30 March is marked as National Pencil Day in the United States, which has led me to do some thinking about whether pencils really should be thought of in national terms. As I hope to demonstrate in this blog the pencil has a rich international history, which crossed international borders as easily as a hastily written letter scribbled in pencil.
So why is National Pencil Day marked on 30 March? I thought that this might have to do with the Derwent Pencil Musuem which claims Keswick in the Lake District as the home of the world’s first pencil. However, National Pencil Day is an American creation, marked on 30 March the day when the inventor Hymen Lipman registered the first patent for a pencil with an eraser integrated into the end of the pencil in 1858.
However, should we see the pencil in national terms? Lipman himself was born to English parents apprently in Kingston Jamica. When I look at the pencils I have at home they come from brands across Europe. Although I love writing with a fountain pen, I still love writing in pencil, especially a well sharpened quality pencil. You can see a selection of my favourites below. I especially enjoy the Faber Castell Grip 2001 pencils, which are a German brand, and the Staedtler Wopex pencils, again another German brand. But, of course there are host of international pencil brands. Pencils might not be something that you associate with Russia, but for me there are lots of international connections with Russia and the pencil. One of the things that always stuck in my memory from Robert Service’s biography of Lenin was that Lenin loved a tidy desk, complete silence as he worked, and precisely sharpened pencils to write with (pp.99-100). I have visions of Lenin working with these highly sharpened pencils in the British Musuem in London, or at his desk in Zurich. However, this is just the beginning of a series of international connections that spring to mind between pencils and Russia.
The Russian word for pencil – karandash (Kарандаш) has apparently existed since the at least the seventeenth century, but the word apparently has a turkic origin. A quick internet search tells me it borrows from the Turkish karataş (“black slate”), from kara (meaning – black) and taş (meaning – stone). This is interesting, because when I started learning Russian I had originally assumed the word karandash might owe something to the Swiss brand Caran d’Ache. But, it turns out the direction of travel was the opposite. In 1924 the Swiss company Fabrique Genevoise de Crayons, was renamed Caran d’Ache. Here, the history begins to get really interesting. The pencil manufacturers borrowed the name Caran d’Arche not directly from the Russian word for pencil, but from pseudonym of the Russian-French satirist and political cartonnst Emmmual Poiré. Incidentily, Poiré was born in Russia 1858, the same year that Hymen Lipman was patenting his pencil, but later emigrated to France. Poiré’s family were in Russia apparently because his grandfather a member of Napoleon’s invading Grande Armée had been wounded at the Battle of Borodino, and stayed on in Russia. Or course, this wasn’t the only famous individual with the pseudonym Karandash there was also the famous Soviet clown, the stage name of Mikhail Nikolayevich Rumyantsev.
Finally, one of the most famous brands of pencil in the Soviet Union was the Sacco & Vanzetti brand, the favoured pencils of none other than Joseph Stalin. The pencil factory was named after the murdered anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both Italian anarchist immigrant to the United States of America, who were murdered on 23 August 1927. The Sacco & Vanzetti factory had originally been founded by the American Industrialist Armand Hammer in around 1926, in a phase when the Soviet project was still enamoured with American industrial modernism, but around 1930 he was bought out by the Soviet state, who renamed the factory after the murdered anarchists. The name of the new factory helped preserve an international dimension, with a echo of both America and its Italian communities. Incidentally, the famous Soviet writer Vasily Grossman, had worked at the Sacco & Vanzetti pencil factory for approximately two years in the mid-1930s.
So, my point is really that even before one starts to think about where the materials for pencils come from, particuarly the cedar wood preferred in production, pencils turn out to be remarkably international.
At the start of the pandemic in the United Kingdom as some form of lockdown at least looked possible, and as universities began to move teaching online, I began a mini project trying to repurpose Soviet joke. Inspired by Jonathan Waterlow’s brilliant book It’s Only A Joke, Comrade!: Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin (1928-1941) [available for purchase at https://www.jonwaterlow.com/only-a-joke-comrade] I wanted to see what value humour might have a in difficult and dark time. I also thought it might be a useful activity in engaging my students with Russian and Soviet history. In order to understand these jokes you you need to understand the historical context, as well as what was happening in Britain at this moment in time.
In the interests of posterity I have listed the first 88 of these jokes here on my blog. They may not still be funny (or even have been funny at the time), but they are both a prompt for thinking about Soviet history, and also what was happening in Britain earlier in the pandemic.
15 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke: – Does this shop have any toilet paper? – No. This is the shop that doesn’t have any paracetamol. The shop that doesn’t have any toilet paper is next door.
16 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke No. 2: Retired married couple on the bus: Old man let’s out big sigh. His wife to him: “I thought we agreed to not talk about the pandemic in public!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke No.3: Q. Which is more useful for communicating public information messages newspapers or the TV? A. Newspapers of course, you can’t wipe your ass on a TV!
Repurposed Soviet Joke No.4 with improved gendering: A spouse returns home to find their partner in bed with someone else: “You disgust me! This is how you behave! Any self respecting citizen is out panic buying!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke No. 5: Boris + Cummings in No.10 “Why don’t you want to reopen the borders?” asks Cummings. “Well I would,” says Boris, “only I’m afraid everyone would rush out. We would be the only two left.” Cummings looks at Boris in astonishment. “You and who else?”
Repurposed Soviet Joke No.6: The Chancellor is giving a press conference on plenty and the ever growing prosperity of the British people. In the back row comrade Smith puts up his hand. “Comrade Chancellor, what you say is very interesting, but why is there no toilet roll, rice,
17 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke No.7: Presenter on 2020 Great British Bake Off to contestant: “What are you baking?” Contestant: “Boris sponge!” Presenter: “?? What’s that?” Contestant: “Just like Victoria Sponge, but without eggs, flour, butter, sugar and a jam filling.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke No.8: Tesco online shopping website: “Your next available delivery slot is 7am – 10pm on 6 May 2021.” Checks diary: “Damn, I’ve got to report for my Covid-19 testing appointment that day, and they are voting for me in the local elections that day too!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke No. 9: School essay composition homework: Child writes: “My cat has just had seven kittens. They are all Trump voters.” From the essay composition the following week: “My cat has just had seven kittens. They are all Sanders voters.”
Teacher: “But last week your kittens were all Trump voters.” Child: “But now their eyes have opened!!!”
18 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 10: A man walking down the street carrying a bag of toilet rolls. A passer-by shouts: “Hey, citizen, where did you buy those?” Answer: “Buy? Are you crazy? Where can you buy toilet roll? I’ve had these weeks. I’m bringing them back from the dry cleaners.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 11: A man goes to his local police station: “My talking parrot has escaped.” “Report it to the RSPCA!” “I know that. I just want to inform you that I disagree with everything that parrot says about the inadequacies of the government’s coronavirus response.”
19 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 12: Boris Johnson summons David Cameron to No10 Boris: “I know you are telling jokes about me. It is disrespectful!
Dave: “How come?”
Boris: “I’m leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister at a time of national crisis.”
Dave: “No I’ve not told anyone that one.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 13: An international competition for the best book on #COVID19 is announced:
France submits a lavishly illustrated volume titled: “The art of love making during Lockdown”
England a treatise entitled: “Covid19 and World Trade”
Germany submitted a 36 volumes in the series “An introduction to Virology”
Italy supplied: “Classic Italian cookery at a time of crisis.”
USA furnished 100,000 leaflets announcing a sweepstake “Win a Coronavirus testing kit, no purchase necessary.
The Russian Federation submitted 3 volumes. Vol. 1 Coronavirus and our victory in the Great Patriotic War. Vol. 2 Covid-19 and the collapse of the Liberal West Vol. 3 How to rewrite your constitution in a time of crisis.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 14: A man returns home (and after thoroughly washing his hands with soap and hot water for two verses of the State Anthem), his wife passionately embraces him. She whispers into his ear: “Say those three little words to me.” He whispers: “I bought buckwheat”.
20 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 15: A man joins the back of a long queue (appropriately spaced) outside ASDA to collect his basic ration of toilet roll, paracetamol, pasta and UHT milk. After two hours of little movement, he tells the person in front: “This is ridiculous! I’m off to give Boris Johnson a piece of my mind!” Five minutes later he rejoins the queue. People at the back ask him why he is back? “I should have known! The queue to give Boris what for is ten times the length of this one!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 16: An academic is sat in the British Library newspaper reading room, with the dailies for the past 3 months and a pair of scissors. The librarian goes over to inspect: “Citizen, why are you cutting out photographs of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson?”
Academic: “I need some toilet paper?” Librarian: “Why not cut the newspapers into neat squares?” Academic: “I find that if I position the photographs just right, their haircuts at least provide the illusion of softness!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 17: Two prisoners are chatting: “What did they arrest you for?” one asks. “Was it political or just criminality?” “Political of course. I’m an IT Systems Engineer. They summoned me to No 10 to fix the Wifi.
I took one look and said: “Hey, the entire system requires replacement.” So I got seven years!
23 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 18: A man goes into his local shop: “I’d like an original Kandinsky, an Emperor Penguin, and a packet of paracetamol, please.” Shopkeeper: “I’ll have a look in the back for the Kandinsky and Penguin, but what makes you think we have any paracetamol?”
Well it’s just as likely as you having the Kandinsky and the Penguin!
Repurposed Soviet Joke 19: A British historian is on the phone to a colleague in Moscow: “I think things are still better here. I can go to Downing Street and shout. “Boris Johnson is a t**t!” Nobody will arrest me.
His Russian colleague replies: “No we too have that right!”
“I can go to the Kremlin and shout: “Boris Johnson is a t**t!” Nobody will arrest me either!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 20: History seminar 2050: Student to Lecturer: “Why did Theresa May go around in wellies, and Boris Johnson in chest waders?” Lecturer to Student: “Because when May was in government the shit only came up to our ankles.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 21: This is Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners ask do you know any good four word jokes? We say, yes, one in particular: “REF is still on!”
24 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 22: This is Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners ask: “Is it possible to make a chicken last all week?” Our answer is yes! Buy the chicken on a Monday and cook it on the following Sunday.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 23: Boris Johnson starts delivering a speech expressing solidarity with the Japanese Olympics organising committee: “O, O, O..” Dominic Cummings shouts from across the room: “That’s the Olympic logo on the headed notepaper, Prime Minister!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 24: A citizen goes into a greasy spoon: “Do you have cockroaches here?” – “Yes, we do!” – “Tremendous, I’ll have a big plate of those.”
25 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 25: This is Radio Yerevan Calling: Our listeners ask: “What is Dominic Cummings writing at the moment? Not one of his interminable blogs?” Our answer is, no. He is writing a true crime work called: How I helped the United Kingdom’s Covid-19 response.
26 March 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 27: This Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners ask what is permitted in this crisis: Our answer: In Britain what is permitted continues to confuse. In America everything is permitted, including what should be prohibited.
In Germany everything is prohibited, except what is permitted. In Spain and Italy everything is currently prohibited, with minor exceptions. In Russia everything is prohibited, even what is permitted.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 28: This is Radio Yerevan, Our listeners ask: “What will the government’s next economic plan be called?” Our answer is, the Marshall Plan.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 29: This is Radio Yerevan: Our listeners ask: “Is lockdown difficult?” Our answer: “Only the first ten years!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 30: Son – “Dad can I have the cardboard toilet roll tube for my game?” Father – “Of course son, but be careful. We don’t get the toilet paper to go on it for another six weeks.”
2 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 31: 2050. In London, a boy asks “Grandpa, what is a queue?” “Thirty years back, there was not enough pasta and rice in the shops, so people had to form long lines at their entrances and wait until pasta and rice were on sale. That was called a queue!”
Boy: “Got it Grandpa. What are pasta and rice?
3 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 32: This is Radio Yerevan calling Our listeners asked us: “What is the most permanent feature of our new British economy?” Our answer, “Temporary shortages.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 33: This is Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners asked us: “What is the difference between Russian and British fairy tales? Our answer: “Russian fairy tales start with ‘Once upon a time…’, and British, “The government is pleased to announce….”
19 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 34: Sophie Ridge to Michael Gove: “Will there be equality under your government?”
Gove: “Of course, nobody will have access to the PPE they need.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 35: Radio Yerevan: Our listeners ask: “Why haven’t you broadcast for a long time?”
Our answer: “We had to make some staffing changes. The previous announcer read an item that contained the words: “The British Government’s efforts to obtain PPE is nothing as compared with the German government’s.” He made too long a pause after the word ‘nothing.’
Repurposed Soviet Joke 36: This Radio Yerevan: Our listeners ask: “The British Government tells us that PPE deliveries are ‘on the horizon’. But, what is a horizon?”
We answer: “The horizon is an imaginary line which moves away each time you approach it.”
20 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 37: This Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners asked us: “Is it possible to solve a problem which has no solution?” Our answer: “I’m afraid we are not authorized to answer questions related to the lockdown exit strategy.”
21 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 38: Dominic Raab is at the No.10 Press Conference. Laura Kuenssberg asks: “Foreign Secretary, why are you wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe?”
“Yes,” Raab answers, “I noticed this myself.”
Kuenssberg: “Why didn’t you change them?”
Raab: “I was going to, but when I looked in the bottom of the wardrobe, there was just another odd pair of black and brown shoes.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 39: -“Comrade Hancock, is it true that you collecting the complaints of NHS staff unable to obtain PPE?”
-“Yes”
-“And how many have you collected so far?”
-“Three and a half labour camps.”
23 April 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 40: Radio Yerevan calling: Our listeners asked us: “Why is the UK Space Agency not in a hurry to send Tim Peake back to the #ISS?”
We’re answering: “Because he may refuse to return.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 41: This is Radio Yerevan calling. Our listeners ask us: “Is it true that there are two kinds of people serving in the British Cabinet?”
Our answer: “Yes, those not capable of anything at all, and those capable of anything whatsoever.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 43: No.10 during September 2020 reshuffle. Boris to collective briefing for those considered “rising stars” suitable for joining the Cabinet: “Don’t make clever faces at me — you’re future Cabinet ministers, now act accordingly!”
6 May 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 44: Somebody knocks at Dominic Raab’s front door delivering a parcel. Dominic goes over to the telephone table, and searches for something muttering “…I know it’s here somewhere…”. He finds a piece of paper holds it up and reads loudly: Who’s there?”
10 May 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 45: 3 men sit (socially distanced) outside a court. One asks the other two, “What are you on trial for?” They reply, “I criticised the ‘Stay Alert’ communications stategy”, and “I praised the ‘Stay Alert’ communications strategy.”
“And you?” they ask. “I came up with the ‘Stay Alert’ communications strategy.”
12 May 2020
Repurposes Soviet Joke 46: BoJo opens a door, and the lights go on. BoJo closes the door, and the lights go out. BoJo opens the door again; the light goes back on. BoJo closes the door; the light goes out again. BoJo deduces, “It’s a refrigerator”.
13 May 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 47: At a VE day socially distanced street party, a very old man waved a banner with the slogan, “Thank you, comrade Johnson for my happy childhood!”
Someone shouts from across the street: “What’s that? Everybody can see, that when you were a child, comrade Johnson was not yet Prime Minister!”
“That’s precisely what I’m grateful to him for!” the old man says.
22 May 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 48: On a socially distanced bus somebody loudly sneezes. A policeman asks: “Who sneezed, citizens?” Total silence. The policeman asks again more forcefully: -“Citizens, who sneezed?” Everyone freezes still, afraid to look at each other. -“Citizens, I am asking who sneezed?” A faint whisper is audible from the back of the bus. – “Old dear, you are old, you have nothing to worry about, say it was you.” An old woman with a weak voice says, “I’m sorry I sneezed out of old age…” The policeman pushes he way to the front of the bus, salutes, and says: “Bless you, grandmother!”
1 June 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 49: Q: What neither allows you to mark, nor stay online? A: The online marking system GradeMark in Turnitin.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 50: A man parks his car outside Dominic Cummings’s house. The police officer now stationed there rushes over and says “You can’t park there! That’s right outside Cummings’s window!” The man looks perplexed for a second but then smiles and calmly replies: “Don’t worry officer, I will make sure to lock it, and anyway I haven’t got a full tank of petrol.”
24 June 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 51: This is Radio Yerevan calling our listeners ask: “What would happen if Donald Trump was given a heart transplant from a kinder, gentler, more compassionate man?” We answer, “In principle nothing, the heart plays no part in political leaders.”
25 June 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 53: Presser No.10 Downing Street: Q: Is it true that the government has been censoring the Chief Medical Officer? A: No this untrue. Unfortunately we have run out of time for discussing these important issues, and this is the end of the press conference.
29 June 2020
Repurposed (post)-Soviet Joke 54: A man walks up to a cabinet minister: “I’m going to tell you a political joke.” – “Are you mad? I’m a cabinet minister.” – “Ok, I’ll tell it to you twice, and very slowly.”
16 July 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 55: A man is arrested outside Parliament shouting: “Chris Grayling is an idiot.” He is sentenced to 15 years. 5 years for breach of the peace, and another 10 for revealing a state secret.
17 July 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 56: A man turns on the television. BBC1 is showing Johnson’s speech, BBC2 is showing Johnson’s speech, ITV is showing Johnson’s speech. On Channel 4 a policeman is waving his fist shouting: “Turn back to one of the other channels, and stop channel hoping!”
12 August 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 57: Gavin Williamson is asked at a meeting with UUK leaders: “what is 4 x 5?” Williamson: “Very roughly 18. We need to start designing and building based on these assumptions, and then during the clearing process you can clarify. If there is time”.
26 August 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 58: A citizen from the British provinces makes his first trip to London. On his excursion he finds himself at the end of Downing Street and asks a passerby: “What are these railings for, and why are there loads of armed policemen here?” They answer, “This is Downing Street, where Boris Johnson lives!” – “Got it! Great! That will stop the bastard getting out!”
27 August 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 59: Gavin Williamson is interviewed on #BBCradio4 on #today Nick Robinson asks: “Is it true that the Department for Education is standing on the edge of an abyss?” Williamson: “No. It used to be true, but now we have taken a big step forward.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 60: Why isn’t there are flour available in the shops? Because they have started adding it to the bread!
7 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 61: Boris Johnson was furious about all the jokes about his government: ‘It is a disgrace! Jokes and more jokes! Who makes them up? Bring me one of these joke writers!’ They bring a joke writer to Chequers. He pauses entering the PM’s office. “What are you looking at?” asks Boris. “I’m just looking. All this is very grand. You are doing well!” “Well what of it? In 20 years we will have levelled up the north, and everyone will live like this!” “Brilliant. Can I have a paper and pencil? What a brilliant new joke!’
16 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 62: A husband decides to hold a party for his wife. He takes the guest list to the local security police and explains that, to avoid suspicion, he’s happy to include the officer and any of his colleagues. The officer glances at the list and replies: “There’s no need for that. You’ve already invited six of our people.”
17 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 63: Why is the British coronavirus testing system the most progressive in the world? Because there were already more testing slots available yesterday than today.
18 September 2020
(Not quite a) repurposed Soviet Jokes No. 64: Father returns from his covid-19 test after taking an appointment at the nearest testing centre in Nerchinsk.
20 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 65: This is Armenian Radio; a listener writes to ask: “Is there life on other planets?” Our answer is that: “On other planets there is also no life.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 66: 2023 a British Tourist arrives at passport control and customs in Spain, wheeling two enormous heavy suitcases. On his wrist is a strange device with a tube protruding. The customs officer asks, “What is that on your wrist.” The tourist answers, “It is a new British wearable device. If I breathe into the tube it tells me if I am Covid-19 free, it takes my temperature, monitors my heartrate and runs Track and Trace’s new app. The Customs officer replies: “It’s a technological marvel!” “Just one more thing. What is in those enormous suitcases?” Tourist, “Oh, that’s simple – the batteries to run it for a week!”
21 September 2020
In lieu of a repurposed Soviet Joke: Two dogs at Pavlov’s Institute: “Do you think people also have conditional reflexes?” – “I’m sure they do. Look as soon as I press this button, that chap over there brings me food.”
22 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 65: House of Commons: “Prime Minister, why are there no toilet rolls in the shops?” Boris Johnson: “Because they have been burnt up by the radiance of the British constitution and its freedom!”
26 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 68: Sign hanging in university canteen: Staff and students please do not drop your food on the floor. Two of our cats have died this week!
Repurposed Soviet Joke 69: Boris Johnson television address to the nation: “Who said that I can only speak fluently when I have the autocue in front of me? Ha dash Ha dash ha.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 70: Boris Johnson: “The Americans were the first on the moon, Brits will be first on the sun!” Patrick Vallance – GCSA: “But the sun is so hot that astronauts will burn alive there!” Boris: “I’m not thick! We will fly to there at night!”
27 September 2020
Repurposed (post-)Soviet Joke 71: Boris Johnson’s main problem with the Cabinet is that he appoints people on the basis of loyalty, but expects them to be smart as well.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 72: Matt Hancock on Sophie Ridge on Sunday: “We are addressing this. The temporary problems in track and trace will soon be over. Then the permanent problems can begin again.”
Repurposed (post)-Soviet Joke 73: Dom Cummings is visited by the ghost of Stalin in a dream: “Dominic I have two tasks for you. First, purge Public Health England! Root out the wreckers! Reorganise England’s public health infrastructure in the midst of a global pandemic! “Second, paint the door of No.10 Downing Street yellow. Any questions?” Dom – “Yes. Joseph Vissarionovich, why should I paint it yellow?” Stalin – “I knew you wouldn’t object to doing in Public Health England!
30 September 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 74: A competition for the best repurposed Soviet joke has been announced. First prize: twenty five years; second prize: twenty years, and two condolence prizes: fifteen years each.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 75: A group of employees (definitely not academics) are on a Zoom call complaining about their institution’s response (definitely not at a University) to the pandemic. They are telling jokes. Sasha reminds everyone, “Comrades, talk one at a time.” “Why?” they all ask. Sasha explains, “I’m writing these jokes all down.” – “Crumbs, you must be able to write fast to jot these down.” Sasha replies, “No it’s ok, I only need your initials!”
2 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 76: This Radio Yerevan: our listeners ask: “What shall we do if suddenly we feel a desire to work?” We’re answering: “Just rest for a while on a sofa. It too will pass.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 77: Boris Johnson is talking to Dominic Cummings: “I’m receiving a lot of advanced praise for my new book – Shakespeare, The Riddle of Genius. It sounds really good, I think I’ll have to read it for myself!”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 78: (follows on from 77) The government has announced a contest for the best monument honoring the great English poet Shakespeare. The third prize was awarded to a design for a monument showing Pushkin reading a biography of Shakespeare by Boris Johnson. The second prize was given to a project for a monument which showed Boris Johnson reading the collected sonnets of Shakespeare. The first prize a monument showing Johnson reading a book by Johnson.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 79: A man walks into a shoe shop, and asks for a pair of shoes. -“Certainly, sir, what size?” -“I’m a 9, but I’ll take a 5.” “They are going to pinch awfully, sir!” “But, when I take them off, it’ll be the one moment of pleasure I experience all day!”
4 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 79 (sic): A new postage stamp is issued featuring Boris Johnson’s profile. After a week Boris asks if everything is ok with the stamp. -“Prime Minister the stamp isn’t being used widely.” -“Why?” -“The people keep complaining it won’t stick to the envelope.”
-“So whats the matter, is the glue bad?” “No, prime minister the glue is absolutely fine, just people keep spitting on the wrong side.”
5 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 80: News flash: “The Central Committee of the Republican Party is pleased to announce that after his recent illness, comrade Trump has returned to his duties, without regaining consciousness.”
Repurposed Soviet Joke 81: Boris Johnson visits an art exhibition: “What’s this blue circle with white spots all about?” “This painting, Comrade Johnson, depicts the heroic efforts of NHS staff to combat the virus.” “Ah-h. And what is this black triangle with yellow stripes?” “This painting depicts heroic Serco staff in Covid testing centres monitoring the virus.” “And what is this fat ass with floppy hair supposed to depict, eh? “Comrade Johnson, this is not a painting, this is a mirror.”
6 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 82 (Bishkek edition): This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: “What will be the results of the Kyrgyzstan elections?” Our answer: “Nobody can tell.” Somebody has stolen yesterday the exact results from the Parliament building.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 82 (Minsk edition): This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: “What will be the results of the Belarussian elections?” Our answer: “Nobody can tell.” Somebody has stolen the exact results from the Headquarter of Belaya Rus.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 82 (Washington edition): This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: “What will be the results of the American elections?” Our answer: “Nobody can tell.” Somebody has stolen the all of the postal ballots.
7 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 83: A boy is selling newspapers on the street shouting: Buy the “Daily Telegraph” read Boris Johnson’s party speech – just twenty pence!
Repurposed Soviet Joke 84: Q – How long is a working day in a British University? A – Of course the British Higher Education system employs an 8-hour day. (From 8am to 8pm).
12 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 85: What did one toilet roll say to the other? …. Hang on, when has anyone ever seen two toilet rolls together in the same place.
14 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 86: The Department of Health sets up a study to classify British citizens, and decides on the following criteria: (1) People who have already had Covid-19, (2) those people who now have Covid-19 (3) those people who will get Covid-19.
Repurposed Soviet Joke 87: Donald Trump is out swimming demonstrating his fitness and virility, but he gets into trouble. (Out of his depth) A passerby jumps in to rescue him, and pulls him to shore. Once on land, and having recovered his breath, Trump asks the passerby, what he would like as a reward. Realising whom he had saved, the passerby cries out: ‘Nothing! Just please don’t tell anyone I saved you!’
24 October 2020
Repurposed Soviet Joke 88: A charity worker greets Boris Johnson at a food bank. “Comrade Johnson, we have so many free school meals vouchers for half term that, piled one on top of the other, they would reach all the way to Camelot,” the charity worker excitedly declares. “But Camelot does not exist,” replies Johnson. “Exactly,” says the farmer. “Neither do the free school meals vouchers.”
I had the enormous pleasure of reviewing Jonathan Waterlow’s brilliant book It’s Only a Joke Comrade! Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin (Oxford: CreateSpace, 2018), for Soviet and Post-Soviet Review.
Jonathan Waterlow, It’s Only a Joke Comrade! Humour, Trust and
Everyday Life under Stalin (Oxford: CreateSpace, 2018), xxi + 285 pp.
£14.99 (pb), ISBN 978-1-985-63582-1.
Stalinism is not usually associated with
laughter. The debates provoked by the withdrawal of a Russian screening licence
for Armando Iannucci’s black comedy The Death of Stalin in January 2018,
for example, testify to the complexities of playing Stalin’s murderous regime
for laughs. Yet as Jonathan Waterlow’s perceptive book reminds us, ordinary
Soviet citizens frequently laughed and joked about the darkest moments of the
1930s. Humour provided a coping mechanism and a means of creating community in
the bleakest of times. Far from a frivolous subject, this study breaks new
ground in examining how Stalinist citizens made sense of the world around them,
and the psychological mechanisms required to live under an authoritarian regime.
“Studying their jokes,” as Waterlow notes, “brings their experiences back to
life and contradicts many long-held views of the period as one of fearful
atomisation or gullible belief in Stalin.” (2) Through humour, and the social
and psychological bonds it engendered, many people found ways to deal with the
privations, pressures and uncertainties of Stalinism. Jokes (anekdoty),
humorous ditties (chastushki), wordplay, graffiti, visual humour, and
other forms of mockery are central to this study, but its contributions stretch
beyond immediate exploration of what was funny to wider discussions of social
structures, psychological mechanisms, Stalinist subjectivities, and the reach
of Soviet ideology. Humour was frequently more than a joke! Subsumed within the
vibrant joke telling culture of the 1930s was a complex web of social meanings,
practices and relations.
One of the most
impressive aspects of this book is the richness and variety of its primary
research. Its evidence has been diligently pieced together from across the
archival record; the tone and inflection of past language read with great care
and sensitive. Material relating to humour is often fleeting and fragmentary, but
this research offsets weaknesses in specifics sources by triangulating between
a wide range of documents. Waterlow eschews late-Soviet published collections
of recycled and decontextualized anekdoty, which reveal little about how
they were told. Svodki, summaries of popular mood and opinion, and the
review files for anti-Soviet agitation cases conducted by the USSR procuracy
provide more vivid insights into Stalin-era humour and its social functions. They
are supplemented by the undervalued interviews of the Harvard Interview
Project, the diaries of Stalinist citizens, and the accounts of western
visitors to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. These personal sources introduce a
cast of characters whose stories are woven throughout the book.
The six chapters of It’s
Only a Joke Comrade! are structured in three parts, which in the author’s
own words flow, “from a focus on the content and character of jokes themselves,
to the repercussions of telling them, and on to the psychological and social
motivations and effects of sharing them.” (10). Chapter 1 examines the multiple
ways in which Soviet citizens mocked their leaders, thereby asserting a “quiet
power” and superiority over them. These humorous acts included concealed
graffiti, creative misspellings, moving portraits and banners to send sardonic
messages. These relatively minor subversions, provided an opportunity to place
untouchable leaders in ridiculous situations, poke fun and pick holes in
official rhetoric. Far from being protected by his widespread personality cult,
Stalin was routinely and roundly mocked. Furthermore, the murder of the
Leningrad party boss in Sergei Kirov in December 1934 was met by, “a deluge of
carnivalesque, absurd, sexualised, violent and dirty humour.” (32) These waves
of scatological and sexual mockery were aimed at individuals and institutions,
rather than the wider Soviet project. Chapter 2 examines the critical responses
to key Stalinist policies, including state loan subscription campaigns, the
Five-Year Plans, collectivisation, the ‘Great Terror’, the 1940 Labour Law and
the Nazi-Soviet pact. It provides a clear exploration of the content of popular
humour, as well as the range of creative responses to widespread hardships and
traumas. Far from being paralysed by fear, joke tellers harnessed gallows
humour to deflate propaganda. As we are reminded, “terrible experiences could
be reconfigured to provoke pleasurable laughter, or at least to mitigate
outright, resignation and despair.” (77). Chapter 3 introduces the important
conceptual innovation of crosshatching. In humour we can see a wealth of
perspectives and attitudes about gender, religion, history, antisemitism, and
much beside, that conflicted with official ideology. In Waterlow’s analysis
these older cultural assumptions were crosshatched with the new Soviet
worldview and values, in a complicated process of hybridization. This notion offers an important
refinement to Stephen Kotkin’s influential work, by demonstrating that many
people through their jokes were, “often gleefully speaking more than
Bolshevik.” (107). Through Waterlow’s research the mechanisms by which,
“elements of ‘belief’ and ‘disbelief’ appear to have coexisted within
everyone,”[1]
becomes clearer. Hidden in humour were a variety of “shadow languages” (130)
and “contraband meanings” (132) that enable people to mediate official
ideology, created sense out of remarkable times, whilst blend criticism and
acceptance of the regime.
Chapter 4 examines how
the Stalinist regime perceived the joke-telling population, and its attempts to
contain unofficial humour. Although the Bolshevik party-state wasn’t humourless
and deployed laughter as a didactic weapon to discredit its enemies, over the
course of the 1930s the state’s attitudes towards humour hardened. By 1935
jokes were seen as dangerous agents of viral infection. Keeping up with
shifting official attitudes, combined with retrospective prosecution, made it
hard for individuals to evaluate the risks they were taking whilst joking. Surprisingly,
who the joke teller was often mattered more than what they said when it came to
prosecutions for anti-Soviet agitation. Women, the young, un-educated and
blue-collar workers were considered a lower political threat than others. Nevertheless,
telling jokes was a risky and unpredictable business, but one that was worth it
because of the important social functions humour fulfilled.
The final two chapters
examine how telling jokes operated as a coping mechanism. Far from representing
an oppositional act, as the controlling regime feared, joke telling, as chapter
5 argues, could be understood as an exercise in adapting to and normalising
extreme circumstances. Even mildly transgressive humour offered an opportunity
to demonstrate personal agency and was empowering. Many jokes were underpinned
by a desire that the regime should live up to its own rhetoric, rather than
anti-Soviet sentiment. Indeed, it was in the cross-hatched spaces of humour
that many people resolved the confusing dissonance between official and
unofficial discourses. “Humour did not just pick holes in the fabric of the
official world and its claims,” (217) it represented an attempt to accommodate
oneself to the regime through a momentary act of self-deception. It also offered
an opportunity to forge new social bonds and networks and build communities of
trust and mutual support. In chapter 6 Waterlow challenges the totalitarian
argument that Stalinism atomised society, destroying public interactions. In contrast
the culture of joke telling reveals the persistence of unofficial forms of
sociability, and the durability of trust groups. Sharing humour in the
circumstances of the 1930s was a process of intimating trust, of discovering whether
others held similar views, but with the possibility of back-tracking should the
risk seem to great. Jokes were also, “active, performative processes of
identity affirmation” (245), which contributed to wider processes of
self-fashioning.
Writing about humour without killing the joke takes great skill. Many of
the jokes retold in this book will prompt a chuckle, others belly laughs. Since
each culture’s humour has its own specificities, Waterlow sometimes needs to
provide historical context to explain precisely what Stalinist citizens found so
amusing. Yet, great care is taken to avoid over-analysing the sources. Indeed,
the author succeeds in preserving the humour through their own dry wit, and a
lively turn of phrase. This is a
beautifully written and designed volume, which deserves a wide readershi It
offers original perspectives on how ordinary citizens experienced Stalinism, and
the mechanisms by which they managed life in a highly authoritarian society. By
virtue of its accessible pricing it has every opportunity to reach far beyond
the academy. Historians of Stalinism whether their interests are political,
social or cultural, will learn a much from this fantastic book, but it also has
much to offer students and general readers keen to explore the vibrant world of
1930s popular humour.
Robert
Dale
Newcastle
University
(1396 words)
[1] Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1995), 228.
I’ve purchased another of John Strohm’s photographs from his visit to the Soviet Union from his visit in 1946. This image shows cattle grazing in the ruins on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Without the caption to the image it would be impossible to tell this was Stalingrad. Cattle grazing on inappropriate plots of land, including mass graves and cemeteries, was a common post-war problem reguarly encountered in post-war archival reports.
Cattle graze in Stalingrad, taken by John Strohm in 1946
This image captures something of the nature of the landscape of the warzone almost entirely laid waste by the experience of modern industrialized warfare. The shell-craters, and piles of rubble were redolent of many urban locations that after the war were closer to moonscapes than normal urban spaces.
Strohm’s visit to Stalingrad was one of a number taken by foreign visitors in the immediate aftermath. John Steinbeck and Robert Capa visited the city in 1947, also writing an account of the visit and taking a number of striking images. Indeed, Strohm’s account has often been overshadowed by the more literary and more visually polished A Russian Journal
This particular photograph was not published in the final version of his travelogue Just Tell the Truth, but Strohm did provide a fuller description of his encounter with this kind of ruined urban landscape:
A tour through the sepulchre-like ruins of Stalingrad – forty miles of shattered buildings, dugout homes, and rubble heaps – reveals both Russia’s strength and one of her weak points.
You see Stalingrad and you feel like taking your hat off, for here the battle tide was turned. You see ragged, barefoot people living in holes in the ground, trudging wearily to the battered factory once again turning out tractors instead of tanks. You see farmers cutting grain with sickles, stooping over to pick up unexploded shells, putting up hay with camels. They’re the people who saved Stalingrad, and perhaps the war, because they obeyed the simple order: “Die, but don’t give an inch!” Many died, but Stalingrad was saved.
Stalingrad should be a monument where the whole world pays homage to the little people who saved it. Yes, the people of Russia are her strength.
But in these very same ruins – and the ruins of countless other industrial centres – you see one of Russia’s weak points. They have a rebuilding program which makes out post-war problems seem like peanuts. I’m not a military strategist but I agree with a Russian friend who said to my confidentially:
“Any one who says the Soviet Union wants war is crazy – unless it is our leaders who are crazy, and that I do not believe. The people have been living on promises of better things in the sweet by and by ever since the Revolution. They accepted World War II as an excuse why they could not achieve a higher standard. Now they want to work for peacetime goals. Our government must consider the people – not war.”
One night I was walking down the street in Stalingrad. I passed the railroad station where a hundred people huddled on the ground. Some were sleeping, some talking in a low voice, other munched pieces of black bread, as they waited for the trains that never seemed to come.
In the daytime, I wondered where people lived in this devastation. At night, when I saw lights coming from the worst of these debris piles, I knew that somewhere in the wreckage they had cleared a room or a cellar to make a home.
I heard the sad music of a Russian accordion in the dark street ahead, and soon came to a crowd circled around couples who were dancing on the sidewalk. Girl danced with girl or biy, and boys even danced together.
“There’s no other place to go, nothing to do,” said the girl with whom I danced on the rough sidewalk. She and her sister live in a dugout and work in the Stalingrad tractor factory. But a dugout is no place for a nineteen-year-old girl on a warm night with a moon shining overhead. So she walks the streets with her friends of dances on the sidewalks.
She told me about the wonderful plans for rebuilding this city, how she gave a day of her time each week to help carry away the blasted bricks and other debris, as they go about the job of clearing the city three years after its liberation.
The next sat while watching a group of German prisoners at work on a road project in Stalingrad, I noticed a crippled Soviet soldier and his wife who had set down their heavy basket to rest. He handed his cane to his wife and started to roll a cigarette with a crumpled bit of newspaper.
Handing him an American cigarette, which he accepted with a flush of pleasure, I found out that he had just come from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. He was an Uzbek, his wife was a Russian. All of their possessions were in the baskets and boxes they were carrying. He had just arrived in Stalingrad.
He made a disdainful gesture towards the German prisoners who resembled a slow-motion version of a WPA crew at work. “Japanese prisoners in Tashkent are doing ten times as much work,” he remarked.
Later I visited the Stalingrad tractor factory, built with the help of American engineers in 1932. It switched from tank to tractor production at the end of 1942 and is now steadily getting back into introduction, with about two-thirds of the workers it had before the war. Still partially in ruins, this factory turned out 6,000 tractors in 1946.
Seventy thousand towns were completed razed – 30,000 industrial plants were either destroyed or stripped during the war.
Willard Thorp, Assistant Secretary of State, estimates that more than one-half of the total pre-war national wealth in western Russia was destroyed. And because of this giant rebuilding job, the total level of Russian wealth will be “only one-third that of the United States, even at the end of the present Five Year Plan.”
The millions of man hours put in on industrial reconstruction are man hours lost for such things as clothing and radios and furniture. Agricultural losses mean a continuation of a diet that leaves many Russians with a perpetually empty stomach.
Vodka toasts, like campaign oratory, usually go in one ear and out the other. But I’ll never forget one toast given by a government official. Among the things he said was:
“You have seen the destruction we have suffered. You have seen us working with cradles, with sickles and with flails. We want you to come again when we have put away these things. Some of you people say we want war. When you go back won’t you tell them – how can we possibly want war now when there is so much for us to do at home?”
Yes, problems of reconstruction are enormous, particularly in a nation which has so many problems of just plain construction roads which have never been built, factories which have never been put up, mines which have never been opened, forests which have never been entered.
The Soviet Union is an untapped giant of many facets.
John L. Strohm, Just Tell the Truth: The Uncensored Story of How the Common People Live Behind the Russian Iron Curtain (New York: Charles Scribner, 1947), 66-69.
I’ll be writing more about the urban reconstruction of Stalingrad over the course of this year, so it was good to find an image that I now have the rights to, which I can use in this research!
In May 1947 John Strohm published an account of a visit he made to the Soviet Union in 1946. The book Just Tell the Truth: the Uncensored Story of How the Common People Live Behind the Russian Iron Curtain was intended to be an honest account of everyday life in Stalin’s Soviet Union in the aftermath of the war. Strohm hoped to give his readers a glimpse behind in the Iron Curtain as the cold war began, humanising ordinary Soviet citizens. In 1946 he resigned his job as the managing editor of the Prairie Farmer in order to travel to the Soviet Union and write about its people. Apparently his access to the Union was only granted after a personal appeal to Stalin. Precisely how free Strohm’s access to the Soviet Union was isn’t entirely clear, he claimed to have permission to go where he wanted, to talk with whom he liked, and to take photographs at will, provided he “Just Tell the Truth.” Given how visiting westerners and visiting journalists were usually managed, normally monitored by official handlers, this seems a little unlikely. Yet the book offers a genuine insight into how ordinary Soviet citizens lived, worked and possibly thought. The Rotarian, for example, certainly thought that it was a sympathetic study of ordinary Soviet people. Strohm published some accounts of his travels as he went in various newspapers and magazines, collating them with other impressions in this volume.
Strohm took his own photographs on this trip; unlike John Steinbeck’s A Russian Journal published in the same year, which could call on Robert Capa’s talents. Remarkably I’ve managed to purchase what appears to be an original, which was distributed by ACME. The seller had bought a large collection of photographs from press collections that had been dissolved, perhaps when ACME was sold to Corbis, or Corbis changed ownership in 2016.
The image captures a recently demobilised Red Army veteran clutching a pair of boots, which the image description on the back explains as: “Just demobilized, this Red Army soldier of Byeorussia carries a pair of U.S. Army shoes – UNRAA supplies. The shoes bring $100 per pair in Moscow. The solider turned down a barefoot women’s offer to barter a supply of canned goods for the shoes.”
Although this naturalistic image serves Strohm’s purpose of humanising Soviet citizens, it raises a number of interesting questions. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) operated in Belorussia and Ukraine, but not in Russia. For more on UNRRA in the Soviet Union see Andrew Harder’s article: “The Politics of Impartiality: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the Soviet Union, 1946-7.” Journal of Contemporary History 47, no. 2 (April 2012): 347-69. Link
However, there are a number of curious aspects of this image and the description. Demobilised veterans according to the 23 June 1945 demobilization law were to be supplied with a pair of footwear on their discharge. It seems odd that UNRRA was directly supply shoes to a veteran who already appears to be wearing a serviceable pair of boots (sapogi), especially when people nearby why barefoot. UNRRA supplies, however, were perhaps being issued to demobilized veterans by the Soviet authorities. Footwear was a deficit commodity in the immediate post-war period, and returning soldiers were perhaps privileged citizens in getting access to these supplies. Although, it should be noted that obtaining shoelaces of the requisite length was not necessarily going to be easy (unless those are laces tied around the veteran’s right wrist?). The description on the back of the photograph, however, demonstrates just how widespread barter and private trade was in the immediate post-war period.
Strohm’s trip to visit to the Soviet Union certainly deserves further consideration, both in his own account but perhaps also in his papers preserved at the University of Illinois Archives: Link Given Strohm’s extensive international connections throughout his career, an intellectual biography and international contacts and networks would be a really interesting project.
N.B. 18/10/19
Just to add that this photograph was actually published in Strohm’s book.
For some research, travel is essential. While the wealth of historical information that’s available online grows by the day, some sources must be delved into first hand.
In today’s blog, Robert Dale – a historian and lecturer in Russian History at Newcastle University – discusses how the AHRC International Placement Scheme helped him bring to life the extraordinary story of six men, including a bricklayer and engineer, who cycled to 2,000 km in the hope of uniting two of Soviet Russia’s largest cities.
One of the greatest challenges faced by researchers, especially social and cultural historians, is to make connections between published record and the archival traces created by different institutions, whose archives are both geographically dispersed and fragmented by decisions about what to preserve.
With persistence, diligence, and a smattering of good luck it is sometimes possible to piece together remarkable stories from materials located in different archives and libraries. For historians of Russia and the Soviet Union this process can involve extensive travel, visiting central archives and libraries in Moscow and St. Petersburg, regional and local archives, and slavonic libraries across the globe. Although ‘archival rats’ like myself enjoy nothing more than immersing themselves in Russian archives and libraries, picking up the threads of different documents gathered and different institutions, and preserved by archives with limited opening hours and access restrictions is far from easy.
My Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) International Placement Scheme Fellowship held in the summer of 2018 enabled me to spend three precious months exploring the riches of the Library of Congress. The collections of the world’s largest library have something for almost every researcher, but the prospect of being able to draw together many different forms of evidence within one Library was truly remarkable.
It wasn’t until I arrived at the library, met the reference specialists in my field, and got set-up in my cubicle in the Kluge Centre that I fully appreciated the opportunity the Fellowship presented.
The project that had taken me to the library was entitled: Rebuilding Socialism: The Reconstruction of the Soviet Union and its Official Ideology Through the Lens of Post-War published sources. As the title indicates, I had anticipated working with newspapers and ideological journals, but it was possible to draw together and make connections between a much wider body of evidence, including microfilmed archival materials, digitized archives, personal papers, newspaper databases, as well as huge collection of Russian language books in the main collection.
Working with these rich collections, and with the help of subject-specialist librarians, it was possible to make some remarkable connections between materials, reconstructing stories which illustrated the wider aims of my research. The project seeks to explore the processes by which Soviet cities and the nation’s physical infrastructure was rebuilt, whilst the political, social, ideological and cultural foundations of Stalinism were simultaneously re-laid. In rebuilding the fabric of urban, and indeed rural society, Soviet citizens were drawn into ideological acts.
In laying new foundations and brickwork, they were also re-establishing communities, relaunching the Soviet project, and creating the future edifice of Socialism. The history of the Soviet Union’s post-war reconstruction was much more than economic history of investment in capital reconstruction, building materials, structures rebuilt, and labour patterns.
Material reconstruction also served the purposes of rebuilding a sense of national community at a time of fragmentation and when many sections of society had been cut-off from the Soviet mainland or had retreated inwards in the interests of survival. A key element in the story of post-war reconstruction, then, was establishing links between cities and communities with divergent wartime experiences and identities.
One episode pieced together in materials accessed at the Library of Congress illustrate these issues particularly eloquently. It was testimony to the richness of the Library’s collections that this remarkable story emerged from the research. On 23 June 1944, whilst the Red Army pushed deeper into Eastern Europe, the executive committee of Stalingrad regional communist party passed a resolution permitting the local Komsomol organisation and the regional committee for Physical Culture and Sport to stage an endurance cycle race between Stalingrad and Leningrad.[1]
The event’s sporting value, aside from as a statement about Soviet masculinity, was secondary to its propaganda value. Although, Stalingrad and Leningrad had very different wartime experiences and faced different post-war problems, this event was designed as an ideological act to unite these two key wartime cities in a statement about the equality of Soviet sacrifice.
On 9 July 1944 a group of six young men set off on a 1950 kilometre journey, taking them through the cities of Tambov, Riazan’, Moscow, Novogorod, before a final leg onwards to Leningrad. The six intrepid individuals selected for this task by the Stalingrad Komsomol were Anton Efimovich Timokhov (a party member, party instructor, and the group’s leader), Ivan Vasil’evich Smol’ianikov (a candidate party member, and recipient of the title “outstanding” Stalingrad city bricklayer), Viktor Borisovich Rostovshchikov (a Komsomol member, defender of Stalingrad, and fitter at Stalingrad’s power station), Boris Aleksandrovich Beliakov (a candidate party member, and tractor factory engineer ), Ivan Vasil’evich Selikov (a mechanic in a tractor factory), and Vladimir Maksimovich Shipilenko (a Komsomol member and electrician at a timber plant).
The profiles of these men suggest that they were selected not because of any special cycling ability or experience in the peloton, but because of their role in Stalingrad’s urban and industrial reconstruction, and their party affiliations. All but Ivan Selikov were either full or candidate members, or Komsomol members.
Stalingrad, 9 July 1944, the cycling team are seen off by M. A. Vodolagin, Secretary of the Stalingrad oblast’ party committee.
A photograph published in the popular magazine Ogonek captured the ceremony that marked the cyclists’ departure from central Stalingrad at 13.00 on 9 July. Proudly holding their bicycles, panniers slung over their crossbars, M. A. Vodolagin, the Secretary of the Stalingrad oblast’ party committee, shakes the hand of one cyclist, furnishing them with a ceremonial letter to the workers of Leningrad from the workers to Stalingrad.
In the background, a crowd of Stalingrad’s citizens, and damaged buildings with unglazed window frames can be seen.[2] The cycling team were also given letters of greeting from the Stalingrad oblast Komsomol and the Stalingrad physical culture administration to deliver to their counterparts in Leningrad.[3] Delivering these letters, and establishing the connection between Stalingrad and Leningrad was a key part of the purpose of the cycle race.
Without access to memoirs or personal papers, we can only speculate what motivated these men to sign-up for this feat of endurance cycling during a time of war. Amidst rationing, widespread hunger, and disrepair on the nation’s road cycling nearly 2000 kilometres was a remarkable undertaking. Perhaps, participation opened up access to better and more plentiful food, an opportunity to escape the ruins of war-ravaged Stalingrad, and the physically draining labour of reconstruction. Nor should we rule out that these six cyclists genuinely believed in the ideological act of uniting the workers of Leningrad and Stalingrad. Certainly, setting out on this endeavour brought a level of public prestige, the opportunity to see more of the country, and visit Leningrad, the Soviet Union’s cultural capital.
According to a report in Pravda published on 19 July 1944, the first 1,200 kilometres of the journey from Stalingrad to Moscow were covered in just six days, an impressive average of 200 kilometres a day. Furthermore, the group had been slowed down by having to walk approximately 150 kilometres of the route because of rain, or more probably because the rain turned unsurfaced road to a quagmire. At 05.00 am on 19 July the group set out from Moscow on the final leg of their journey, after what appears to have been a couple of days rest (and possibly sight-seeing).[4] They finally arrived in Leningrad on 24 July after, according to Izvestiia, just twelve days in the saddle. Here they were greeted by Leningrad dignitaries: a meeting at which the all-important letters of greeting were delivered, followed finally by a physical culture parade.[5]
Leningrad, 24 July 1944.
Left to Right: Anton Efimovich Timokhov (Commander), Boris Alexandrovich Beliakov, Ivan Vasil’evich Smol’ianinov, Viktor Borisovich Rostovshchikov, Vladimir Maksimovich Shipilenko.
Yet having delivered their correspondence, their work was far from done. Whilst in the city they had a number of official engagements, including speaking to meetings about the “heroic defence of Stalingrad and grandiose reconstruction work in the hero city.”
The members of this cycling team were not simply there because of a passion for pedalling, they had a political message to convey about reconstruction. For example, Ivan Smol’ianinov, the prize-winning Stakhanovite bricklayer, visited a Leningrad building site in order to pass on advice about how to over-fulfil brick-laying norms, explaining how he had overfilled norms for a shift by 12 to 14 times.
These activities, designed to rebuild the fabric of Stalinist ideology and community, were of far greater importance than the cycling itself. Indeed, by the end of their visits discussion were underway to try and establish a tradition of an annual cycle race between the two cities, switching the route around each year.
Although this was a remarkable and unusual event, it does reveal some of the mechanism by which post-war reconstruction was harnessed in order to help re-establish a sense of national community and reimpose Stalinist values. Without access to the remarkable resources of the Library of Congress it would have been difficult to piece this together.
[1]Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v Volgogradskoi oblasti, 1941-1980 gg. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov. Tom 2 (Volgograd: Nizhne-Volzhskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1981), p. 83.
Two years ago I submitted a review to a journal (which I won’t name), but which has still not appeared and I doubt it ever will. Given that the publishers allow you to post the review on your own website immediately, that is what I am doing, in the hope it will be of some use here.
Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering
Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh (Eds)
Boston, MA.: Academic Studies Press, 2014,
270 pp., $69.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-61811-313-9.
This excellent volume explores the important role that Soviet Jews played as combatants, journalists, writers, poets, film-makers and photo-correspondents waging war against the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. Rather than focusing on the Holocaust’s victims, these essays tell the stories of soldiers who fought on and survived the frontlines, and cultural figures who helped frame the Soviet narrative of the war. By highlighting Soviet Jewish martial achievement this book raises awareness of the Jewish contribution to Soviet victory, and counters the wartime and postwar slanders that Jews sat out the war safe behind the lines. It also draws attention to a wealth of previously unknown or neglected sources, including diaries, memoirs, newspapers, poetry, prose and archival documents.
The chapters are neatly divided into two sections. In the first part the essays examine individual and collective histories of the multiple ways in which Soviet Jews experienced the war and Holocaust. Mordechai Altshuler explores how young sovietised Jews serving in the Red Army responded to their encounters with the Holocaust in their letters, memoirs, poetry and prose; experiences which often shaped their future identities. Joshua Rubenstein’s contribution reminds readers how Il’ia Ehrenburg, one of the Soviet Union’s most influential war correspondents, documented the extermination of the Jews, and reproduces five of his most important articles. The frontline diaries of Jewish soldiers are the focus of Oleg Budnitskii’s essay. These sources, many of them unknown in the West, reveal what everyday life was like on the front for “Private Abram”. Gennady Estraikh examines how Jewish authors depicted Jewish wartime heroism by appropriating imagery of Cossack martial behaviour. The focus on the construction of Jewish heroism continues with Arkadi Zeltser’s study of how Jewish writers in the Yiddish language newspaper Eynikayt created recognisably Jewish heroes.
In the second part of the volume the focus shifts towards the representation and documentation of the Holocaust, revealing a Soviet Jewish literary and cultural response that has frequently been ignored. Marat Grinberg’s and Harriet Murav’s essays both deal with poetic responses focusing on the work of Boris Slutskii and Il’ia Sel’vinskii respectively. Olga Gershenson and David Shneer, in contrast, offer chapters focusing on visual representations. Gershenson analyses The Unvanquished, the first Soviet feature film to deal with the Holocaust, a fascinating source because of its rare depiction of Jewish suffering. David Shneer deals with Evgenii Khaldei’s acclaimed photographs. He examines what they reveal about the relationship between the Soviet and Jewish elements of Khaldei’s identity, and postwar and post-Soviet collective memory. In a final afterword Zvi Gitelman puts the themes of the collection into context.
One of the key contributions of this volume is to demonstrate the ways in which experiencing the war and encountering the Holocaust, as a combatant or witness, problematized Soviet Jewish identity. The Stalinist state’s encouraged greater ethnic identification during the war, which fed into many individuals’ growing sense of themselves as Jews, albeit in complicated and subtle ways. Its value also lies in making available sources in translation for teaching as well as research. Included in chapter 10 are selected passages from the memoirs of Boris Slutskii, the film director Mikhail Romm, and the novelist Mikhail Rybakov. Soviet Jews in World War II takes an inter-disciplinary approach, and will therefore be of interest to a wide potential audience, including scholars of both Russian and Jewish studies with historical, literary and cultural interests.
I’ve had my first couple of days working in the Kluge Centre at the Library of Congress. Aside from getting set up on new systems, registering for passes and cards, actually doing some work, and getting terribly lost in underground basements looking for coffee, I’ve enjoyed a brilliant tour of the Libraries buildings, and the Capitol. Something, however, in today’s tour stuck in the mind, even more than splendours of the building, the private reading rooms for congressmen, and seeing Woodrow Wilson’s private library. At one point we were pointed towards a sofa (perhaps I should write couch) were the previous Librarian of Congress used to take power naps, or sometimes bunk down in the building. This I thought could only have been James Billington, the previous Librarian of Congress who retired at the end of September 2015, after twenty-eight years in the post.
I’ve been telling people at home that really my trip was thanks to Billington, and that he was to blame for my three month trip. Which in some respects this is true, but in others perhaps a convenient anecdot, much like the one about Billington’s couch. I’d assume that the reason who the Library of Congress has so much useful material for my research, was that Billington must have prioritised purchasing Russian and Soviet materials. This, of course, might still be true, and I won’t dismiss my fantasy entirely. But, when I didn’t quite appreciate before getting here is the enormity of the Library of Congress machine. Apparently it receives 22,000 new items a day, and that there are a series of warehouses holding materials across Virginia. Indeed, the Library of Congress maintains offices across the globe (including Jakarta and Nairobi). It struck me as we made our way through the stacks, and basement corridors (at one point descending to where books are processed via a semi-hidden door in the main reading room) that my being being here is also thanks to the huge army of staff cataloguing, preserving, digitising, and moving items.
But, in one final way I am perhaps here because of Billington. The Icon and the Axe, James Billington’s landmark study of Russian cultural history, first published in 1966, was a really important book for me long ago. It was a book that I think was on the recommended reading for Lindsey Hughes’s fantastic course of Russian visual culture, and using images as historical sources, which I took in my MA in 2003/4. If I remember correctly, this was a book that was recommended before the start of the MA, and I read it at home that year. It certainly made a big impression on me, although not as big as Lindsey. Her module was one of the best things about my MA at SSEES, and although I didn’t know Lindsey well, being taught by her was always one of the highlights of the week! The Icon and the Axe, then, was almost an induction into the new world of Russian culture that Lindsey helped open up for me and my peers. Enabling me to do what I now do.
Billington’s The Icon and the Axe, first published in 1966.
When I set up this blog some time ago, I chose part of Ilya Glazunov’s painting The Roads of War as part of the banner at the top. The painting seemed to capture many of the things that I am interested in my research into the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet Union. The image shows us both the wartime experiences of both soldiers and civilians, but also men and women, children and the elderly. At the time it was a useful visual prompt for thinking about the war’s impact across society.
Ilya Sergeyevich Glazunov died on 9 July 2017, and as a result I’ve been prompted to return to thinking about Glazunov and this particular painting. Born in 1930, Glazunov was 87 years old, a survivor of the Siege of Leningrad and the Great Patriotic War. His life and artistic career mirrored Soviet and post-Soviet history in surprising ways. His own career enjoyed ups and downs which often shadowed wider political and cultural developments. His 1976 painting the Mystery of the Twentieth Century was so controversial that it the state may even have been considering deporting him. It is hard not to read his assignment to work on painting of labourers on the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM) as a punishment.
The New York Times‘ obituary of Glazunov can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/arts/ilya-glazunov-painter-entranced-by-russias-past-dies-at-87.html
I’ve long been fascinated by Glazunov’s huge monumental works like Mystery of the Twentieth Century (1976) The Contribution of the People of the USSR to World Culture and Civilization (1980), Eternal Russia (1988), The Great Experiment (1990), and The Market of our Democracy (1999). All of these images strike me as statements about historical memory, and taken together they reveal much about how historical memory and official historical narratives shifted across the late Soviet to post Soviet periods. Difficult to read and interpret these images nevertheless attempt to say something powerful about the past. Glazunov was of course a very controversial artist. His painting were criticised by the Soviet state in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union he had a reputation as xenophobe and anti-Semite, and somebody with close links to the Kremlin.
This focus on memory in Glazunov’s work can clearly be traced back to The Roads of War, a painting informed by his own wartime experiences, the reception of which again reveals an enormous amount about historical memory, in this case – the challenges of remembering the Great Patriotic War.
Glazunov, who was eleven when the Wehrmacht invaded in June 1941 (b. 10/06/1930), old enough to understand the horror of what surrounded him. Trapped in besieged Leningrad he lost his mother, father, and other close relatives. It appears that his uncle facilitated his evacuation in 1942, now orphaned, to the village of Greblo in the Novgorod oblast’. The Roads of War is said to be informed by his childhood experiences, and perhaps we can read in it some of the wartime traumas which surely must have deeply shaken the young man. Returning to the city in 1944, he eventually enrolled at the I. E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1951. It would be interesting to know much more about how Glazunov coped as an orphan in late Stalinist Leningrad, and how he occupied himself during these years. His graduation piece in 1957 was The Roads of War. The civilian and soldiers resting on the side of the road bathed in light on the left of the canvas, find themselves surrounded by darkened storm-filled sky, as well as darker signs of the impact of war, including military aircraft and wartime destruction.
This unglamorous and unheroic treatment of war was heavily criticised, and the painting was deemed so incendiary that it was removed from an exhibition in 1957 and destroyed. The version of the painting that we have today is recreation of the original work that Glazunov made in 1985. Forty years on from the end of the war, this in itself gives a hint in how the memory of the war was shifting.
Welcome to the blog for my projectFrom Fractured Society to Stability: Overcoming the Aftermath of the Great Patriotic War, 1945-1955.
In this blog I’m going to be posting material related to my current research project on the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War and its long-term impact on late Stalinist society.
I’ll also be including posts about my current impact work related to my work on the demobilization and post-war readjustment of veterans, particularly Red Army veterans, after 1945.
