Tear off the masks! : identity and imposture in twentieth-century Russia / Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fitzpatrick, Sheila.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity--Soviet Union.

Group identity.

Social classes--Soviet Union.

Social classes.

Group identity--Russia (Federation).

Social classes--Russia (Federation).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (345 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, [N.J.] : Princeton University Press, [2005]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When revolutions happen, they change the rules of everyday life--both the codified rules concerning the social and legal classifications of citizens and the unwritten rules about how individuals present themselves to others. This occurred in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which laid the foundations of the Soviet state, and again in 1991, when that state collapsed. Tear Off the Masks! is about the remaking of identities in these times of upheaval. Sheila Fitzpatrick here brings together in a single volume years of distinguished work on how individuals literally constructed their autobiographies, defended them under challenge, attempted to edit the "file-selves" created by bureaucratic identity documentation, and denounced others for "masking" their true social identities. Marxist class-identity labels--"worker," "peasant," "intelligentsia," "bourgeois"--were of crucial importance to the Soviet state in the 1920's and 1930's, but it turned out that the determination of a person's class was much more complicated than anyone expected. This in turn left considerable scope for individual creativity and manipulation. Outright imposters, both criminal and political, also make their appearance in this book. The final chapter describes how, after decades of struggle to construct good Soviet socialist personae, Russians had to struggle to make themselves fit for the new, post-Soviet world in the 1990's--by "de-Sovietizing" themselves. Engaging in style and replete with colorful detail and characters drawn from a wealth of sources, Tear Off the Masks! offers unique insight into the elusive forms of self-presentation, masking, and unmasking that made up Soviet citizenship and continue to resonate in the post-Soviet world.

Contents:

part I. Class identities

part II. Lives

part III. Appeals

part IV. Denunciations

part V. Impostures.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691113531

069111353X

9781400843732

1400843731

OCLC:

863824882