In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Dvorianskaia pamiat´: “Byvshie” v sovetskom gorode. Leningrad, 1920e–1930e gody
  • Golfo Alexopoulos
Sofiia Chuikina , Dvorianskaia pamiat´: “Byvshie” v sovetskom gorode. Leningrad, 1920e–1930e gody [Noble Memory: “Former People” in the Soviet City. Leningrad, 1920s–30s]. 260 pp. St. Petersburg: Izdatel´stvo Evropeiskogo universiteta, 2006. ISBN 5943800557.

Sofiia Chuikina is a sociologist who completed a dissertation at the European University in St. Petersburg. Her fascinating book examines the life of the Russian nobility after the October Revolution and, in particular, the ways in which this prerevolutionary elite in Petrograd/Leningrad sought a "compromise between the past and the present" (9). Given the new government's hostility to the old bourgeoisie, so-called "former people" were forced to transform themselves in the Soviet era. Chuikina examines the nature of this transformation, how aristocratic traditions and memories were maintained, hidden, transformed, or extinguished under Bolshevik rule. The author dedicates the book to her grandmother, whose two-volume family chronicle and extensive stories about the past inspired her to explore the memory of aristocratic Russia in the Soviet era.

From the outset, Chuikina acknowledges that for the Russian nobility a great deal was lost in the revolutionary period. The story of the repression, emigration, and displacement of the old nobility is a familiar one, so she does not spend too much time on it.1 She reminds us that people who had common noble surnames could not easily hide or transform themselves in the new society. Especially vulnerable to repression, they were also more likely to emigrate. Emigration was the choice of many petty noblemen as well, particularly those who lived close to the western border. For the others who stayed in war-torn Russia, life was not easy. Descendants of the Russian nobility were forced to hide or unlearn some of the values, language, and habits of their parents. In the process of editing and reconstructing their biographies, certain aristocratic memories and traditions were inevitably lost. [End Page 904]

Chuikina covers this history of repression, silence, and secrecy, but it often constitutes a mere backdrop to her main story. Her primary focus is instead on how the old aristocracy adjusted to and accommodated the demands of Soviet life. Despite the discrimination against them, some members of the former Russian nobility found a place for themselves in the new society, both professionally and personally. Many did not wholly reject their social origin or prerevolutionary traditions and habits but rather sought to reconcile their Soviet and noble selves. This important book describes not a replacement of old values with new ones but a merging of two worlds. Parents and grandparents educated children in the style of the old aristocracy and shared family stories from before the Revolution. The descendants of the former nobility possessed hybrid identities or distinct Soviet-noble biographies. Sovietization appears as a profoundly significant if no less fragmentary and contradictory process. Chuikina describes not only how members of the old aristocracy experienced the process of becoming Soviet men and women but also how the state was greatly influenced, in turn, by a population it viewed as passé.

Dvorianskaia pamiat´ describes a vibrant community of former members of the Russian nobility who socialized, lived, and worked in a country that considered them "class alien elements." According to Chuikina, the descendants of the old nobility lived in a kind of microsociety (mikro-obshchestvo) that existed distinct from but not hostile to the larger Soviet community (151). The picture she paints is one of normalization rather than disruption, accommodation rather than opposition, preservation and endurance rather than defeat. We see a group that nurtured a dual identity that incorporated things noble and Soviet. Children were raised with their grandparents, nannies, tutors, and others who transmitted many of the habits and values of the old nobility. The author offers little evidence here of an atomization of society under totalitarian dictatorship.2 Rather, despite their vulnerability to repression, the descendants of the Russian aristocracy continued to socialize together and to offer each other economic support and mutual protection. Chuikina includes powerful illustrations of how informal networks of mutual support and protection existed even within a subgroup of the population that was a target of repression...

pdf

Share