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Papers by Olga Velikanova
This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on percept... more This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on perceptions of Lenin's image from a socio-anthropological, rather than political, view. In addition to Communist Party information, official documents, memoirs and folklore, newly opened secret reports of the Soviet political police are used for the first time. The book analyzes the development of the cult from Lenin's lifetime up to the process of "de-Leninization" in the 1990s. Much of the research concerns the perception of Lenin's death and the decision to embalm his body, the campaign called "the Lenin enrollment", renaming of Petrograd and organization of "Lenin Corners". The book also presents new material devoted to Lenin museums, along with archive documents and never-published photographs.
Book chapter discussing the Peasant Union in the 1920s, the formation of a peasant identity, and ... more Book chapter discussing the Peasant Union in the 1920s, the formation of a peasant identity, and modernizing discourse.
Quaestio Rossica, 2020
This review analyses a monograph by O. Velikanova, an American historian of Russian descent. The ... more This review analyses a monograph by O. Velikanova, an American historian of Russian descent. The work focuses on the interaction of the Bolshevik authorities with the USSR’s population during the most large-scale political campaign of the early Soviet era, the “national discussion” of the draft version of the Stalin Constitution in the second half of 1936. Special attention is paid to the author’s method with various sources: from official legislation to classified document management, including several previously unpublished documents. The author aims to theoretically substantiate the existence of the phenomenon of mass political culture in the Soviet reality of the 1930s at the individual and group levels. Additionally, the author provides arguments illustrating the need to study the social perception of power practices during the mobilisation campaign by the civilian population and confirms the effectiveness of the results. Attention should be paid to the author’s justification o...
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
Revolutionary Russia, 2014
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
The internal communications of the high Communist Party (VKPb) officials bring us fresh knowledge... more The internal communications of the high Communist Party (VKPb) officials bring us fresh knowledge about the genesis of the idea for the new constitution. It emerged first as an election reform and gradually turned into a constitutional reform. The initiator was not Stalin, but A. S. Yenukidze, the secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, as early as 1933. This centrality of election reform during the origins of the endeavor radically shifts our understanding of the entire constitutional project.
Media and Communication in the Soviet Union (1917–1953), 2022
Representations of the future are part of any worldview. In opposition to the Christian notion of... more Representations of the future are part of any worldview. In opposition to the Christian notion of the Apocalypse, the Enlightenment paradigm suggested the idea of a bright future. In the beginning of the 2Oth century, many people all over the world were under the impression that freedom and justice existed in the world and that imperfection could be overcome through social and technical progress. Faith in Progress was one of the most effective consolations for humans affected by fears of modernization. This global upsurge of utopian hopes and faith in progress was embodied in the anticipation of a socialist miracle. In socialist myth the value of the future was strongly emphasized. My paper studies the parameters of the Communist concept of the bright future in opposition to the liberal ideologies-collective (rather than individual) salvation, the narrative of sacrifices, and short-term orientation. This paper will use new archival documents to study popular visions of the socialist future, including abundance, brotherhood, love and equity.
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
The government introduced the constitution to achieve international, ideological, and political g... more The government introduced the constitution to achieve international, ideological, and political goals. Among the political was the managerial goal of improving the effectiveness of government, and its ability to control, through a new election law—to use democratic procedures to motivate, revitalize, and purge sluggish, unreliable officials. Internal communications convey that the leaders took seriously the dictum of the attainment of socialism and the “new order of classes”—this was the ideological reason for a new constitution. The Stalinist vision of achieved socialism and a transformed peasantry explains why the idea of election reform with the enfranchisement of former enemies ascended. But later, when abstraction (the idea of a harmonious society) showed its discord with reality (when the discussion campaign exposed “enemies” inspired by freedoms and the obstruction of officials), the most daring part of the constitutional reform—contested elections—was castrated and the const...
The popular comments to only selected articles of the constitution were discussed by Stalin at th... more The popular comments to only selected articles of the constitution were discussed by Stalin at the 8th Congress of Soviets. The small number of accepted amendments confirms that the rationale of the discussion was a process per se—an orchestrated exercise in political conformity, not an adjustment of the constitution to the people’s demands. Stalin’s response shows that the warnings from the NKVD, officials, and the public about numerous enemies, delivered to authorities during the campaign, found fertile ground in his suspicious mind. His speech at the Congress, in the context of his disappointment with the results of the national census in January 1937 and the political turn to repressions at the February–March Central Committee Plenum the same year, speaks in favor of his reevaluation of conditions in society and explains his shift from political relaxation to the Great Terror.
In 1988, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak famously posed the question regarding the peoples of the Indi... more In 1988, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak famously posed the question regarding the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, 'Can the subaltern speak?'.(1) Spivak referred to the seemingly insurmountable challenge of writing a history of the colonized masses when nearly all of the available sources were products of the colonizers and thus reflected their preoccupations, biases, and frames of reference. Historians of Soviet Russia have long faced a similar challenge, as their dependence on officially published accounts meant that an 'authentic' voice of the broad populace, a voice unencumbered by the ideological requirements of the Bolshevik regime, became something of a holy grail in the profession. The opening of Soviet archives brought to light sources that were never intended for publication, such as letters of appeal to Communist party leaders or secret police (OGPU or NKVD) reports (svodki) on the mood of various sectors of the population. Sarah Davies mined such sources f...
Requests for civil rights and support for the innovations of the constitution were contrasted wit... more Requests for civil rights and support for the innovations of the constitution were contrasted with mass disapproval of the new liberties (especially religious), demands for continuing segregation of the “former people”, and strengthening of punishments. The constitutional expansion of the franchise met articulate opposition. The grassroots often accepted state intervention at the expense of individual rights: prioritizing state interests, praising the leader, advocating militarization, a total regimentation of life, and surveillance of private correspondence. Aggression against sanctioned minorities—the priests, kulaks and out-kolkhoz farmers—can be read as an indication of an authoritarian-type political culture present in society. The coexistence of a liberal subculture with mass expressions of illiberal and traditional values reflected the diversity of the political culture even under dictatorship.
Russian History, 2021
From the plethora of big and small achievements that the author celebrates in the book, my essay ... more From the plethora of big and small achievements that the author celebrates in the book, my essay addresses such subjects as the continuity of cultural creativity in the 19th and 20th centuries, children’s literature, the sociology of reading, and the place of goodness in literature and life under Stalinism – all within the span of the 20th century. Sharing with the author my admiration of accomplishments of Russian and Soviet culture, I try here to historicize the themes and expand slightly on some of them, like perceptions of the cultural products.
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2020
Making jokes was fatally dangerous in the USSR. Any expressions of free spirit, like humor, satir... more Making jokes was fatally dangerous in the USSR. Any expressions of free spirit, like humor, satire, and even poetry were taken deadly seriously by the Bolsheviks and Communists. The regime, with its distrust of the population and inherent tendency to politicize even innocent things, saw humor as a “weapon of class struggle.” Respectively, “official” humor was directed against the Revolution’s enemies while popular political anecdotes were equated by the regime with anti-Soviet agitation:
This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on percept... more This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on perceptions of Lenin's image from a socio-anthropological, rather than political, view. In addition to Communist Party information, official documents, memoirs and folklore, newly opened secret reports of the Soviet political police are used for the first time. The book analyzes the development of the cult from Lenin's lifetime up to the process of "de-Leninization" in the 1990s. Much of the research concerns the perception of Lenin's death and the decision to embalm his body, the campaign called "the Lenin enrollment", renaming of Petrograd and organization of "Lenin Corners". The book also presents new material devoted to Lenin museums, along with archive documents and never-published photographs.
Book chapter discussing the Peasant Union in the 1920s, the formation of a peasant identity, and ... more Book chapter discussing the Peasant Union in the 1920s, the formation of a peasant identity, and modernizing discourse.
Quaestio Rossica, 2020
This review analyses a monograph by O. Velikanova, an American historian of Russian descent. The ... more This review analyses a monograph by O. Velikanova, an American historian of Russian descent. The work focuses on the interaction of the Bolshevik authorities with the USSR’s population during the most large-scale political campaign of the early Soviet era, the “national discussion” of the draft version of the Stalin Constitution in the second half of 1936. Special attention is paid to the author’s method with various sources: from official legislation to classified document management, including several previously unpublished documents. The author aims to theoretically substantiate the existence of the phenomenon of mass political culture in the Soviet reality of the 1930s at the individual and group levels. Additionally, the author provides arguments illustrating the need to study the social perception of power practices during the mobilisation campaign by the civilian population and confirms the effectiveness of the results. Attention should be paid to the author’s justification o...
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
Revolutionary Russia, 2014
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
The internal communications of the high Communist Party (VKPb) officials bring us fresh knowledge... more The internal communications of the high Communist Party (VKPb) officials bring us fresh knowledge about the genesis of the idea for the new constitution. It emerged first as an election reform and gradually turned into a constitutional reform. The initiator was not Stalin, but A. S. Yenukidze, the secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, as early as 1933. This centrality of election reform during the origins of the endeavor radically shifts our understanding of the entire constitutional project.
Media and Communication in the Soviet Union (1917–1953), 2022
Representations of the future are part of any worldview. In opposition to the Christian notion of... more Representations of the future are part of any worldview. In opposition to the Christian notion of the Apocalypse, the Enlightenment paradigm suggested the idea of a bright future. In the beginning of the 2Oth century, many people all over the world were under the impression that freedom and justice existed in the world and that imperfection could be overcome through social and technical progress. Faith in Progress was one of the most effective consolations for humans affected by fears of modernization. This global upsurge of utopian hopes and faith in progress was embodied in the anticipation of a socialist miracle. In socialist myth the value of the future was strongly emphasized. My paper studies the parameters of the Communist concept of the bright future in opposition to the liberal ideologies-collective (rather than individual) salvation, the narrative of sacrifices, and short-term orientation. This paper will use new archival documents to study popular visions of the socialist future, including abundance, brotherhood, love and equity.
Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism, 2018
The government introduced the constitution to achieve international, ideological, and political g... more The government introduced the constitution to achieve international, ideological, and political goals. Among the political was the managerial goal of improving the effectiveness of government, and its ability to control, through a new election law—to use democratic procedures to motivate, revitalize, and purge sluggish, unreliable officials. Internal communications convey that the leaders took seriously the dictum of the attainment of socialism and the “new order of classes”—this was the ideological reason for a new constitution. The Stalinist vision of achieved socialism and a transformed peasantry explains why the idea of election reform with the enfranchisement of former enemies ascended. But later, when abstraction (the idea of a harmonious society) showed its discord with reality (when the discussion campaign exposed “enemies” inspired by freedoms and the obstruction of officials), the most daring part of the constitutional reform—contested elections—was castrated and the const...
The popular comments to only selected articles of the constitution were discussed by Stalin at th... more The popular comments to only selected articles of the constitution were discussed by Stalin at the 8th Congress of Soviets. The small number of accepted amendments confirms that the rationale of the discussion was a process per se—an orchestrated exercise in political conformity, not an adjustment of the constitution to the people’s demands. Stalin’s response shows that the warnings from the NKVD, officials, and the public about numerous enemies, delivered to authorities during the campaign, found fertile ground in his suspicious mind. His speech at the Congress, in the context of his disappointment with the results of the national census in January 1937 and the political turn to repressions at the February–March Central Committee Plenum the same year, speaks in favor of his reevaluation of conditions in society and explains his shift from political relaxation to the Great Terror.
In 1988, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak famously posed the question regarding the peoples of the Indi... more In 1988, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak famously posed the question regarding the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, 'Can the subaltern speak?'.(1) Spivak referred to the seemingly insurmountable challenge of writing a history of the colonized masses when nearly all of the available sources were products of the colonizers and thus reflected their preoccupations, biases, and frames of reference. Historians of Soviet Russia have long faced a similar challenge, as their dependence on officially published accounts meant that an 'authentic' voice of the broad populace, a voice unencumbered by the ideological requirements of the Bolshevik regime, became something of a holy grail in the profession. The opening of Soviet archives brought to light sources that were never intended for publication, such as letters of appeal to Communist party leaders or secret police (OGPU or NKVD) reports (svodki) on the mood of various sectors of the population. Sarah Davies mined such sources f...
Requests for civil rights and support for the innovations of the constitution were contrasted wit... more Requests for civil rights and support for the innovations of the constitution were contrasted with mass disapproval of the new liberties (especially religious), demands for continuing segregation of the “former people”, and strengthening of punishments. The constitutional expansion of the franchise met articulate opposition. The grassroots often accepted state intervention at the expense of individual rights: prioritizing state interests, praising the leader, advocating militarization, a total regimentation of life, and surveillance of private correspondence. Aggression against sanctioned minorities—the priests, kulaks and out-kolkhoz farmers—can be read as an indication of an authoritarian-type political culture present in society. The coexistence of a liberal subculture with mass expressions of illiberal and traditional values reflected the diversity of the political culture even under dictatorship.
Russian History, 2021
From the plethora of big and small achievements that the author celebrates in the book, my essay ... more From the plethora of big and small achievements that the author celebrates in the book, my essay addresses such subjects as the continuity of cultural creativity in the 19th and 20th centuries, children’s literature, the sociology of reading, and the place of goodness in literature and life under Stalinism – all within the span of the 20th century. Sharing with the author my admiration of accomplishments of Russian and Soviet culture, I try here to historicize the themes and expand slightly on some of them, like perceptions of the cultural products.
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2020
Making jokes was fatally dangerous in the USSR. Any expressions of free spirit, like humor, satir... more Making jokes was fatally dangerous in the USSR. Any expressions of free spirit, like humor, satire, and even poetry were taken deadly seriously by the Bolsheviks and Communists. The regime, with its distrust of the population and inherent tendency to politicize even innocent things, saw humor as a “weapon of class struggle.” Respectively, “official” humor was directed against the Revolution’s enemies while popular political anecdotes were equated by the regime with anti-Soviet agitation:
Книга историка О. В. Великановой, первоначально изданная на английском языке, посвящена изучению ... more Книга историка О. В. Великановой, первоначально изданная на английском языке, посвящена изучению массовых настроений в СССР в первое десятилетие его существования. Опираясь на обширную документальную базу,включающую информационные сводки ОГПУ и партийных органов, частные письма, дневники, доклады зарубежных дипломатов и разговоры, подслушанные осведомителями ОГПУ, автор прослеживает, как население реагировало на советские мобилизационные кампании 1920-х гг. В книге показаны рост разочарования в первом послереволюционном поколении советских людей и кризис легитимности большевистской власти, который в сочетании с экономическими, политическими, социальными проблемами внутри страны и неудачами на международной арене сыграл важную роль в переходе большевиков к репрессивным и диктаторским методам правления.
This book is the first full-length study of the Soviet Constitution of 1936, exploring Soviet cit... more This book is the first full-length study of the Soviet Constitution of 1936, exploring Soviet citizens’ views of constitutional democratic principles and their problematic relationship to the reality of Stalinism. Drawing on archival materials, the book offers an insight into the mass political culture of the mid-1930s in the USSR and thus contributes to wider research on Russian political culture. Popular comments about the constitution show how liberal, democratic and conciliatory discourse co-existed in society with illiberal, confrontational and intolerant views.
The study also covers the government’s goals for the constitution’s revision and the national discussion, and its disappointment with the results. Outcomes of the discussion convinced Stalin that society was not sufficiently Sovietized. Stalin's re-evaluation of society's condition is a new element in the historical picture explaining why politics shifted from the relaxation of 1933-36 to the Great Terror, and why repressions expanded from former oppositionists to the officials and finally to the wider population.
Table of contents (14 chapters)
Introduction
Pages 1-14
Sources
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 15-25
The Origins of Constitutional Reform
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 29-36
Moderation in the Policies of the Mid-1930s
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 37-47
Motives for the New Constitution
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 49-70
Soviet Sociopolitical Mobilizations
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 71-98
State’s Goals for the Nationwide Discussion
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 99-108
The Economic Condition at the Grassroots
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 111-122
Liberal Discourse
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 123-162
Voices Against Liberties
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 163-203
Other Comments and Recommendations
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 205-220
Outcome of the Discussion: From Relaxation to Repression
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 221-233
On Russian Political Culture in the Twentieth Century
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 235-244
Conclusion
Velikanova, Olga
Pages 245-250
The first study of popular opinions in post-revolutionary Russia, this volume is based on new doc... more The first study of popular opinions in post-revolutionary Russia, this volume is based on new documentation of OGPU and party surveillance on the population, extracts from private letters, diaries, British Foreign Office reports and talks leaked by OGPU informants. These archival sources show an increasing disenchantment of a generation, which resulted in revolution. The population resisted the Soviet mobilization campaigns, which promoted workers-peasants unity, the achievements of socialism and new socialist patriotism. The Bolsheviks failed to reach a national consensus and unite the nation around the great aim of socialist construction. The story of the legitimacy crisis at the end of the 1920s presents an important argument in the explanation of why, in 1927, when faced with economical, political and social crisis at home and in foreign politics, the Bolsheviks started changing their politics in favour of the more oppressive and dictatorial methods.
This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on percept... more This book presents a study of collective representations in Soviet Russia concentrates on perceptions of Lenin's image from a socio-anthropological, rather than political, view. In addition to Communist Party information, official documents, memoirs and folklore, newly opened secret reports of the Soviet political police are used for the first time. The book analyzes the development of the cult from Lenin's lifetime up to the process of "de-Leninization" in the 1990s. Much of the research concerns the perception of Lenin's death and the decision to embalm his body, the campaign called "the Lenin enrollment", renaming of Petrograd and organization of "Lenin Corners". The book also presents new material devoted to Lenin museums, along with archive documents and never-published photographs.
Audio interview at New Books network
Review on my book Разочарованные мечтатели. Советское общество в 1920 е годы in Ab Imperio, 2/201... more Review on my book Разочарованные мечтатели. Советское общество в 1920 е годы in Ab Imperio, 2/2018. In Russian