet kolkhoz: towards institutional ethnography’
15:45 Discussion / Дискуссия
18 DECEMBER
PANEL #6 BETWEEN MORAL ECONOMIES AND IDEOLOGIES / МЕЖДУ МОРАЛЬНОЙ ЭКОНОМИКОЙ И ИДЕОЛОГИЕЙ
10:00 Hamlet Melkumyan (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Armenia) Soviet Ideology and Utopian futures in the Urban system of “Closed” City in Soviet Armenia
Гамлет Мелькумян (Институт археологии и этнографии, Армения) Советская идеология и утопические будущее в городской системе «закрытого» города советской Армении
10:20 Арина Колодина (ЕУСПб) ВЛКСМ как эксперт в определении критериев «морального»: жалобы советских граждан на комсомольцев и их последствия в 1950-1960-е гг. (на материалах ленинградской организации)
Arina Kolodina (EUSPb) VLKSM as an Expert in Defining Criteria of the «Moral»: Soviet Citizens Claims about Komsomol Members and Their Consequences in the 1950s-1960s (using Leningrad materials)
10:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
11:00 Xenia Cherkaev (HSE, St. Petersburg) “Group Egoism” – and the Inglorious End of Socialist Property
Ксения Черкаева (ВШЭ, Санкт-Петербург) «Групповой эгоизм» и бесславный конец социалистической собственности
11:20 Svetlana Stephenson (London Metropolitan University). Theatres of absurd cruelty: Public shaming meetings in the late Soviet Union.
Светлана Стивенсон (Университет Лондонской Метрополии) Театр абсурдной жестокости: общественное порицание в позднем Советском Союзе
11:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
12:00 Lunch / Обед
PANEL #7 LATE-SOVIET BIOPOLITICS / ПОЗДНЕСОВЕТСКАЯ БИОПОЛИТИКА
13:00 Jessica Lovett (University of Nottingham) Demography and the Soviet State Under Brezhnev
Джессика Ловетт (Ноттингемский университет) Демография и Советское государство при Брежневе
13:20 Michele Rivkin-Fish (UNC-Chapel Hill), Pavel Vasilyev (HSE St. Petersburg), Alexandra Konovalova (HSE Moscow), Oral Contraceptives, Fertility Trends, and the Making of A Late Soviet Biopolitics
Мишель Ривкин-Фиш (Университет Северной Каролины в Чапел-Хилле), Павел Васильев (ВШЭ, Санкт-Петербург), Александра Коновалова (ВШЭ, Москва) Создание позднесоветской биополитики: оральные контрацептивы и рождаемость
13:40 Discussion / Дискуссия
14:00 coffee break / Кофе-брейк
PANEL #8 GATHERERS / СОБИРАТЕЛИ
14:30 Anna Sokolova (Institute for Ethnology and Anthropology (Moscow) / University of Zurich) “I have never felt jeans as a shortage-goods” – commercial berry gathering in Late Soviet Karelia
Анна Соколова (Институт этнологии и антропологии, Москва / Цюрихский университет) «Я никогда не воспринимал джинсы как дефицитный товар» - коммерческий сбор ягод в позднесоветской Карелии
14:50 Olga Belichenko (Università Ca’ Foscari & Muséum National de l’Histoire Naturelle) and Valeria Kolosova (Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences) Berries, harvesters and plan: the practices of two procurement points of Northwestern Russia in 1970-90s
Ольга Беличенко (Университет Ка-Фоскари и Национальный музей естественной истории), Валерия Колосова (Институт языкознания РАН) Ягоды, собиратели и план: практики двух закупочных пунктов в северо-западной России в 1970-1990-е гг.
15:10 Discussion / Дискуссия
PANEL #9 HOUSING/ ЖИЛИЩНОЕ СТРОИТЕЛЬСТВО
15:30 Ольга Никонова (Южно-Уральский национальный государственный университет, Челябинск) Социальные программы предприятий и производство «социалистического образа жизни»
Olga Nikonova (South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk) Enterprises` Social Programs and Production of a «Socialist Way of Life»
15:50 Lois Kalb (European University Institute) Late Soviet Practices of Housing Distribution and Maintenance on Kiev’s Left Bank
Лоиз Калб (Европейский университетский институт) Позднесоветские практики распределения и содержания жилья левобережного района Киева
16:10 Discussion / Дискуссия
16:30 Concluding discussion / Заключительная дискуссия /Online reception/ Онлайн фуршет
Registration Form
To receive zoom link to attend, please register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSew_vI2uX-xymDK0s5CWTUAhP04oENc__F6Zieo94lLpWC3NQ/viewform
WORKSHOP ORGANISING COMMITTEE
The international academic council of the project ‘Social anthropology of late Soviet institutions’, comprising:
Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (HSE) (projects PI)
Alexei Yurchak (Berkley)
Galina Orlova (HSE)
Doug Rogers (Yale)
Caroline Humphrey(Cambridge)
Roman Abramov (HSE)
Jeremy Morris (Aarhus)
Slava Gerovitch (MIT)
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