Melanie Ilic – författare

Based on an extensive reading of a broad range of women’s accounts of their lives in the Soviet Union, this book focuses on many hidden aspects of Soviet women’s everyday lives, thereby revealing a great deal about how the Soviet Union operated on a day-to-day basis and about the place of the individual within it.

Including testimony from both celebrated literary and cultural figures

and from many ordinary people, and from both enthusiastic supporters of the

regime and dissidents, the book considers women’s daily routines, attitudes and

behaviours. It highlights some of the hidden inequalities of an ostensibly egalitarian

society, and considers many wider questions, including how extensive was

the ‘reach’ of the Soviet regime; how ‘modern’ was it; how far were there continuities

after 1917 between the new Bolshevik regime and Russia’s imperial

past; and how homogenous and how mobile was Soviet society?

Based on an extensive reading of a broad range of women’s accounts of their lives in the Soviet Union, this book focuses on many hidden aspects of Soviet women’s everyday lives, thereby revealing a great deal about how the Soviet Union operated on a day-to-day basis and about the place of the individual within it.

Including testimony from both celebrated literary and cultural figures

and from many ordinary people, and from both enthusiastic supporters of the

regime and dissidents, the book considers women’s daily routines, attitudes and

behaviours. It highlights some of the hidden inequalities of an ostensibly egalitarian

society, and considers many wider questions, including how extensive was

the ‘reach’ of the Soviet regime; how ‘modern’ was it; how far were there continuities

after 1917 between the new Bolshevik regime and Russia’s imperial

past; and how homogenous and how mobile was Soviet society?

This book explores the impact on different generations of Lithuanians of the fifty-year Soviet modernisation project which was implemented in Lithuania from 1940 to 1991. It reveals the specific characteristics of ‘the last Soviet generation’, born in the 1970s, and sets this generation apart from those who were born earlier and later. It analyses changes in attitudes, choices and relationships in a variety of social spheres and contexts and the adaptation skills which were required during the late Soviet and post-Soviet transformation processes. Overall, it presents a great deal of detail on the social experiences of different generations in late Soviet and post-Soviet society.

This book explores the impact on different generations of Lithuanians of the fifty-year Soviet modernisation project which was implemented in Lithuania from 1940 to 1991. It reveals the specific characteristics of ‘the last Soviet generation’, born in the 1970s, and sets this generation apart from those who were born earlier and later. It analyses changes in attitudes, choices and relationships in a variety of social spheres and contexts and the adaptation skills which were required during the late Soviet and post-Soviet transformation processes. Overall, it presents a great deal of detail on the social experiences of different generations in late Soviet and post-Soviet society.

Lithuanian Society in Transition examines the life experiences formed during the process of post-socialist transformation in Lithuania by analysing the peculiarities of the life course of the cohort of young people born between 1980 and 2000.

This book considers how various different components of post-Soviet system transformation and more recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, determine youth experiences and how these experiences are reflected in the generations born between 1980 and 2000. It explores how far these generations see themselves as distinct generations with distinctive identities, how far any sense of a distinctive identity is based on political criteria or on technological changes, demography, and lifestyle and how far recent geopolitical events have had an impact on the identities of these younger generations. Drawing on detailed evidence from a corpus of specially commissioned life history interviews, the individual chapters uncover self-reflexive generational identities and set these in the broader context of both specific local generational identities and more global generation identifiers.

Offering a rich analysis on social change in a key post-Soviet country following the collapse of communism, this book will be useful for researchers in sociology and social policy, history, Russia and Former Soviet Union, European studies and ethnic studies.

Lithuanian Society in Transition examines the life experiences formed during the process of post-socialist transformation in Lithuania by analysing the peculiarities of the life course of the cohort of young people born between 1980 and 2000.

This book considers how various different components of post-Soviet system transformation and more recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, determine youth experiences and how these experiences are reflected in the generations born between 1980 and 2000. It explores how far these generations see themselves as distinct generations with distinctive identities, how far any sense of a distinctive identity is based on political criteria or on technological changes, demography, and lifestyle and how far recent geopolitical events have had an impact on the identities of these younger generations. Drawing on detailed evidence from a corpus of specially commissioned life history interviews, the individual chapters uncover self-reflexive generational identities and set these in the broader context of both specific local generational identities and more global generation identifiers.

Offering a rich analysis on social change in a key post-Soviet country following the collapse of communism, this book will be useful for researchers in sociology and social policy, history, Russia and Former Soviet Union, European studies and ethnic studies.

This book examines the social and cultural impact of the ''thaw'' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. It highlights the fact that many of the reform initiatives generally associated with Khrushchev personally, and with his period of office more generally, often had their roots in the Stalin period both in their content and in the ways in which they were implemented. Individual case studies explore key aspects of Khrushchev''s period of office, including the introduction of the 1961 Communist Party Programme and popular responses to it, housing policy, the opening up of the Soviet Union to the West during the 1957 youth festival, public consultation campaigns and policy implementation in education and family law, the boost given to voluntary organisations such as women''s councils and the trade unions, the reshaping of the internal Soviet security apparatus, the emergence of political dissent and the nature of civil-military relations as reflected in the events of the workers'' uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962. The findings offer an important new perspective on the Khrushchev era.

This book examines the social and cultural impact of the ''thaw'' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. It highlights the fact that many of the reform initiatives generally associated with Khrushchev personally, and with his period of office more generally, often had their roots in the Stalin period both in their content and in the ways in which they were implemented. Individual case studies explore key aspects of Khrushchev''s period of office, including the introduction of the 1961 Communist Party Programme and popular responses to it, housing policy, the opening up of the Soviet Union to the West during the 1957 youth festival, public consultation campaigns and policy implementation in education and family law, the boost given to voluntary organisations such as women''s councils and the trade unions, the reshaping of the internal Soviet security apparatus, the emergence of political dissent and the nature of civil-military relations as reflected in the events of the workers'' uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962. The findings offer an important new perspective on the Khrushchev era.

This book provides a rich picture of what everyday life was like for women in Soviet times by presenting the life stories of eight women who were born in the interwar period. The life stories are told through interviews with the women who were well educated and well placed in Soviet society, often in elite positions, and therefore well able to observe and articulate the wider conditions for Soviet women besides their own personal circumstances. The interviews, which are edited and preceded by a full introduction setting the context, touch on a wide variety of issues: key events in Soviet history; religion and nationalities policies; and women’s everyday experiences of life in the Soviet Union – growing up and going to school; education; falling in love and getting married; giving birth and starting a family; housework and paid employment; travel; leisure and culture; and remembering the past.