History 305

Fall 2006

Study Questions for Oct 23^rd

Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades, Chapter 2

1. How did the demonstrations that Petrone talks about reflect the Soviet Union in microcosm? She suggests that two images were in conflict – what were they?

2. In what ways did Soviet parades resemble Tsarist church celebrations?

3. Did the parades create harmony among all people or emphasize the distance between the rulers and the ruled?

4. Petrone writes that children emulated the parades in their games. What meanings or insight into Soviet culture can be drawn from their play?

5. How were factory workers organized within the parade structure? What did workers think of the parades? How about those who took part in the physical culture parade? What were the requirements for participation?

6. According to Petrone, what did the presentation of uncovered faces and bodies among Muslim delegations symbolize? How was the hierarchy of the various republics determined in the parade structure? What was significant about the Uzbek and Tajik presentations?

7. In putting on these holiday celebrations, what was at stake for Soviet authorities? What did they have to gain? What risks might they have been taking? What two goals of Soviet political culture were in conflict?

Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades, Chapter 3

1. Why were Soviets so interested in Polar exhibitions? How were they meant to unite the country?

2. What were the advantages and disadvantages of making the drama of the shipwrecked arctic explorers a daily soap opera for Soviet citizens? Do you think the explorers came across as heroes?

3. According to the author, how was the Soviet Union conceptually genderized? How did the “Song of the Motherland” (featured in the clip from “Circus” last week) express this gendered view? To what extent was this concept important to Soviet self-image? If the country was the motherland, who was the father?

4. In what ways were female explorers treated differently than male explorers? Did their treatment conflict with Soviet ideals? What did their welcoming reception reveal about the regime’s priorities?

5. According to the author, what did the polar explorations and their rescue missions reveal about the relationship between Moscow and the hinterlands near the Arctic circle? Was it a cold relationship?

6. What effect did the accidents during explorations or air shows have on Soviet ideology? In the end, do you think these explorations realized official Soviet goals or hindered them?

S. Frederick Starr, Red & Hot, Chapter 5, “The Music of the Gross – 1928 - 1931”

1. What was the Cultural Revolution reacting against? What or who was the enemy? Who was the intended audience for the new art products that emerged from the Cultural Revolution?

2. What were Gorky’s complaints about jazz in his composition, “The Music of the Gross?” Why did Lunarcharsky claim that the Fox Trot was nothing less than a frontal attack on Soviet culture? Was he right?

3. How did the Nazis in Germany help “save” jazz in the Soviet Union? How did cultural elites subsequently differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable jazz? Why was this distinction basically dysfunctional?

4. How did the Soviet cultural establishment attempt to define all American blacks? Why was this characterization important to the Soviets?

5. What did the Communist International (Comintern) propose in 1928 on behalf of American blacks? Why did the film project Red and Black turn into such a fiasco?

S. Frederick Starr, Red & Hot, Chapter 6, “The Red Jazz Age, 1932-1936”

1. How successful was the Soviet regime in stamping out the kind of dancing that Lunachevsky had claimed was anti-Soviet? Which people hungered for the new dances?

2. How did the emergence of a new elite class of professionals affect the growth of jazz in the Soviet Union?

3. What were some of the limitations that continued to confound jazz performers in the Soviet Union during this time? With the country so isolated under Stalin, how did jazz still manage to make its way into the Soviet Union?

4. Did jazz provide workers with an alternative to Communist ideology?