Style and socialism : modernity and material culture in post-war Eastern Europe / edited by Susan E. Reid and David Crowley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Reid, Susan Emily.

Crowley, D. J. (David J.), 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Material culture--Europe, Eastern.

Material culture.

Socialism and culture--Europe, Eastern.

Socialism and culture.

Eastern Europe.

Physical Description:

xiii, 213 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Berg, 2000.

Summary:

This fascinating book takes as its premise the notion that material culture can help explain the experience of state socialism as lived by ordinary people in Eastern Europe. It provides a revealing window through which to examine the interaction between official state rhetoric and state command on the one hand, and the popular applications of the state's material products on the other. From street fashion to modern art, from the design of state buildings to wallpaper, interconnections between politics and ideology, cultural policy formation and consumption are shown to be a matter of complex negotiation.

The contributors interrogate visual and material culture in Eastern and Central Europe from the consolidation of the Soviet bloc in the late forties to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. These two decades fall into two contrasting periods: the period of Stalinization, during which Soviet political and cultural authority was established in the satellite states and newly annexed republics, and the period of de-Stalinization, which witnessed economic, cultural and social reform, the expansion of international relations and increased cultural exchange.

Anyone interested in Eastern Europe or in art, design and material culture and their intersection with politics will find this book absorbing and illuminating.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1859732348

1859732399

OCLC:

42367220