Dynamising Things: Essays on Objects, Relations, and People

Using diverse historical and ethnographic materials, this collection explores the various relationships between people and things that were actively fostered during the seven decades of Soviet socialism. It demonstrates how things, not always fully socialist, energized social relations, shaped communities, cultivated new identities, objectified emerging attitudes, and provoked affective attachments. In particular, this collection pays close attention to what Viktor Shklovsky, the founder of Russian Formalism, called “long-term things”—palpable, non-fictitious objects that refuse to disappear, insisting instead on their active presence and enduring relevance.