Juliane Fürst - Böcker

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland does what the title promises. It takes readers on a journey into a world few knew existed: the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies, who in the face of disapproval and repression created a version of Western counterculture, skilfully adapting, manipulating, and shaping it to their late socialist environment. As a quasi-guide into the underground hippieland, readers are situated in the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and are offered an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study in the power of transnational youth cultures. Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds-hippies were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed non-conformism was a symptom of schizophrenia. It also advances a surprising argument: despite obvious antagonism the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not incompatible. Indeed, Soviet hippies and late socialist reality meshed so well that the hostile, yet stable, relationship that emerged was in many ways symbiotic. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland takes the reader on a journey into the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies. In the face of disapproval and repression, they created a version of Western counterculture, skillfully adapting to, manipulating, and shaping their late socialist environment. Flowers through Concrete takes its readers into the underground hippieland and beyond, situating the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and offering both an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study of transnational youth culture and East-West globalization.Flowers through Concrete is based on over a hundred interviews, declassified documents, and private archives hidden for many decades. It tells the almost forgotten story of how hippie communities sprang up across the Soviet Union in the late-60s, often under the tutelage of the rebellious offspring of privileged households at the heart of the Soviet establishment. It charts how these communities linked up to create an impressive network with elaborate customs and rituals, ensuring its survival for more than two decades.Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds - hippies who were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed non-conformism was a symptom of schizophrenia - but also advances a surprising argument. It suggests that the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not entirely incompatible, but in fact meshed surprisingly well. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.

'Stalin's last generation' was the last generation to come of age under Stalin, yet it was also the first generation to be socialized in the post-war period. Its young members grew up in a world that still carried many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union's revolutionary period, yet their surroundings already showed the first signs of decay, stagnation, and disintegration. Stalin's last generation still knew how to speak 'Bolshevik', still believed in the power of Soviet heroes and still wished to construct socialism, yet they also liked to dance and dress in Western styles, they knew how to evade boring lectures and lessons in Marxism-Leninism, and they were keen to forge identities that were more individual than those offered by the state. In this book, Juliane Fürst creates a detailed picture of late Stalinist youth and youth culture, looking at young people from a variety of perspectives: as children of the war, as recipients and creators of propaganda, as perpetrators of crime, as representatives of fledgling subcultures, as believers, as critics, and as drop-outs. In the process, she illuminates not only the complex relationship between the Soviet state and its youth, but also provides a new interpretative framework for understanding late Stalinism - the impact of which on Soviet society's subsequent development has hitherto been underestimated, including its role in the ultimate demise of the USSR.

Stalin's last generation' was the last generation to come of age under Stalin, yet it was also the first generation to be socialized in the post-war period. Its young members grew up in a world that still carried many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union's revolutionary period, yet their surroundings already showed the first signs of decay, stagnation, and disintegration. Stalin's last generation still knew how to speak 'Bolshevik', still believed in the power of Soviet heroes, and still wished to construct socialism, yet they also liked to dance and dress in Western styles, they knew how to evade boring lectures and lessons in Marxism-Leninism, and they were keen to forge identities that were more individual than those offered by the state. Juliane Fürst creates a detailed picture of late Stalinist youth and youth culture, looking at young people from a variety of perspectives: as children of the war, as recipients and creators of propaganda, as perpetrators of crime, as representatives of fledgling subcultures, as believers, as critics, and as drop-outs. In the process, she illuminates not only the complex relationship between the Soviet state and its youth, but also provides a new interpretative framework for understanding late Stalinism - the impact of which on Soviet society's subsequent development has hitherto been underestimated, including its role in the ultimate demise of the USSR.

The late Stalinist period, long neglected by researchers more interested in the high-profile events of the 1930s, has recently become the focus of much new research by people keen to understand the enormous impact of the war on Soviet society and to understand Soviet life under 'mature socialism'. Written by top scholars from high profile universities, this impressive work brings together much new, cutting edge research on a wide range of aspects of late Stalinist society. Filling a gap in the literature, it focuses above all on the experience of the Soviet people and their interaction with ideology, state policy and national and international politics.

The late Stalinist period, long neglected by researchers more interested in the high-profile events of the 1930s, has recently become the focus of much new research by people keen to understand the enormous impact of the war on Soviet society and to understand Soviet life under 'mature socialism'. Written by top scholars from high profile universities, this impressive work brings together much new, cutting edge research on a wide range of aspects of late Stalinist society. Filling a gap in the literature, it focuses above all on the experience of the Soviet people and their interaction with ideology, state policy and national and international politics.

The essays in this collection make up the first study of “dropping out” of late state socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. From Leningrad intellectuals and Berlin squatters to Bosnian Muslim madrassa students and Romanian yogis, groups and individuals across the Eastern Bloc rejected mainstream socialist culture. In the process, multiple drop-out cultures were created, with their own spaces, music, values, style, slang, ideology and networks. Under socialism, this phenomenon was little-known outside the socialist sphere. Only very recently has it been possible to reconstruct it through archival work, oral histories and memoirs. Such a diverse set of subcultures demands a multi-disciplinary approach: the essays in this volume are written by historians, anthropologists and scholars of literature, cultural and gender studies. The history of these movements not only shows us a side of state socialist life that was barely known in the west. It also sheds new light on the demise and eventual collapse of late socialism, and raises important questions about the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western subcultures.