Abby Latour is a journalist based in New York City. For more information about this project, email 90srussia@gmail.com, or see @early90srussia on Instagram.
This is Part I in a three-part series. Part II will run tomorrow, 11/20, and Part III on Thursday, 11/21.
Introduction: Contesting the dominant narrative of the 1990s
Since Putin came to power in 2000, the official state narrative about the 1990s has been that the decade was a time of trauma and national humiliation for the Russian people. This hegemonic memory culture obscures alternative framings, especially the first post-Soviet years. Memories about 1991-93 as a jubilant cultural renaissance and a spirited time of new opportunities are increasingly exceptional, and fading. Indeed, the generation born after the end of the Soviet Union often know little, if anything, about the decade’s early years as a hopeful, exuberant time when multiple paths may have been open for Russia.
The work presented in this post and the two that follow is the summative project for an MA degree at NYU’s Russian and Slavic Studies Department. It examines objects, ephemera, print culture, and media from the early 1990s, showing how these objects express the élan of the first post-Soviet years. The work centers on August 1991 to October 1993, the period bookended by the failed coup of 19-21 August 1991, and the 10-day Russian constitutional crisis that ended on 4 October 1993.
This project focuses on material culture readily available during that time in Moscow, when I experienced the country firsthand through a student exchange program. The resulting digital photo archive and artifact commentaries offer some permanence to memories of 1991-93. The final post this week will be a call for objects inviting the public to submit photos of early-Soviet material culture that fits the project’s parameters. Based on objects I’ve gathered so far, the hallmarks of the 1991-93 period were rapid upheaval, enthusiasm for new ideas, a rehabilitation of history and historically accepted facts, as well as the start of nostalgia.
My intention is not simply to replace the prevailing negative framing of the period with an overtly positive one. Associations of 1991-93 with uncertainty and anxiety are pervasive and equally legitimate. But elevating optimism and hopefulness of 1991-93 could serve to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by authoritarian Russia today. In her classic Common Places, literary scholar Svetlana Boym wrote that “Today’s everyday artifact can turn into tomorrow’s counterrevolutionary kitsch.” In the same way, this project, focused on yesterday’s everyday artifacts, could be considered “counterrevolutionary” relative to the current official narrative of the 1990s.
A Metro map, a sex ed guide, a tsarist storybook: What the objects say
My curated collection is a disparate group of objects that share several features. Most importantly, I purchased or acquired these objects in Moscow between August 1991 and October 1993. The objects’ small sizes, which made them easier to transport and save, also make them prone to loss. Absent information about their provenance, they have little value, except for sentimental value to their owners.
These ordinary objects, taken together with their origins, can be categorized by theme. First and foremost, 1991-93 was a period of rapid upheaval: the pace of change was so fast that some new objects at the time became irrelevant as quickly as they appeared. Second, material culture reflects the period’s interest in new ideas, particularly popular and easy-to-read forms, and foreign literature. Third, the objects in my collection tend to rehabilitate certain histories, surfacing cultural figures previously relegated to samizdat or tamizdat, as well as attempting to connect pre-Bolshevik history with modern Russia. Some objects hint of nostalgia in a recognition that something significant was receding. Some objects do not fit these three categories and are grouped as souvenirs. Although they represent my personal travel to Russia during 1991-93, they also evoke positive memories about the period’s hopefulness and promise for their owners.
One example of the frenzied change of the 1991-93 period, and the public’s reaction to it, is a map of the Moscow Metro. Printed in 1989, this map was produced prior to a 1990 decision that changed station names to geographical references or previous names. The name changes eliminated references to Soviet heroes and institutions like Marx and Lenin, Gorky, and the kolkhoz (collective farm).
Another example of the rapid pace of change in 1991-93 is the 1991 50-ruble note, which became outdated almost as soon as it appeared. The green banknote, which shows Lenin in profile and exhibits the languages of Soviet republics, was issued just as the common currency of former Soviet republics was under consideration. The note includes Estonian, Georgian, and Ukrainian languages, all belonging to nations that opted for individual national currencies as an expression of their newfound sovereignty.
The period between 1991 and 1993 was further characterized by an influx of new ideas, especially from abroad. Print culture, in particular, reflects this trend as state enterprises, including publishers, lost government support and needed to find their own customers. Popular books circulating in Moscow from this time commonly have publication dates of 1990 and beyond, indicating they were the product of the late glasnost period. Widely available titles reflected expectations for this popular demand. For instance, a Russian translation of The Giving Tree (Shchedroe derevo), Shel Silverstein’s children’s classic from 1964, appeared in 1991 as an inexpensive, staple-bound volume, in contrast to the hardcover version typically sold in the US. The reading public was hungry for lighter, accessible texts. This edition included the original text at the back to satisfy ambitious English language-learners.
A Russian translation of a popular UK title, Every Girl’s Life Guide, originally published in 1987, by Dr. Miriam Stoppard, also appeared in 1991. The edition included chapters on women’s health, healthy eating, exercise, hair and skincare, romantic relationships, and birth control‚ subjects likely to appeal to audiences weary of Soviet-era silence around such “frivolous” or “inappropriate” topics (famously, there was “no sex in the USSR).”
Somewhat unexpectedly, figurines of roosters, painted in two different Russian folk art styles, serve as examples of the period’s flood of ideas from abroad. In 1993, Russians were not only looking westward: Roosters in all forms were for sale in Moscow to celebrate the Chinese Zodiac in early 1993 around the Chinese New Year. Russians have always been keenly aware of their country’s location on two continents, Europe and Asia. Material culture linked to 1991-93 reflects this connection. The popularity of Victor Pelevin, who rose to literary stardom in the 1990s, also reflects an ambient fascination with Eastern philosophy and culture.
Material culture from 1991-93 also reveals attempts to connect pre-Bolshevik history with modern Russia. Illustrating a new fascination with tsarist times is a children’s book covering Russian Imperial history. The high-quality hardcover was a reprinting of a 1902 text, with old-style typeface and pre-revolutionary script, was published in 1992 under an imprint of the state children’s literature publisher, Detskaya kniga, with a circulation of 100,000.
Another example of recasting historical events is an illustration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (consecrated in 1883, then destroyed on Stalin’s orders in 1931). The engraving, dated 1991, was a rendering of the yet-to-be-rebuilt cathedral by an unknown artist, drawn before the cathedral’s reconstruction which began in the mid-1990s. At the time the drawing was made, the site was occupied by the Moscow Pool (built 1958), the world’s largest outdoor heated swimming pool. It was also the potential site of the gigantic Stalin-era Palace of the Soviets, whose construction began in 1933 but was halted by the Second World War. The spirit of 1991-93 included the unapologetic message to the public to “Dream Big”—in this case, that a cathedral might be rebuilt on the exact spot where it had been demolished decades earlier.
Finally, my collection includes certain timeless objects that fit none of the above categories. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a souvenir as “a thing or fact remembered; an act or instance of remembering; a memory.” Framing these objects with their origin stories documents a deeply personal representation of the 1991-93 period for those who preserved them for over three decades. These memories are just as important today when contemplating building a new Russia, as they were then, as embodiments of aspiration, optimism, and possibility.
