Dangerous Soviet Things: Urban Legends and Fears in the USSR
14.99 €
11.99 €
In stock
Jeans infested with lice, maggots under the skin of an African visitor, a portrait of Mao Tse-tung transpiring at night on a Chinese carpet, swastikas hidden in the construction of houses, gum with ground glass - this is an incomplete list of Soviet urban legends about dangerous things. The book by renowned folklorists and anthropologists A. Arkhipova (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian State University, NES) and A. Kirzyuk (Russian Academy of Sciences) is the first anthropological and folkloristic study devoted to the fears of Soviet people. Many of them found expression in texts and practices little understood by our contemporaries: in the 1930s people looked for Trotsky's profile on a matchbox, and in the 1970s they passed on rumors about American-poisoned treats. The book explains why such fears arose, how they turned into rumors and urban legends, how they influenced the behavior of Soviet people and sometimes created large-scale moral panics. The research is based on survey data, interviews, memoirs, diaries and archival documents.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series The culture of everyday life
You might be interested:

Popular science and informative literature
Conversations with Serial Killers: A Deep Dive into the Minds of the World's Most Violent People
14.99 €
11.99 €

Popular science and informative literature
Supervise and Punish: The Birth of Prison
14.99 €
11.99 €