Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century 3031202031, 9783031202032

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Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century Edited by Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger Heidi Hein-Kircher Julia Malitska

Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century

Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger · Heidi Hein-Kircher · Julia Malitska Editors

Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century

Editors Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger University of Bamberg Bamberg, Germany

Heidi Hein-Kircher Herder Institute Marburg, Germany

Julia Malitska Södertörn University Huddinge, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-031-20203-2 ISBN 978-3-031-20204-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The opening of the first McDonalds branch in 1990 and the fast-food company’s withdrawal from Russia in the early summer of 2022, as well as the opening of the “Russian McDonalds” just a few weeks later, were events, which attracted a lot of media attention worldwide. The opening of the Moscow branch of McDonalds in particular was an expression of the “consumer revolution” that had begun to take shape in the late Soviet Union. Indeed, the Russian counter-project of 2022 contained a political message that consumption in Russia was not endangered by the Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. This illustrates how important consumerism has become for modern and globalized societies and that consumption and consumerism are important political issues, while related advertising reflected current social and individual (self-)perceptions. Consumerism and advertising have become key characteristics of modernity. Consumption as a cultural practice did not just start with the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. In the continental empires, consumer behaviour and thus also advertising developed under conditions of multiethnicity and multiculturality with the onset of socio-economic modernization as early as in the nineteenth century. The emergence of the nation-states in Eastern Europe and the establishment of the Soviet Union had a particular impact on these cultural practices of (collective) self-representation through consumer behaviour. In Consuming and Advertising, we scrutinize these processes in a transnational perspective and contribute to the understanding of the v

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specific developments of modernity in Eastern Europe, Russia, as well as the Soviet Union. The volume contains the contributions presented at the bi-annual conference of the German Associations of Historians working on Eastern Europe and Russia (Verband Deutscher Osteuropahistorikerinnen und –historiker) and the Herder-Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe taken place in Marburg in March 2021. Bamberg, Germany Marburg, Germany Huddinge, Sweden

Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger Heidi Hein-Kircher Julia Malitska

About This Book

The volume offers insights into current historical research on consumerism and advertising in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union through the twentieth century. It contributes to the understanding of modernity there, as consumerism became a key characteristic for modern societies and an important political issue. Consumption as a cultural practice did not just start with the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. In the continental empires, consumer behaviour and thus also advertising developed under conditions of multiethnicity and multiculturality with the onset of socio-economic modernization as early as in the nineteenth century. The emergence of the nation-states in Eastern Europe and the establishment of the Soviet Union had a particular impact on these cultural practices of (collective) self-representation through consumer behaviour. In Consuming and Advertising, we scrutinize these processes by offering transnational and trans-imperial perspective on the matter.

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Contents

Introduction Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century: Introductory Remarks Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger, Heidi Hein-Kircher, and Julia Malitska

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Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before World War II Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan Consumers: Textiles, Social Entrepreneurship, and the Austro-Hungarian Countryside Corinne Geering German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire as a Reflection of Consumer Policies, Culture, and Communication Lilija Wedel The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a Consumer: The Case of the Women’s Magazine Eva (1928–1938) Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger

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CONTENTS

“Soviet Style” of Advertising and Consumption Fur Trade in Turmoil: Pelt Commodification in Leipzig from Fin de Siècle to Sovietization Timm Schönfelder

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Early Soviet Consumption as a First “Battle” on the Cultural Front Iryna Skubii

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“They Even Gave Us Pork Cutlets for Breakfast”: Foreign Tourists and Eating-Out Practices in Socialist Romania During the 1960s and the 1980s Adelina Stefan

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Transformations in Socialist Consumer Cultures and Advertisements Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker of Growing Social Difference in 1980s Hungary Annina Gagyiova

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Eesti Reklaamfilm as a Jack-of-All-Trades: On the Untold Opportunities of a Late Soviet Advertising Bureau Airi Uuna

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Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking in the USSR Tricia Starks

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Concluding Comment Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe: Concluding Commentary and Research Perspectives Kirsten Bönker

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People Index

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Geographical Index

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Subject Index

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Notes on Contributors

PD Dr. Kirsten Bönker is head of the Institute for East European History at the University of Cologne. Previously, she was Interim Professor of East European History, Contemporary History, and the History of Modern Societies at the Universities of Bielefeld, Göttingen, and Oldenburg. She was also fellow of Gerda Henkel Foundation. She earned her MA, PhD, and Habilitation from Bielefeld University. Her research interests include the intertwining history of the Cold War, the history of media, of consumption, and of civil society. She is co-editor of the book series Rethinking the Cold War with De Gruyter / Oldenbourg. Her recent publications are: Television and Political Communication in the Late Soviet Union (Lanham/MD: Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books 2020); Nachrichten aus der Neuen Welt: Deutungskämpfe im Feld der Auslands- und Reiseberichterstattung über die Sowjetunion, 1922–1933. Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte, 24 (2022): 5983; Auslandskorrespondenten im Kalten Krieg: Akteure der Détente?. In Entbehrung und Erfüllung: Praktiken von Arbeit, Körper und Konsum in der Geschichte moderner Gesellschaften, ed. Gleb J. Albert, Daniel Siemens, Frank Wolff, 171–195 (Bonn: Dietz Verlag 2021). Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger is a research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Chair of Slavic Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Bamberg, Germany. Holding a M.A. in Slavic Studies as well as a M.Sc. in Psychology, her current doctoral project deals with the participation of women in artistic-cultural life in interwar Prague. Besides her teaching xi

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activities at the university, she also works as a cultural manager and cultural mediator for various institutes. Her scientific interests include art and cultural history of East Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pluriculturalism, interculturality and processes of cultural transfers as well as food and consumer cultures with special interest in a gender perspective. Selected publication: Kulinarische Streifzüge durch das östliche Europa (Bamberg 2021). Annina Gagyiova has completed her Ph.D. titled “From Goulash to Fridges. Individual Consumption between Eigensinn and Political Dominance in Socialist Hungary (1956–1989)” under the supervision of Prof. Ulf Brunnbauer at the University of Regensburg. Her thesis examines the question why socialism failed in Hungary although its consumption culture was more Western and colourful than anywhere else in the socialist bloc. It has been published as a monograph with Harrrassowitz, Wiesbaden, in 2020. She currently holds a Postdoc-position at Masaryk University Brno and is teaching at Charles University and other academic institutions in Prague, Czech Republic. Corinne Geering leads the junior research group “Contrasting East Central Europe” at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. She received her Ph.D. in Eastern European History from the University of Giessen in 2018 where she was a doctoral fellow at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC). She has published on cultural politics, heritage, material culture and international cooperation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her wider research interests include the use of the past in rural and urban development. PD Dr. Heidi Hein-Kircher earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Heinrich Heine-University in Düsseldorf. Working at the Herder-Institute for Historical Research in East Central Europe, Germany, since 2003, she has been the head of department “Academic Forum” since 2009. In 2018, she received her habilitation degree at Philipps-University Marburg. In her research, she focuses on urban history (emerging cities) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in East Central Europe with regard to modernization, knowledge transfer and nationalization as well as historical critical security and conflict studies. Specialized on East Central European History in nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she works on modernizing societies there. Selected Publications: Lembergs ‘polnischen

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Charakter’ sichern. Kommunalpolitik in einer multiethnischen Stadt der Habsburgermonarchie 1861/62–1914 (Stuttgart: Steiner 2020); ed. with Werner Distler: The Mobility-Security Nexus and Making of Order (New York and London: Routledge 2022), ed. with Eszter Gantner and Oliver Hochadel: Interurban Knowledge Exchange in Southern and Eastern Europe, 1870–1950 (New York and London: Routledge 2021); ed. with Lilya Berezhnaja (2009): Rampart Nations. Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of Nationalism (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2019); special issue with Eszter Gantner: Emerging Cities. Journal of Urban History 43 (2017), 4. Julia Malitska Ph.D. in History, is a project researcher at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. She is an author of a book “Negotiating Imperial Rule: Colonists and Marriage in the Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Steppe” (2017), which is her doctoral dissertation defended at the same university. Between 2019 and 2022, she conducted her postdoctoral project on the history of vegetarian social activism in the late Russian Empire. She has published extensively on different aspects of the topic of her postdoctoral project in different peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as Media History and Global Food History. Recently, she has been a guest editor of a special section on the history of dietary reforms in the Baltic and East Central Europe in ca 1850–1950, in a scholarly journal Baltic Worlds, 2022: 1–2. Her new project, financed by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjöstiftelsen), deals with the intertwined histories of science, biopolitics, food and environment in the late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union during 1860s until 1939. Her current research interests also include imperial histories of Ukraine, Black Sea Region and Eastern Europe, as well as environmental history. Timm Schönfelder is a postdoc researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig, Germany. In 2019, he defended his dissertation on Soviet agromeliorative infrastructures in the North Caucasus at the University of Tübingen, where he worked for the Collaborative Research Center 923: “Threatened Orders. Societies under Stress”, funded by the German Research Foundation. He has published on Russian and Soviet environmental history, the history of science and technology, agricultural policies and political propaganda. Currently, he investigates the manifold social and cultural implications of hunting practices in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Iryna Skubii is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her doctoral project is focused on consumption, material culture and the environment during the Sovietera famines in Ukraine. She worked at the Petro Vasylenko Kharkiv National Technical University of Agriculture and held visiting research and teaching positions at the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta. Her scientific interests include social and economic history, trade, consumption, material culture, famines and the environment. Tricia Starks is Professor of History and Director of the University of Arkansas Humanities Center. She is the author of The Body Soviet (Wisconsin, 2008), Smoking under the Tsars (Cornell, 2018) and Cigarettes and Soviets (Northern Illinois, 2022). She is also coeditor of several collections—most recently From Fish Guts to Fabergé: The Lifecycle of Russian Things (Bloomsbury 2021). She has earned grants from the National Institutes of Health as well as the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. Adelina Stefan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Contemporary and Digital History at the University of Luxembourg. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pittsburgh, USA (2016). Her book project tentatively titled, “Vacationing in the Cold War: Foreign Tourists to Socialist Romania and Francoist Spain, 1960s–1970s”, examines how international tourism brought about a bottom-up liberalization in the two dictatorships, as it altered ordinary people’s lifestyles and material culture. Her most recent publication is “Unpacking Tourism in the Cold War: International Tourism and Commercialism in Socialist Romania, 1960s–1980s” in Contemporary European History, 2022, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S096077732-1000540. Airi Uuna is a Ph.D. student in History and a junior researcher at the School of Humanities of Tallinn University, Estonia. Her primary research interests contain the history of (Soviet) marketing and advertising, business history (including that of Soviet advertising enterprises and oral history) and the history of consumer culture. Lilija Wedel studied history and political science at the Leibniz University of Hanover. In 2013, she moved to Göttingen and completed her doctorate in Eastern European History. At the same time, she returned to the Provincial Church Archives of Hanover as an archivist and taught

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in the field of Eastern European History at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern History in Göttingen. Since 2018, she has been working as a lecturer at the University of Göttingen and has been employed at the Provincial Church Archives of Hanover. Since 2020, she has been engaged in the project “German Advertising in the Russian Empire, 1870–1914” at the University of Bielefeld.

Abbreviations

ANIC AvtoVAZ BAT COMECON Deurauch DOSAAF

ERA ERF F1 FISA FOCA FSU Glavkooptorgreklama

Arhivele Nat, ionale Istorice Centrale (Romanian National Archives) Volzhskii avtomobil’nyi zavod (Volga Automotive Plant) British-American Tobacco Company Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Deutsche Rauchwaren-Gesellschaft mbH, German Fur Products Ltd. Dobrovol´noe Obshshchestvo Sodeistviia Armii, Aviatsii i Flotu (Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Navy) Eesti Rahvusarhiiv (Estonian National Archives) Eesti Reklaamfilm (Estonian Commercial Film Producers) Formula One Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (International Motor Sport Federation) Formula One Constructor’s Association Rostorgreklama Former Soviet Union Glavnoe upravlenie torgovoi reklamy Tsentrossoiuz (Central Department of Trade Advertising of Tsentrosoiuz; Tsentrosoiuz—Tsentralnyi soiuz potrebitel’skikh obshchestv Rossiiskoi SFSR (Central Union of Consumer Societies of the Russian SFSR)

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ABBREVIATIONS

Glavlit

Goskino Gosteleradio

GPR IPA Mossel’prom NEP NSDAP ONT OSA Soiuztorgreklama StA-L TARK TAROM UK UKRMEKhTORG UKRSBYTPUShNINA US USSR VEB

Glavnoe upravlenie po okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v pechati (Main Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR) Gosudarstvennyi komitet po kinematografii SSSR (USSR State Committee for Cinematography) Gosudarstvennyi komitet SSSR po televideniiu i radioveshchaniiu (USSR State Committee for Television and Radio) Gross Rating Point—A standardized measure for assessing advertising impact Internationale Pelzfach-Ausstellung, International Fur Trade Exhibition Moscow All-Union State Trest of Processing of Agricultural Products novaya ekonomicheskaya politika (New Economic Policy) Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, National Socialist German Workers’ Party Carpathians Oficiul Nat, ional de Turism -Carpat, i (National Office for Tourism-Carpathians) Open Society Archives Vsesoiuznoe ob”edinenie po torgovoi reklame (All-Union Association of Commercial Advertising) Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Leipzig City Archive Tallinna Autode Remondi Katsetehas (Tallinn Experimental Car Repair Factory) Transporturi Aeriene Române (Romanian Air Travel) United Kingdom Ukrainian Fur Trade Organization Ukrainian Fur Distribution Organization United States Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Volkseigener Betrieb, Publicly Owned Enterprise

List of Figures

Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan Consumers: Textiles, Social Entrepreneurship, and the Austro-Hungarian Countryside Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

The Ruthenian group at the Austrian Home Industry Ball in Vienna (1911). Der österreichische Hausindustrieball. Sport & Salon. Illustrirte Zeitschrift für die vornehme Welt 14.6 (1911), 9–11, here 10 Archduchess Isabella von Croÿ wearing an embroidered shirt with her daughters in the Palais Grassalkovich in Pressburg/Bratislava/Pozsony (ca. 1898). Austrian National Library ÖNB/Vienna, Signature Pf 3948:E(3) Home industry product advertisements from associations based in Hungary, Dalmatia, and Bukovina were published in women’s magazines. Drawings from Blatt der Hausfrau (1909: 16)

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German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire as a Reflection of Consumer Policies, Culture, and Communication Fig. 1

“Lokomobili Genrich Lanc, Mangeim” (“Locomobiles Heinrich Lanz, Mannheim”). In Saratovskii Listok. No 45. 25.02.1910

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Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

“Dekadentskie Z-duchi fabriki T-va R. Keler i Ko v Moskve” (“Decadent Z-perfume of the Fabric R. Koehler & Co in Moscow”). In Golos Moskvy. No 223. 30.09.1909 Color lithograph “V pitanii sila. Kakao Žorzh Borman” (“In the Sustenance is a Power. Cacao Georg Borman”). Unknown Author. St. Petersburg 1904, 47*77 cm. russianposter.ru “Rojali i Pianino Ja. Bekker i Br. Diderichs. Kavkazskoe central’noe Glavnoe Depo muzykal’nych instrumentov, B. M. Mirimanian. Tiflis” (“Grand Pianos Ja. Becker & Br. Diederichs. The Caucasian Central Warehouse of Musical Instruments. B. M. Miriminian. Tiflis”). In Kavkaz (Tiflislak). No 28. 30.01.1905

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The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a Consumer: The Case of the Women’s Magazine Eva (1928–1938) Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Advertisement JAWA motorcycle in Eva V/14 (15/05/1933): p. 1 Advertisement Minerva sewing machine in Eva VIII/8 (15/02/1935): p. 1 Advertisement Bat’a shoes in Eva II/21–22 (01/09/1930): p. 1 Advertisement Auto Praga in Eva V/12 (15/04/1933): p. 1

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Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker of Growing Social Difference in 1980s Hungary Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Here and now: “Good that prices have finally swept out the many workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia,” in: Ludas Matyi, 18 May 1988 Miracle: “The master vanished within a second after he realized we wanted an invoice,” in: Ludas Matyi, 18 May 1988

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Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking in the USSR Fig. 1

Pack of Priiatnye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com

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Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Pack of Krestianskie. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com Pack of Trudovye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com Pack of Oktiabria. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com Pack of Krasnaja strela. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com

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Introduction

Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century: Introductory Remarks Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger , Heidi Hein-Kircher , and Julia Malitska

We should not merely give up meat but transform our whole life. Luxury, fashion, the waste of money by some, and overwork by others to obtain them – these play a significant role in all the horrors of our lives. And so it goes on, and on, and on ... And all the most terrible consequences of this, of all that is based on the pursuit of all sorts of worldly goods. Vegetarians reject these worldly goods. Meat, wine, cigarettes, all kinds of luxury, and

M. Eriksroed-Burger University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] H. Hein-Kircher (B) Herder-Institute, Marburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] J. Malitska Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_1

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the pursuit of fashion, status, etc., etc. – vegetarianism repels all this. The path of vegetarianism is the path of feat.

—wrote Olga Prokhasko, litterateur, intellectual and the publisher of The Vegetarian Herald, a Kyiv-based periodical, in 1917 (Prokhasko 1917: 1–3). This passage illustrates the global trend that influenced (urban) lifestyles of the parts of the Russian Empire (Malitska 2021, 2022a, b) as well as Eastern Europe. A wave of issue-oriented lifestylereform movements that flourished across Europe and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, particularly in the areas of nutrition, clothing, consumption, housing and health care, was to a certain extent a reaction to and a critique of the rise of modern consumer culture, characteristic of modernity and often associated with industrialization, mass communication, urbanization and societal change. Anti-tobacco, temperance and vegetarian movements, with their counter-cultural and social reformism spirit, often perceived consumption as a danger, corrupting society. Such trends regarding different forms of consumption became transnational, if not global phenomena. They show that consumption is more than a “simple” consumption of products to maintain “mere” physical performance. These developments reaffirm the statement that consumption—in whatever form—was and is a tool of individual and social self-development and self-expression (König 2013: 11). Consumption is thus to be considered as a cultural practice that reflects values and norms, but also political attitudes. It is therefore not surprising that, particularly since the end of nineteenth century, different consumption patterns became an important topic within modernizing societies and were negotiated differently across these societies, even if products were similar. Hence, Consuming and Advertising assumes that Eastern European consumers not only adopted and aligned Western attitudes, but also developed their own ways of negotiating consumption and, last but not least, through that their own lifestyle in modernity.

Entanglements and Overlaps of Modernities A growing diversity of understandings of modernity from the end of the twentieth century, as well as its “de-Westernization”, has recently become a dominant trend in the humanities and social sciences. Critical discussions have focused on the dark sides of modernity, on different forms of

CONSUMING AND ADVERTISING IN EASTERN EUROPE …

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imperialism and colonialism worldwide (Eisenstadt 2000: 14), as well as on the totalitarian forces embedded in some modernity programs. The sociologist Shmul Eisenstadt’s (2000) idea of “multiple modernities” and Göran Therborn’s notion of “entangled modernities” (Therborn 2003: 293–305), formulated two decades ago, have been influential for the debate. Eisenstadt proposed the idea of approaching modernity in plural, as a multiplicity of cultural programs of different modern societies which were not exclusively related to industrialization but to cultural changes as well. “One of the most important implications of the term ‘multiple modernities’ is that modernity and Westernization are not identical; Western patterns of modernity are not the only, ‘authentic’ modernities, though they enjoy historical presence”, as Eisenstadt (2000: 2–3) stated. He assumes that diverse understandings of “modern” developed within different (nation-)states and regions, and within different ethnic and cultural groupings, as well as within communist, fascist and other movements but were in many respects global (Eisenstadt 2000: 2). As a subsequent idea, sociologist Göran Therborn suggested perceiving modernity as a global phenomenon, which meant focusing on global variability, global connectivity and global intercommunication, but also on continuity and discontinuity. Hence, his notion of “entangled modernities” (Therborn 2003) emphasizes the coexistence of different modernities in their inter-relations which is a main assumption Consumption and Advertising relies on. That Eastern Europe and Soviet Union have not been overlooked and not included by Eisenstadt is one of the criticisms of his conceptualization, for example expressed by German historian Stefan Plaggenborg (Plaggenborg 2013: 67–78). Since the 1990s, a debate has evolved in the field of Soviet and Russian historical studies about the concept of modernity. The question has been whether late Habsburg Monarchy (Bachinger et al. 2021, Ganzenmüller and Tönsmeyer 2016) and imperial Russia, the Eastern European socialist societies and the USSR can be considered modern and, if so, in what sense (David-Fox 2006). The debate, conducted mostly by historians, has been ranging between four main standpoints of “no modernity”; “shared modernity”; “alternative modernity”; and finally, “entangled modernities” in Russian and Soviet history, brilliantly discussed and contributed to by Michael David-Fox (2016). Inspired by David-Fox’s elaborations, both notions of alternative and entangled modernities are equally influential for this volume (David-Fox

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2016: 37–38). Alternative modernity proceeds from the premise that communism was established in Eastern Europe as an alternative formation distinct from capitalism and the West (David-Fox 2016: 3). Communism explicitly positioned itself as an alternative modern project, and it was perceived as such. The most important feature of the concept of entangled modernities, suggested by David-Fox, is that various strands of the modern are understood to be interacting across time and space, across separate countries and national groups, both Western and non-Western, which might be discovered in practices, discourses, technologies, material culture, different forms of cultural transfer and the circulation of knowledge (David-Fox 2016: 28, 34). This point is of particular relevance for the study of consumption and advertising in Eastern Europe throughout the twentieth century, given the turbulent socio-political changes the region and its people experienced. Recent research on Eastern Europe has pointed out that its societies formed their own path to modernity, which was not shaped by large-scale industrialization but by small-scale industrialization and urbanization— an argument that refutes the assumed backwardness of the region. Yet, modern life in Eastern Europe was mainly an urban phenomenon and differed in most cities from that in Western European societies because of the influence of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural life (Gantner and Hein-Kircher 2017; Gantner et al. 2021). Modernity as such has thus been discussed differently, but not in the relation to multi-ethnic urban development and the emergence of modern consumer cultures and advertisements. “The divisions between modernities followed not only national and cultural, but also social borders”, noted Alexey Golubev in his study of late Soviet material history, because class and gender mattered in Soviet and socialist societies, similarly to the countries of Western Europe, and “transnational entanglements across the Iron Curtain demonstrate that different social groups had their own understandings and practices of what it meant to be modern” (Golubev 2016: 241). In the Soviet multinational empire, there was no single and unified Soviet modernity; intertwined forms of modernity co-existed within the Soviet project. The same is true for the socialist Eastern European societies. There is no unilinear East European modernity, just as there is no monolithic history of Eastern European consumption and advertising. We would like to spotlight the transnational histories of consumption and advertising within the region called Eastern Europe, with its continuities and discontinuities, commonalities and peculiarities, cross-influences and interactions.

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Consuming and Advertising follows this trend of recent research on East Central European and Russian consumerism (see below, and, e.g., Verderey 1996), but aims to go beyond the analysis of case studies by offering a cross-epochal and cross-regional perspective. Herewith, we want to pick up and underline the findings which research on Eastern Europe and Russia respectively the Soviet Union has elaborated over the last two decades (particularly to urban development; see, e.g., Behrends and Kohlrausch 2014; Gantner et al. 2021). There, diverse and peculiar forms of modernity developed and were triggered through multi-ethnicity and multi-culturality, which had a delayed start in comparison with Western Europe because of lacking impulses of industrialization and the broad range of urban development but nevertheless found their own path. From that time on, consumer cultures developed with certain particularities regarding the respective national or socialist branding, but generally followed transnational incentives and exchanges, even in Soviet times.

Consumerism, Consumer Societies and Advertising as Representations of Lifestyles of Modernity Even if “consumption” describes generally the use of products for everyday life or of services, economically, it is defined as the purchase of goods for private use and their usage by “consumers” (Siegrist 1997: 16–17). The main precondition here is that consumption industries had already emerged by this time and provided the “market” with (mass) production of consumer goods. Another prerequisite is that advertising, sales promotion and, last but not least, advertisements played a major role in the sale of such products in order to trigger the consumers to buy products they had no urgent need for. The emergence of consumerism is tightly enlaced with the emergence of modern industrial (mass) production and, necessarily, the rise of the modern money economy. Hence, this process is also interconnected with the broad distribution of consumer goods, the emergence of modern media, as well as of modern forms of communication and everyday life, particularly in the urban centers (Kleinschmidt 2008: 37). Yet, (mass) consumption needs to be fostered by advertisements which suggest that buying and using a given product or service will fulfill individual needs and wishes. A more sociological perspective connects such consumption with a modern way of life and (liberal) market economies. Even if humankind had always consumed goods, particularly food, the rise of consumption and the emergence of

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the modern way of life are intertwined. These interconnections become quite clear if we look at the most impressive expression of consumer cultures: the emergence of huge department stores, which were perceived as sparkling palaces of consumption (and capitalism), like the legendary consumers’ temples of Printemps, opened in Paris in 1865, or Moscow’s GUM , opened in 1893. The time gap of nearly 30 years between the disclosure of Printemps and GUM hints clearly at one further prerequisite of consumption: the existence of adequately suited middle classes who are able to spend money on consumption. The example of GUM shows clearly that the emergence of consumer societies in Eastern Europe was retarded in comparison with Western Europe, but, as Consumption and Advertisings wants to show, developed particular variations. Although consumerism and advertisements are enrooted in nineteenthcentury industrialization and modernization, Wolfgang König, one of Germany’s historians specializing in the topic of consumption and the throw-away society, has stated that the question of exactly when consumption took on a societally shaping function depends on the analytical perspective—whether we focus only on the participation of the elites in consumption or broaden the discussion to include the majorities of the population (König 2013: 9). Here, the USA took a global leading role: The rise of the so-called consumer society was firstly a phenomenon of industrialization in the USA (König 2008: 9–11). If we focus only on the minority of the wealthy elite, consumer societies emerged in the nineteenth century, but if we take the participation of broader social strata into account, the beginning of modern consumer societies appears to have started in the USA in the 1930s, in Germany only around 1960. Through American incentives, consumerism has continued to grow, influence and shape societies on a global scale (idem: 20) and to drive industrial production and trade. The nineteenth century saw the emergence and global spread of industries and services that sought to satisfy personal desires as much as possible. As a reaction, cooperative movements emerged and prospered, for example in different parts of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian Empire, starting in the late nineteenth century and ending with the outbreak of the First World War (Salzman and MF 1982; Wawrzeniuk, ed. 2008). Although consumerism and advertisements got growing importance before the First World War, the interwar period seems to be a key for the further development of Eastern European consumerism, not least because of the value changes caused by the

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break-up of empires and democratization, the Revolutions of 1917 and the nation-state building starting from 1918. While consumption is closely connected with economic life, consumption and advertising as the visualization of consumer wishes and behavior and consumption culture as a cultural practice became indispensable components of a modern lifestyle and (self-)representation in industrialized societies. Since the nineteenth century, lifestyles have been particularly shaped by modernity, not only because of industrialization and urbanization, but also because of the rise of mobility which provided a precondition for the dissemination of consumer goods, and cultural and societal processes that have accompanied and triggered the modernization. Here, following van der Loo and van Rijen (van der Loo and van Reijen 1992: 11), we understand “modernization” as a knot of interwoven cultural, social, economic and political processes. Thus, modernization is more than industrialization and administrative strengthening of the state—it also describes a modernization of “hearts and minds” and the emergence of new, “modern” values and norms, attitudes and ways of life. Within this process, consumption became an important part and representation of changing ways of life. Following Pierre Bourdieu (1984, see also de Certeau 2011), consumption suggests status and vice versa: it is an expression of claiming it. Consumerism could be thus interpreted as a representation of habitus and collective self-perception in modernity. It has become a part of the modern way of life and lifestyle products form a broad range of consumer goods. Consumption is therefore more than the use of resources for a person’s survival, and it became a social practice essential for creating and maintaining individual as well as collective identities, for self-presentation and the claim of needing certain goods in order to have a “good life”. These desires are “implanted” through advertisements, which negotiate a “dream of a good life” (title of Andersen 1997). Without advertising, the desire to purchase such goods would not arise. Because of these processes, since the rise of modern (mass) consumption during the era of industrialization, advertisements became an everyday experience in media. And vice versa: industrialization (and modern capitalism) was fostered by the rise of consumption and the production of consumer goods that had to be advertised. Hence, catalogues, the cylindric advertising pillars (so-called Littfaßsäulen), a particularly urban form of visualizing products in the public sphere, as well as billboards, leaflets and advertisements in newspapers and magazines became the main tools for communicating

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to consumers what they should want to have until the rise of modern mass media like radio, film, television and, since the end of twentieth century, the Internet. Hence, consumption and, on the other hand, advertisements and promotion form two sides of a coin—representing the modernized lifestyles and aesthetic sensations of (collective) identity and self-perception. As they should trigger desires to buy, they represent the habitus and lifestyle desired and emulated by the consumers, and are adapted to the current societal life at the same time. Both advertising and consumption have shaped forms of modern life since then—but only in the “rich” countries of “capitalism”? This is an assumption that Consuming and Advertising wants to challenge by showing that seemingly less industrialized countries, governed by a socialist ideology that claimed to be the counterpart of capitalism, produced their own particular variations of consumerism. The processes of societal change that accelerated in the era of modernity as well as the rise of consumerism provoked a wide range of criticism among contemporary intellectuals which could here only briefly outlined. Already in 1859, Karl Marx criticized the fetishization of products, while Adam Smith (Smith 1776) addressed production of consumer goods as a trigger of the wealth of nations and sociologist Georg Simmel analyzed the individualization and subjectification within a society (Simmel 1904, see also Schrage 2008). The anti-consumerism life-reform movements that emerged at the end of nineteenth century, for example, the antitobacco and vegetarian movements that sprang up all over Europe, were part of this critique. Hence, consumption and, associated with it, prosperity and the possibility of obtaining goods according to one’s wishes became the object of visions, if not utopian ideals, but also fueled a growing critique of capitalism. The most outstanding example is certainly Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World (1932), in which consumption was presented as a social duty aimed at optimizing industrial production, so that even children, for example, were obliged to consume. Consumption has thus received a Janus-faced attribution since then: as a component of a critique of capitalism on the one hand, but as the result of an affluent society on the other.

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Consumption, Consumerism and Advertisements in Eastern Europe When it comes to consumption as a characteristic, Eastern Europe has often been associated with scarcity and queuing—and not with broad access to supply facilities or a variety of consumer goods, because the subject has been perceived quite stereotypically until recently (Gronow 2011: 251–256). While consumption is ideologically connected with a Western, “modern” and prosperous way of life and of capitalism, consumerism in Eastern Europe did not seem to exist until the fall of the Iron Curtain and the transformation period. Eastern European societies had long been (self-) perceived as backward (West 2011; Sheresheva and Antonov-Ovseenko 2015), less modern and not fitting in with the way consumption is initially perceived (Goldschweer 2014: 31). Herewith, we connect the (self-)perception, even of contemporaries, of “backwardness” caused by a lacking range of industrialization processes (e.g., Szczepanowski 1888) and, not least, the images of supply shortages during Soviet times, so that the first branch of McDonalds in Soviet Union opened in Moscow in January 1990 could be used as a “synonym of revolution in consumption” (Althanns 2007). The issue of advertising is interpreted similarly: Advertising as the commercial means of influencing people to buy (and consume) certain goods, mostly available as a range of products on the market by different producers, seems to be strongly connected with capitalism and not with socialism. Here, we particularly understand consumer societies as societies in which not only a few members of an elite, but also where the masses can buy industrially produced wares, but we also acknowledge that first consumerism in the social elites and then in the other social strata emerged. An understanding of consumerism in modernity presupposes consumers buying and using products which are not only for individual or family survival but also enhance the “beautiful things” of life and are used for leisure and pleasure. Discussing Eastern European and Russian forms of consumer culture and advertising goes far beyond the scope of purely economic questions because of the premise that both are cultural practices which are closely linked with societal modernization. Such practices offer insights into ways of life, of values and (self-)images of societies through the forms in which they present production. Furthermore, they give us insights into aesthetics and, of course, of necessities and inadequacies of everyday life.

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In Eastern Europe, particular forms of consumptions and specific ways of advertising developed during the later stages of the Russian Empire, the German Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy, though these were delayed in comparison with Western Europe. With the establishment of Soviet power, it appears that consumer culture and advertising were banned, but only at a first glance, since the rise of Socialism brought an inherent criticism of ‘bourgeois’ consumerism and can be outlined as an anticonsumerism project. Yet, a second glance reveals that particular forms of consumption and advertisements did emerge, spreading the image of the “socialist world” and socialist ideas of consuming and advertising, which also deeply shaped everyday life (Zakharova 2013, compiles studies by Eastern European scholars). This was politically necessary, since it became clear, that consumption and sufficient provision with consumer goods were considered by the people as the most important part of the promised ‘good life’; consumption and advertisement were instrumentalized to proof that promise.

State of Research on Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe One may think that the “Iron Curtain” once separating capitalist Western Europe and communist Eastern Europe throughout the period of the Cold War continues to imprint historical research on consumption and advertising. Indeed, general works on this topic with a European (Siegrist et al. 1997; König 2013) or global perspective, such as the Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture (Southerton 2011), by usually following an interdisciplinary approach and focusing on the period from the Age of Enlightenment to the present, tend to summarize the whole East European region in one more or less detailed chapter, since consumerism is perceived as an outcome of the Western lifestyle (König 2008: 9). However, book series1 such as Cultures of consumption series or Worlds of consumption as well as edited volumes on the topic advocating a global perspective still tend to omit case studies on Eastern Europe (e.g., Berghoff and Spiekermann 2012). Access to and publication of archival records since the end of the Cold War as well as new interdisciplinary research methods (e.g., oral interviews) have given incentive to a vast number of studies on consumption in Eastern Europe over the last two decades. Operating with multi-layered concepts of “consumption” and using a variety of sources, scholars from a range of disciplines

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including economics, history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and art history have examined the consumer cultures of former socialist countries. Hence, a considerable number of Anglo-American studies on the history of consumption in the Soviet Union either lean toward Soviet Russia and specifically its European part, or they focus predominantly on the post-Second World War period. Rather than providing an exhaustive historiographic overview, we would rather map some trends in the consumption studies of Eastern Europe during the last two decades.2 With some exceptions (e.g., Hilton 2011; Sheresheva and Antonov-Ovseenko 2015; West 2011), issues of consumption and advertising in the late imperial period either have not been sufficiently discussed in historical scholarship, or have been rather fleetingly touched upon in studies focusing, for example, on the history of retail, media, cooperative movement press, food and countercultural lifestyles (Brang 2002; Eriksson et al. 2010; Glants and Toomre 1997; Kokoszycka 2008; Malitska, 2022a, b; Smith 2021; Stites 1992). The present volume includes and discusses late imperial and pre-socialist patterns of advertising and consumption, aiming to offer a holistic perspective on the topic and thus bridging different political formations and contexts, as well as urban and rural dynamics. Existing research has focused primarily on the socialist period. The New Economic Politics (NEP) became hence one focal point in consumption studies (Skubii 2017; Osokina 2022; Ivanova 2018), while other scholars provided synthetic overviews, like Julie Hessler (2004). She offers a comprehensive study of the Soviet retail trade in consumer goods from the revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin in 1953, covering both the supply side of the consumer goods market and its demand side— consumer behavior and patterns of consumption. Her book contributes to social and political history of the consumer economy with new findings on the extent of private trade in the USSR during the Second World War and its aftermath, the scale and ways of involvement of urban and rural workers in small-scale retail operations, and the relative importance of private trade as a source of goods for a working family. Hence, because of the precarity of consumer goods supply, black markets developed all over the Eastern Bloc, which first Jerzy Kochanowski explored with regard to Poland (Kochanowski 2010). Focusing on Soviet retail trade and consumption in the 1930s, Amy Randall (2008) adds to Hessler’s findings the significant role of the state by examining political and economic

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framework conditions and delivering a perspective “from above”. In addition, she shows how the role of women as cultured consumers was shaped, followed by changes in their social status as well as legitimization of trade. Focusing on the period between 1933 and 1939, Jukka Gronow (2003) has offered a sociological perspective on “common luxuries” such as gramophones, caviar and champagne, which played an important role in the new conception of the socialist lifestyle by promoting material pleasures that had once only been available to pre-revolutionary elites for enjoyment by ordinary people—at least on special occasions. With her analysis of Soviet consumer culture in the Brezhnev era, Natalya Chernyshova (2013) has highlighted discontinuities in comparison with the former Khrushchev era and demonstrated how consumption became a factor of social cohesion as well as individual self-actualization. While questions around ideology and legitimation play a fundamental role in each of these studies, the examination of communist consumption over a longer period of time has highlighted its ruptures and continuities on an ideological basis (Gurova 2006). Dealing with consumer practices and consumerism in (Soviet) Russia over a longer time period, Timo Vihavainen and Elena Bogdanova (2016) have convincingly positioned the Eastern European alternative against the background of an “affluent” (Western) society, while showing the complex and ambivalent attitudes toward consumerism as well as the dilemma it created for the population and the Communist Party. In this context, the ambivalent references of consumer cultures as well as popular cultures in a broader sense toward Americanization have been shown by means of consumer images and practices in Central and Eastern Europe, for example in countries such as the GDR or Poland (Herrmann 2008). By questioning the simplistic East–West binaries in principle, Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger (2013) have demonstrated the commonalities and differences of various consumption practices across Eastern Europe, from Romania to Yugoslavia to Czechoslovakia and the GDR during the Cold War period and beyond. By examining the entanglement of labor, consumption and the public sphere, Nada Boškovska et al. (2016) have highlighted new forms of consumption (e.g., media such as TV) and everyday-life policies in the Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia and have contributed the concept of “developed socialism”. As has already become clear, research has also been conducted on consumption, everyday life, as well as on mass culture in a broader sense. With their studies on leisure activities, entertainment and “pleasures in

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socialism” (Crowley and Reid 2010), historians have comprehensively demonstrated the various ways of “escaping” from hassles of everyday life in the Eastern Bloc after the Second World War (Giustino et al. 2013; Noack 2011), while Ewa Mazierska offers reflection on consumption and other everyday challenges in Poland since 1918 through an film studies approach (Mazierska 2017). With their two-volume encyclopedia on lifestyle, entertainment and leisure, Martin Franc and Jiˇrí Knapík et al. (2011) offer a comprehensive overview of the cultural developments in Czechoslovakia in 1948–1967. Connecting contemporary cultural phenomena to propaganda and ideology, this Guidebook provides insights into this region. Another study of these scholars (Franz and Knapík 2013) traces the social context and the impact of new ways of spending leisure time on the functioning of Czechoslovak society in the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s in greater detail. Drawing on various forms of activities (e.g., DIY, travel, dance entertainment and cultural activities), it discusses their often very complicated relationship to the ideologies of the time. Moreover, the study spotlights the transformation of the mentality of the Czechoslovak society in its new relationship to consumerism. Gleb Tsipursky’s Socialist Fun (2016) has approached the issues of consumption through the examination of the changing Soviet youth culture in the period from the end of the Second World War to the aftermath of the Prague Spring with a focus on Soviet Russia. Dealing with phenomena such as the so-called Stilyagi, a post-war youth counterculture fascinated by eye-catching Western fashion and music trends (jazz/swing), in particular the role of fashion and physical appearance in the post-war Soviet Union, has been studied (Bartlett 2010; Hausbacher et al. 2014). In their study of clothing fashions as an element of Soviet consumption after the Second World War, Jukka Gronow and Sergey Zhuravlev (2015) have touched upon differences and similarities between Western, capitalist fashion and Soviet socialist fashion. The Soviet designers and their Western counterparts relied on the same sources of inspiration. Authors point out the major differences between these two worlds of fashion. Commercial advertisements and promotions on the pages of journals and magazines were relatively rare in the Soviet context. Those socialist advertisements that existed were less appealing and less competitive than Western advertisements. In addition to practices and strategies of consumption, historians have increasingly focused on the various imaginaries, on ideological, political and economic frameworks, as well as material culture, in line with

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the materiality turn (Gagliardi 1990). Scholarship on materiality in Eastern Europe (Reid and Crowley 2000), especially in the context of Russia/Soviet Russia starting with Peter the Great (Roberts 2017), has discussed the ambivalent relationship between the consumers and their commodities, suggesting a dynamic and relevant tension between individual desires, collective values and social functions (Oushakine 2014; Gagyjova 2020). With her study on the objects of Russian constructivism, Christina Kiaer (2005) further demonstrated the interrelationship between socialist objects, artistic practice and industrial production. Examining the so-called socialist thing (Goldschweer 2014: 41), the life of things (Schlögl 2018: 212) or, to put it another way, the things of life (Golubev 2020), scholars have highlighted the entanglement of political and economic power of people (as consumers), declaring them as a potential threat to state authority. Anthropologist Katherine Verdery (1996: 14) has summarized this as follows: “Acquiring consumer goods and objects conferred an identity that set one off from socialism. To acquire objects became a way of constituting your selfhood against a regime you despised”. Hence, luxury goods and quality leisure created a space for individual desires and self-realization within a context ruled by collective ownership and values and characterized through the discrepancy between political promises and the naked reality. Despite the growing number of scholarships on consumer culture and related topics such as materiality or leisure time, the transnational and holistic approach to consumption patterns and forms of advertising across the region and with a consideration of the longue-durée represents a desideratum. Gendered consumption studies is still an emerging field of historical research on Eastern Europe. Iryna Skubii tackled on the gendered consumption in urban Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s–1930s by examining the characteristic features of male and female consumer needs and in their interrelation with Soviet ideology (Skubii 2018, 2020). Using these previous research insights as an impetus, Consumption and Advertising takes a transnational perspective and aims to provide incentives for deeper comparative analysis including different epochs and regions in former Russian and Habsburg respectively Soviet spheres of influence. The goal is to reflect the ways in which this region belonged to globalizing consumption trends of the period in question, while, at the same time, highlighting the peculiarities of consumption and advertising patterns underpinned by specific political and economic formations,

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institutional patterns of political and social life, social structures and the distinct historical trajectories of the region. Thus, the edited volume aims at including Eastern Europe into a comparative view on consumerism and advertising as social practices and representations of lifestyles of modernity. On the one hand, it reflects the growing globalization of the history of consumption and, on the other hand, adopts a transnational approach and a regional perspective with regard to heterogeneous and conflicting models of consumption during the “long” twentieth century in Eastern Europe.

Focal Perspectives and Structure This edited volume offers a historical analysis of consumption and advertising in the region called Eastern Europe from the late imperial era through to the collapse of the communist regimes, representing a rare attempt to produce a “long” history of the region throughout the twentieth century. The cross-epochal composition of chapters in the first section highlights that some trends in consumption already started under the monarchical rule of the Empire and were only fostered through nation and Soviet state building. Moreover, Consuming and Advertising bundles cross-regional case studies, showing that, despite similar ideological influences, diverse forms of consumerism and advertising emerged, which were also influenced by Western patterns. Being aware of different definitions of Eastern Europe, we use a pragmatic approach and, omitting long historiographic debates about the origins of the concept and its varying definitions, we perceive the region “Eastern Europe” as a social construct and use the term to refer to those European countries that once belonged to imperial formations of the Russian and the eastern parts of German empires and the Habsburg Monarchy and, in twentieth century, to the “Eastern Bloc”. However, we don’t conceptualize “Eastern Europe” and the European parts of Russia and Soviet Union as a homogeneous region, rather on the contrary, as the different case studies show. Changes in consumption patterns and practices have often signified shifts in social, political and cultural frameworks, and vice versa. Consumption has often entailed symbolic acts affirming status and identities; it has always been about class and gender. Adopting an integrative approach to the histories of consumption and advertising, advocated by Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann (2012: 4), the contributions of the volume thoroughly examine multiple political, economic,

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social and cultural contexts and variations of consumerism and advertising in the eastern part of Europe throughout the “long” twentieth century. The setting of Consuming and Advertising aims to open up and inspire discussions as well as transnational, trans-imperial and transepochal comparisons on these practices in Eastern Europe and Russia and, in doing so, to conceptualize the peculiarities of consumption within that part of Europe, which has until recently been associated with “backwardness”, “poverty” and “hunger” (and not with consumption at all). Our volume aims at contributing to a scholarly trend that challenges recently dominant “powerful paradigms of ‘the culture of shortage’ and ‘economy of scarcity”’ (Oushakine 2014) and reductive conceptualizations of socialist societies defined by deficit and scarcity. Because advertising arose during the period of societal and economic modernization and could be interpreted as a signum of the modern lifestyle, the book traces the development of promotion from a broad cultural historical perspective, presenting different forms of modern consumer cultures and examining how consumers were animated to purchase consumer goods before First World War and in the interwar period. This period is closely connected with “new” ways of life, which were influenced by democratization as well as by the “Americanization” of consumption. By including pre-socialist forms of consumption, we are therefore able to trace the traditions and the peculiarities of consumption within Eastern Europe and Russia. Doing so, Consuming and Advertising wants to discuss how consumption and advertising as cultural practices represented modernity and coined its habitus and lifestyles. Illuminating various forms of consumption and advertising media in Eastern Europe, the chapters included in Consuming and Advertising show that this field of historical research on everyday life is much more extensive than one might initially think. The first section of the book, entitled The Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before World War II , deals with lifestyles and advertising strategies in imperial contexts in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Aiming to highlight the societal and cultural dimensions of consumer practices, it shows that the seemingly accelerated development to consumerism was already laid out by the turn of the twentieth century. Corinne Geering traces how peasant home industries produced for the emerging urban markets in the nineteenth century. Following this, workshops were set up across Europe with the objective to promote rural home industries producing

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textiles, woodwork, ceramics or basketry. These initiatives by state institutions, members of the nobility and wealthy industrialists combined commercial interests with the charitable objective of halting the rural exodus and granting social relief to people experiencing poverty. Facing economic decline and competition from cheaper commodities produced in factories, the sale of handmade objects from rural home industries required novel promotion strategies that underlined their high production value and drew on the idea of social change. Acknowledging these processes, Geering’s chapter discusses the international sale and promotion of home industry products by imperial elites, notably women, from Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The handmade products were commissioned and marketed as luxury items to metropolitan consumers in Vienna, London, Paris, New York and other metropolises. Based on contemporary journalism, advertisements and the writings of women, this chapter analyzes the consumption of rural textiles in late imperial society. In particular, it seeks to foreground the role of female social entrepreneurship in Eastern European consumer cultures at the turn of the century in the wider European context. While Geering focusses on the production for social elites, Lilija Wedel discusses the emergence of consumerism from the vantage point of ethnic heterogeneity in the Russian Empire and focusses on German advertising practices. The focus on German and Russian-German advertising is primarily related to the unique position and economic contribution of German and Russian-German entrepreneurship in the Russian Empire compared to other foreign and non-Russian representatives. During that period, industrial entrepreneurship was able to emerge after the reforms of the 1860s, and then, around 1870, the press and advertising business was able to develop and flourish until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. From that point on, German goods, Germanlanguage press and printed advertisements could no longer be distributed in the Russian Empire. Hence, Wedel discusses the role of German and Russian-German advertising there by exploring advertising strategies, communication networks, consumer culture, and local mindsets and lifestyles. By doing so, she shows that needs and concerns of consumers varied from region to region and did not develop uniformly. Since the section features papers on ‘advertising’ and ‘selling’, its last chapter by Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger focuses on urban consumer cultures and discusses how the idea of “the New” was promoted in the interwar period. Based on the women’s magazine Eva (1928–1938), the chapter

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examines the various roles of the “new woman” as a consumer in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), a comparatively progressive young state. During this time, feminists succeeded in achieving important goals and in strengthening the participation of women in public life, not least thanks to the strong support of President Tomáš G. Masaryk. The representations and layers of images of the new woman, which indicated a specific way of life and was closely connected to consumption, are of special interest. Being a Czechoslovak new woman of the upper middle class meant being urban, “civilized” and cosmopolitan, participating in Western consumer cultures, but equally appreciating local traditions. Referencing the differing areas of fashion and beauty products as well as mobility and traveling, Eriksroed-Burger illustrates how a (rather) superficial kind of self-realization was propagated through consumption. Meanwhile, luxury goods such as cars not only functioned as status symbols and means of enjoyment, but also became symbols of emancipatory ideas. Consequently, these chapters show clearly that we can trace highly different forms of consumerism coined by social difference as well as ethnic diversity from the end of nineteenth century, on which nationalization had a great impact. Thus, the chapters discuss not only the uses of modern consumer goods and advertisements, but also the nationally interpreted and shaped perceptions of “modernity” that emerged through consumption and advertisements (see also Kühschelm et al. 2012: 25–37; Möhring 2009; Scholliers 2001). Yet, these rich and differentiated forms of consumerism were part of attitudes formed by capitalist industrialization and in late imperial multiethnic societal contexts. The emergence of socialist societies, first in the Soviet Union following the 1917 October Revolution and then as a result of the communist hegemony in Eastern Europe after the Second World War, did not suppress consumerism there but predetermined it: consumerism and related advertising emerged in a Soviet style. In line with this, the last two sections are dedicated to consumer and advertising cultures within the Soviet Union and its satellite states: The second section highlights the specific “Soviet Style” of Advertising and Consumption, but also traces its roots and consequences. ¨ Timm Schonfelder outlines the development through the lens of pelt commodification in Leipzig and emphasizes that Nazi politics cut business ties because of the influential role of Jewish pelt merchants. Since furs could not be advertised in socialist societies as luxury goods, the socialization of fur production and trade in the Soviet Union and the

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GDR and the market regulation shows how pelt products were used as trading goods with Western countries in order to acquire valuta. Schönfelder’s case study demonstrates clearly how Soviet ideology shaped the handling of consumption and influenced cultural practices. Other examples of this influence are discussed by Iryna Skubii. Consumption in the interpretation of Bolshevik ideology in the early Soviet Union was primarily based on the fight against the Western style of life and the critics of “bourgeois” consumption culture. Commercial and state advertisements in the 1920 and 1930s were used to advertise goods and locate them within the socialist society. Hence, elite and prestigious goods were ideologized, advertised and consumed according to a particular Soviet variation of consumerism. Elite commodities, such as chocolate and furs, were assessed as anti-communist behavior by early Soviet ideology in the first decade of Soviet rule, but were finally reinterpreted as representations of Soviet modernity, prosperity and abundance by the mid-1930s. Tracing the emergence of the so-called world of Soviet goods along the non-linear path from their rejection to their adoption, and, later, from adoption to appropriation, Skubii uncovers the logic behind the advertisement of elite goods in the early Soviet period and provides explanations as to why the early Soviet cultural “battle” failed. Then, Adelina Stefan explores the tense relationship between socialist ideology, “Soviet style” consumption and the need to sell products, even to Western, ‘bourgeois’ customers and discusses a way to advertise the socialist way of life. Hence, tourism in Romania was promoted through the advertisement of “authentic” food as a main tourist experience as well as an iconic element of socialist Romanian identity. Thus, food is depicted not only as a basis of existence, but as part of a lifestyle representing pleasure and leisure. Since these three case studies discuss the implementation of socialist consumerism and advertising, the third section Transformations in Socialist Consumer Cultures and Advertisements explores the fate of socialist consumerism in the period of late socialism and also highlights the impact of mass media. First, using the example of the Estonian Film and Advertising Bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm, Airi Uuna highlights how the USSR struggled to ensure the provision of high-quality products or simply a steady supply of consumer items for its citizens and how commercial advertising was encouraged by the Soviet authorities under the conditions of planned economies. This chapter highlights the importance of case studies on the Soviet Republics, since Eesti Reklaamfilm ‘assimilated’

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the Soviet lifestyle for Estonians, while also introducing slight modifications. In this way, advertisements became part of Soviet soft power, which was effectively applied in Estonia. This ideologically motivated reinterpretation of consumer goods was not only a signature of early Soviet Union, but also of its last decades in which Western influence increased. Although ideologists considered tobacco smoking a Western habit, smoking was part of Soviet everyday life too. However, the marketing of cigarettes was less intensive than in Western societies. Trish Stark’s outline of smoking in the Soviet world and tobacco advertisements shows that the Soviet regime was unable to suppress the habit among the population, which increased after 1991, largely because of Westernized promotion and product design. The scarcity of consumer goods produced in the Soviet Bloc and the allure of largely unavailable Western products provoked a desire for a similar kind of consumerism. Using the Hungarian consumer market as an example, Annina Gagyjova discusses how the perception of Western consumerism and advertisement together with the less flamboyantly packaged and advertised products of socialist economies woke a desire for Western-style consumerism across the Soviet Bloc. The legacies of this perception could be interpreted as one of the main reasons why many rejected an increasingly unpopular socialist system. However, the case of Hungary with its particular understanding of the socialist good life—very much shaped by the shattering experience of uprising in 1956—created what later became known as “Goulash Communism”. Especially in the 1970s and 1980s, Hungarian consumption culture became very much informed by Western consumerist trends so that the perception of Western consumer goods served as positive reflection foils and woke desires. In comparison with most other socialist countries, Hungary succeeded in providing more colorful and varied consumption possibilities, which were produced by a small stratum of entrepreneurs, while a growing number of citizens was unable to make ends meet. The conspicuous consumption of Western luxury goods by a new economic elite became a signifier for how the state party had distanced itself from the intrinsically socialist values of equality and social security. The three examples explored in this section show how socialist ideology influenced consumption and advertising, but the socialist vision of a good life was not realized in the eyes of the Soviet consumers—it failed, while ‘good life’ was instead associated with Western consumer goods. The legacies of socialist economics grew during the lifetime of the Eastern Bloc and the final “nail in the coffin’ at the end of 1980s was not least due to

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the Republics” striving for independence, but also people’s longing for better consumer conditions. The concluding and summarizing chapter by ¨ Kirsten Bonker gives a short overview of the state of the art regarding the cultural history of consumption in Eastern Europe. Thus, it pays special attention to the political potential of consumption, its significance for political communication and the impact of medialization on consumer cultures and advertising since the late nineteenth century. In particular, it reflects on methodical approaches and concepts based on cultural and new political history that draw on a constructivist and broad concept of consumption. Bönker highlights that we may analyze the consumer as a political actor and explore in what way various actors had the opportunity to (de-)politicize consumption. Consumerism and advertisements were cultural practices representing habitus and self-perception of both, individuals and the society, so that they were it could also instrumentalized and politicized as tools of soft power in order to mobilize the population in favor of the state and nation, in accord with the Roman adage of “bread and games”. The different case studies in particular underline the complexity and heterogeneity of this region and want to reflect differentia specifica within the region and in comparison, with Western European consumption and advertising styles, not least to discuss “socialist modernity”. Tracing consumption since the tail end of the nineteenth century, as well as focusing on Soviet and socialist forms of consumption, Consuming and Advertising aims at historicizing and conceptualizing “consumption” and “advertising” in Eastern Europe by deconstructing still prevalent images (particularly outside academia) of Eastern European and Russian forms of consumerisms and advertisements and through that at inciting more comparative research through the volume’s transnational and crossepochal approach. Doing so, it contributes to a discussion on modernities in Europe: Consumption and Advertising delivers new insights into societal and political transformations as well as into the relations between the societies and states during the twentieth century.

Notes 1. The series Worlds of consumption is edited by Hartmut Berghoff and Jan Logemann and published by Palgrave Macmillan, whereas the series Cultures of consumption based on a programme directed by Frank Trentmann is published by Bloomsbury.

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2. Since Eastern European scholars often publish their studies originally in English or in translation, we quote their publications in English, if possible. We also point to particular bibliographic information on literature in Eastern European languages provided in the chapters.

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Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before World War II

Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan Consumers: Textiles, Social Entrepreneurship, and the Austro-Hungarian Countryside Corinne Geering

In January 1911, the Viennese elite ball season included a novel event. The high society of the Austria-Hungarian Empire gathered in the illustrious concert hall of the Viennese Music Association for a ball promoting rural home industries. It was organized by representatives of the home industry associations from the empire’s crown lands that had been established in the preceding decades to promote textiles “Made in Austria.” Members of the royal family and the nobility attended the ball alongside one hundred dancers dressed in folk costumes representing the different regions of Austria-Hungary (Fig. 1). These dancers were members of the regional urban elites who had dressed up for the event (Neue Freie Presse 1911). The main objective of the national dance groups was to stage the handmade textiles that residents in the respective regions produced and

C. Geering (B) Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_2

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Fig. 1 The Ruthenian group at the Austrian Home Industry Ball in Vienna (1911). Der österreichische Hausindustrieball. Sport & Salon. Illustrirte Zeitschrift für die vornehme Welt 14.6 (1911), 9–11, here 10

that the event organizers sought to promote against the dominant international competition from Italy and France. Therefore, all guests of the ball were asked to include an element produced in the Austro-Hungarian home industries as an adornment of their dress or bring along a handmade accessory like a handkerchief (Neues Wiener Tagblatt 1910: 8). The Hausindustrieball, as the event was called in German, was a culmination point of activities by the nobility and wealthy industrialists that had been promoting handmade products from rural home industries in the preceding decades. Their initiatives combined commercial interests with the charitable idea of halting rural exodus and granting social relief to people experiencing poverty. As part of these efforts, products that were marketed as handmade by peasants emerged as a popular luxury item in late imperial consumer culture. This chapter discusses the international sale of home industry products from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It analyzes the marketing strategies and new consumer practices surrounding these products between the 1880s and the beginning of World War I. Faced with competition from cheaper commodities produced in factories, selling handmade objects from rural home industries required marketing strategies underlining their

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high production value. Therefore, most of the marketing strategies used for selling home industry products branded them as objects handmade by peasants. By drawing on ideas of heritage and tradition, these strategies tied the handmade objects to a particular place, thus constructing a territorial identity of a product and concomitantly of its producers. By the 1910s, the notion of Hausindustrie had become a popular keyword in the Viennese press. It denoted a branch of the national economy referring to labor performed in the artisan’s home rather than factory buildings. The items grouped under this notion resulted from initiatives seeking to revive local skills and bring those traditions together with contemporary trends (Geering 2020: 74–75). The promoters of rural home industries hoped that their efforts would turn “worthless trumpery” into “solid and tastefully crafted products” without a steep increase in prices (Wilsdorf 1913). Through the channels of world’s fairs and other international exhibitions, a trade network was established for exporting the home industry products from the Austro-Hungarian regions to cities in Western Europe as well as across the Atlantic. Permanent shops were established in Vienna, Paris, London, and New York, departing from this transnational network, and special sale exhibitions were put up to raise money for charitable purposes. Studies on textiles have shown how clothing and fabrics reveal the complex relationship between their production and the discourses and practices surrounding gender, culture, and politics in modern history (see Weiner and Schneider 1989). Against this background, textiles have been a prominent topic in the history of consumption as well as the wider fields of social and economic history investigating global trade and the process of industrialization (see, e.g., Riello and Parthasarathi 2011). In particular, gender history focusing on the British Empire has investigated the social and cultural practices around textiles that were often performed by women and related to practices of domesticity (Goggin 2009). In historiographical accounts of Central and Eastern Europe, Rebecca Houze (2015) and Christine Ruane (2009) have presented comprehensive accounts of the fashion development in the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian empires, respectively. The rural home industry has not been the focus of these accounts, although this type of production shared the arenas, networks, and transregional trade routes with textile production in factories. Based on contemporary journalism, advertisement, and other media, this chapter pays particular attention to women as agents who were driving the textile home industry venture as entrepreneurs, producers,

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and consumers. By considering women’s economic role in late imperial society, the following discussion seeks to expand debates on textile crafts that have so far focused on design reform and artistic practice, especially in the context of the Arts and Crafts Movement (Callen 1979; Amos and Binkley 2020; Thomas 2020). In the first part of this chapter, the discussion outlines the appeal of the countryside in luxury consumer culture by tracing it back to the popular representation of rural culture among the elites and the sale of ruralized objects since the eighteenth century. The second part provides insights into the late imperial business model of home industry workshops. In particular, it looks more closely at the female entrepreneurs active in the late nineteenth century. Finally, in the last part, this chapter discusses the media and distribution channels that show how home industry textiles emerged as an integral part of modern consumer practices. Thus, by detailing women’s promotion of products handmade by peasants, this chapter seeks to foreground the role of social entrepreneurship in Eastern European consumer cultures at the turn of the century in the broader European context.

The Countryside and Modern Luxury Consumer Culture Depictions of idyllic landscapes, pastoral sceneries, and peasant life in the countryside have been popular elements in artistic culture and product design for a long time. However, the living conditions in the countryside often stood in stark contrast to such depictions, given famines, natural disasters, illness, and hard labor that shaped the daily lives of rural residents. From the eighteenth century, the romanticization of poverty became more wide-spread across different types of media when educated elites started developing a stronger interest in the life of the common people by projecting a range of modern desires onto it (see Geering 2022b). Media ranging from paintings to product design, illustrated journals, postcards, and photographs contributed to the popular image of the countryside as a place where modern people living in ever-growing cities could find calm and repose (McElwee 2016: 78). Against the background of emerging national movements across Europe in the nineteenth century, romantic intellectuals further contributed to the construction of myths around the people inhabiting the countryside in Central and Eastern Europe. Village culture was perceived as reflecting the authentic traditions of the nation, and thus, the peasants came to represent the

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common people in the sense of folk culture (Hroch 2010). This nationalization of rural culture across Europe was disseminated in various visual media and materialized in the design of clothing, housing, and the built environment. Rural material culture became a popular element in late nineteenth-century entertainment and exhibition culture. It was sold commercially—as photographs, porcelain figurines, or a costume worn at events—in increasing quantities and more and more places domestically and abroad (Geering 2022a). These developments were particularly prominent in states like AustriaHungary, which boasted the diversity of their population in official publications. Visual and material collections such as the 24-volume Kronprinzenwerk (a series published in 1886–1902 and dedicated to Crown Prince Rudolf) featured idealized figures dressed in folk costumes representing the empire’s different nationalities. Here, the countryside served as a rich source of inspiration to artists, writers, and designers who appropriated elements of folk culture in their work (see Moravánszky 2002) to devise a new national style. National economists and design reformers believed a distinct style could compete better in a market saturated with fashion, furniture, and products imported from abroad (see Rampley et al. 2020). For this purpose, in the second half of the nineteenth century, some artists resettled to permanent colonies in the countryside to revive old craft techniques and collect peasant ornaments. Artists established settlements and led workshops informed by traditional techniques in the Austro-Hungarian countryside. Prominent examples were Gödöll˝ o, the place where Empress Elisabeth (1837–1898) spent her summers, or the region of Kalotaszeg/T, ara C˘alatei in Transylvania/Erdély/Siebenbürgen where the artists were wandering around wearing folk costumes (Keserü 1988; Houze 2018). The writer Zsigáné Gyarmathy, née Etelka Hory (1843–1910), emphasized the philanthropic endeavors underlying the promotion of the rural home industry in her ethnographic account on the region of Kalotaszeg. Since women in the village were working in the embroidery workshops, Gyarmathy claimed, neither women with small children at home nor a “crippled small girl” needed to travail any longer outside the home (Gyarmathy 1902: 185). The promoters of the rural home industry regularly convened at the world’s fairs and international and provincial exhibitions in Europe and across the Atlantic, where they contributed to the design of the national pavilions inspired by rural culture. In 1885, Zsigáné Gyarmathy was commissioned to furnish the Kalotaszeg House at the Hungarian

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National Exhibition in Budapest. She collected old specimens of embroidered textiles in the region and displayed them in the cottage, where they attracted the interest of foreign visitors and extended to the imperial royal family. Although the textiles were not intended for sale, the exhibitors conceded with the request of Empress Elisabeth. She received several objects from the Kalotaszeg workshops at her residence in Gödöll˝ o after the exhibition had ended. Further, the empress made an order for the trousseau of her youngest daughter Marie Valerie in the run-up to her wedding in 1890 (Gyarmathy 1902: 186). The royal family staged an exhibition of the trousseau in the Hofburg and sold tickets to the general public. Visitors of this exhibition passed several rooms filled with clothing and household textiles that had been made in the Austro-Hungarian rural provinces (Ulmann 1890: 198). Upon receiving further requests from other members of the nobility following such promotional events, Gyarmathy encouraged the local production of embroidered textiles by paying older women to teach the traditional crafts techniques to the younger generation, including girls of the ages between eight and ten years (Gyarmathy 1902: 185). In view of the popularity of rural embroidery among the nobility, village displays, where visitors could purchase specimens of rural crafts, became a regular element of national and international exhibitions over the next ten years. In 1896, the exhibition village at the Hungarian Millennium Exhibition in Budapest featured a specially reconstructed Pressburg/Bratislava/Pozsony county house that showcased and sold products from the Hungarian home industries, ranging from carpets to curtains, blankets, aprons and straw hats, baskets, and mats. These products were further promoted by life-size mannequins arranged as ceramic producers, weavers, and basket makers (Ulmann 1896: 463). The promotion of rural crafts at fairs and exhibitions wove in tightly into the pomp and splendor of imperial spectacles and celebrations staged by the Austrian emperor and members of the royal family in the decades following the 1848 revolutions (Unowsky 2005). As part of these celebrations, national dress and folk culture became a popular source of entertainment across the empire’s regions and within different social milieux. In different locations, groups of people dressed in folk costumes were recruited as part of the staged celebrations welcoming the emperor on his imperial tours. Along the same lines, the procession organized in Vienna in 1908 to mark the 60-year jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I included several groups wearing national dress that displayed the imperial policy of unity in diversity. The regional elites in the crown lands also

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wore these garments to nationalities balls that they organized in the urban centers of the crown lands from the 1880 and 1890s. During carnival early in the year, nationalities balls equally became a fixed component of the Viennese ball season that attracted those members of society who represented the crown lands politically and economically in the imperial capital. This type of “separatism” in events, as a contemporary article noted, ruled the dance floor not only along ethnic and linguistic lines but also along the lines of religion and class (Aramis 1882: 2). Many of the balls used decoration from the regional rural home industries and collected money for charitable causes such as the support of destitute students or children from families experiencing poverty. However, folk costumes and elements of peasant textiles were not only worn to demonstrate identification with a region, nation, or particular social group. In the early nineteenth century, national costumes were also among the categories of masked attire that people wore during carnival. The large nationalities groups dressed in folk costumes during imperial celebrations and parades inspired ball gowns for ladies who would dress up as peasants from the different crown lands during ball season (Houze 2015: 274). Women’s magazines published images of folk costumes to serve as an inspiration and ensure that the chosen costume met the standards of authenticity expected by the ball organizers (M. St. 1886: 5). When machine-tailored dresses became more readily available in the late nineteenth century, several textile businesses started advertising their services to women from the lower classes as well. Newspapers from the imperial urban centers published advertisements for second-hand or rental costumes representing various nations, including “a genuine Romanian costume” (Neues Wiener Tagblatt 1883) or a “Polish original lady costume” (Neues Wiener Tagblatt 1877). Such dresses were often more imaginary than genuine reflections of what people living in the countryside wore. However, in contrast to the expectation expressed above, the wider society did not appear to attach great importance to the authenticity of the national costume. This indifference is encapsulated in a humorous fictional story titled “Marie goes to the masked ball,” published by a Viennese illustrated newspaper in 1901. In this story, Marie, the cook of a wealthy family, lent a Polish costume from a rental service during ball season. The costume she received was a thrown-together ensemble of a Hungarian jacket and a Styrian skirt, while only the tunic looked Polish. Marie, her employers, and colleagues, who had come to eye the ball attire, were all aware that the costume was not truthful to how people

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dressed in Polish-speaking regions. Notwithstanding, they did not mind and complimented the cook on her look (Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 1901: 1). Stories like this demonstrate the connection between national costumes worn at carnivalesque balls in the city and how people dressed in the countryside was far from evident. Rather, the popularity of national costumes among the urban milieux stood in stark contrast to the consumption of clothing in the countryside undergoing drastic changes. While the costume could be seen being worn by more affluent women at bazaars or by performers on stage in theaters and the opera, this type of rural garment was no longer popular in the rural regions. In an article on folk costumes, the Bohemian teacher and ethnographer Emilie Fryšová (1840–1920) conceded that those visiting the countryside would never encounter such a rich variety of folk costumes as the displays at exhibitions or the collections in museums would have them believe (Fryšová 1900: 125). To the eyes of the people living in the countryside, these objects with a rural flair cherished in the urban centers even had a bizarre effect. This impression was further emphasized by the practice of wearing the costume during carnival season, which shaped the public perception of national costumes as something artificial—much to the displeasure of ethnographic collectors invested in documenting rural traditions (Fryšová 1900: 135). Those garments promoted as rural dress styles stopped being worn in the countryside during a time when the urban elites rediscovered them. Against this background, the revival of crafts traditions involved considerable and intentional efforts from the promoters of rural home industries.

Establishing the Social Business of the Rural Home Industry In many historiographical accounts, the philanthropic endeavors of the home industry and rural crafts initiatives have been overshadowed by artists’ and architects’ debates on design reform and national style (Helland 2007: 1–2). However, in several places across Europe, the revival of rural crafts was not only an artistic project but also was promoted as a means to yield income and sustain local lifestyles in the face of rural exodus, poverty, and increasing quantities of imported consumer goods. In this backdrop, selling home industry products was also understood as an important source of revenue to provide the rural

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population with additional income. The promoters of the rural home industry organized dedicated events that combined economic interest with social relief and folklore entertainment. For example, in March 1894, the Romanian Women’s Club of Bukovina organized a bazaar in Czernowitz/Chernivtsi/Cern˘aut, i to sell products from the rural home industries in the region. This event was dubbed a “charity festival.” It included the staging of theatrical scenes from rural life, a military chapel, and the attraction of a panopticon with wax figurines (Bukowinaer Post 1894: 4). This bazaar became a permanent institution that could be integrated into official itineraries. When the Austrian minister of trade visited the industries of Bukovina in 1909, he visited the home industry bazaar between his stops at a sawmill and a beer brewery. The minister was welcomed by two young women dressed in Romanian and Ruthenian costumes. The head of the Bukovina government presented him with the diplomatic gift of a doll dressed in a folk costume intended for the minister’s grandchild (Bukowinaer Post 1909: 3). Noble women and female members of wealthy families took on a leading role in coordinating the marketing of rural home industry products. This was a transregional endeavor across Europe that connected initiatives from the British Isles with those in the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Romania, the Russian Empire, and beyond (see Taylor 1990). Using the platforms of world’s fairs and international exhibitions, the women promoting the home industries in the respective regions set up a trade network that channeled the export of products to shops in larger cities. One particularly successful entrepreneur in this respect was Archduchess Isabella von Croÿ (1856–1931), who founded the Women’s Association for the Support of Domestic Industry in Pressburg/Bratislava/Pozsony in 1895. She set up around fifteen schools, organized the training of teachers, and in her association, she employed around three hundred women who were living in the Upper Hungarian countryside (Heffernan 2014: 193). Her association achieved international prominence through an embroidered upper garment inspired by traditional peasant techniques that she marketed as the “Isabella Blouse” across Europe and in cities overseas (see Fig. 2). In her marketing strategy, the Archduchess heavily relied on charitable events to promote them to the target group of luxury consumers. For example, in 1907, she donated some of her iconic blouses to a Hungarian home industry bazaar in London that was organized in support of children with disabilities. Several British noblewomen attended and Queen Alexandra purchased

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some of Isabella’s items (Pester Lloyd 1907). The Isabella Blouse exemplified how the rural home industry workshops operated at the intersection of business venture and social enterprise by relying on charity marketing. Women have been strongly involved in the non-profit sector and the creation of social economy organizations in various countries since the nineteenth century. There is a long tradition of charitable work performed by noble women and the wives, daughters, and sisters of wealthy men working in finances and industry. In 1908, a magazine aimed at AustroHungarian housewives published an article titled “Working Princesses” that expressed a general incredulity toward work performed by those who need not work for their financial income (M. G. 1908: 39). The portrayed noble women volunteered to care for the wounded and sick

Fig. 2 Archduchess Isabella von Croÿ wearing an embroidered shirt with her daughters in the Palais Grassalkovich in Pressburg/Bratislava/Pozsony (ca. 1898). Austrian National Library ÖNB/Vienna, Signature Pf 3948:E(3)

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in the events of armed conflict and epidemics, they pursued artistic endeavors as painters and photographers, and they took on the role of entrepreneurs in the rural crafts sector like Archduchess Isabella. Among the various activities, the promotion of rural crafts combined charitable work with artistic ambitions in times of crisis. Research on the needle arts in the Russian and British empires in the nineteenth century has shown how these charitable initiatives drew on the role of women as “moral guardians of society” (Ruane 2009: 49) and perpetuated ideas of female leisure and self-expression (Prochaska 1980: 5). In this context, by the late nineteenth century, several factors had made crafts a suitable arena for women to engage in the rural crafts business. For one, the popularity of handicrafts among the wealthy elites went back to what Talia Schaffer termed “the craft paradigm” (2011: 4), guiding creative work performed in the home. Primarily women were engaged in stitching, embroidering, weaving, and folding various materials ranging from cloth, and straw, to hair. With the emergence of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the mid-nineteenth century, craft techniques were infused with political ideas of fulfilling work, as the individual artisan served as a foil to the alienating labor in mass-producing factories (Krugh 2014). Similar ideas were expressed by education reformers who believed handicrafts would encourage moral behavior in children, thus helping them become good modern citizens (Thorsteinsson and Ólafsson 2014). Although these movements varied in time and scope, the nexus between nurture, diligent work, and moral ideas had all contributed to putting women in the position of crafts entrepreneurs at a time when other industries were generally not accessible to them. The women discussed in this chapter can be described as “social entrepreneurs,” a term coined in the 1980s that refers to entrepreneurs working toward social change. The economic and management literature observes several practices that can be grouped under this notion (Thompson 2002; Swedberg 2007) that share some common characteristics with the home industry workshops in the late imperial period. Social entrepreneurship generally does not achieve a normal market return; in most cases, the revenues cannot cover the expenses. This means that social entrepreneurs require capital—for example, through charitable donation—that is not subject to a normal rate of interest. The creation of social value and the intention for social change are the most important aspects of the business-like organization of social entrepreneurship

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that regards economic value as a by-product of the cause-driven enterprise (Gerlach 2021: 27–28). Historical predecessors have been important references since the first self-identified social entrepreneurs entered the scene in the 1980s. The economics research literature references the cooperative movement and social reformers in the nineteenth century (Casey 2013). Ashoka, a US-based international organization promoting social entrepreneurship, also listed some historical role models on its website, including several women active in social organizations and charitable initiatives (Ashoka 2006). The research literature regularly mentions prominent examples like Florence Nightingale, who established a nursing school, Maria Montessori’s childhood education, or Teresa González de Fanning, who founded the first school for girls in Peru (Gerlach 2021: 55). Along similar lines, the women who were active in producing and selling textiles from home industry workshops in the Austro-Hungarian countryside also combined the interest of profit-making business with a social cause they sought to promote. These female social entrepreneurs regularly presented themselves as noble patronesses of the rural home industries. For example, during the Viennese Fashion Exhibition in 1904, large portraits of Archduchess Isabella and Archduchess Maria Theresia (1862–1933), both promoters of the textile home industry in the AustroHungarian countryside, adorned the walls of the rooms featuring large displays of lace and embroidered textiles (Ulmann 1904). Such handmade products were marketed through references to the poor living conditions of peasants or calls to collect money for regions suffering from famine or natural disasters. The idea of granting social relief to peasants and empowering people experiencing poverty became an inseparable element of the appeal emanating from the handmade products for sale. Against this background, home industry products were frequently purchased as gifts, especially during the Christmas holiday season. The fashionable modern consumer could find pieces at exhibition sales or in permanent studios with which she then emblazed her dress or decorated her home.

Marketing Rural Textiles as Fashion In the early twentieth century, a Viennese newspaper noted that it might appear “slightly illogical” to consider the rural home industry as a part of modern fashion (Neues Wiener Journal 1917). It would be expected that rural dress represented the antithesis of trends and fashionable attire

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given its emphasis on traditions that had been handed down over generations from a long bygone era. However, the research literature has shown that folk costumes and traditional clothing were indeed subjected to trends and how their appearance was adjusted over time (Houze 2015; Ruane 2009). Among the urban elites, there was a desire for an elegant modern version of the folk costume that would withhold the fast pace of international fashion trends. Already in the 1860s, women’s magazines in Bohemia published depictions of dresses featuring folk elements as a counter-pole to French fashion (Kˇrížová 2015: 37). A few decades later, the Bohemian writer Karla Bufková-Wanklová (1855–1941) still advocated the conscious composition of a modern folk costume that would withstand international trends to support economic nationalism. She noted that traditional rural outfits had lasted their foremothers for decades, and reintroducing them would save time and be more comfortable to wear (Bufková-Wanklová 1910: 182). Indeed, some modern garments that have become staples in today’s wardrobes were adapted from the rural dress. The most prominent example is arguably the blouse, an upper garment with a loose fit that had traditionally been worn by peasants and entered the realm of urban elite fashion in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Blouses were deemed practical and comfortable, making them a well-suited garment for leisure activities and sports such as ice-skating or tennis. For these purposes, the textiles produced in the Austro-Hungarian rural home industries like the “Isabella Blouse” were marketed to potential consumers in metropolises in Western Europe. Moreover, the embroidered details made it a fashionable item that distinguished its wearer from other women. In a segment titled “Why One Woman Succeeds and Another Fails,” a British newspaper recommended expressing the female individuality through a clothing item that no other woman possessed— like a blouse embroidered in the style of peasants from Eastern Europe (Sheffield Evening Telegraph 1913). In this context, rather than being limited to the realm of traditions, the notion of “folk art” was also used and promoted in Central Europe by elites as a marketing concept for rural home industry products (Schramm 2004). Sale exhibitions of home industry products were regularly promoted using lectures and the screening of magic lantern images of the regions where they were produced (Sport & Salon 1907). Besides paintings of the noble benefactors, the halls of the Viennese Fashion Exhibition in 1904 also showed a large panorama depicting the sophisticated

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seaside resort of Opatija/Abbazia on the Istrian Peninsula. Correspondingly, the Croatian home industry association showcased their products in a special display alongside the popular embroidered textiles from Isabella’s association and lace specimens from Maria Theresia’s enterprise (Weil 1904: 117). The installation of a panorama for the Viennese Fashion Exhibition shows how references to particular places through visual media were used for advertising and spurring the appeal of the products on display. Therefore, the boundaries between business marketing strategies and the ethnographic practice of visual representation were fleeting, as they often overlapped and complemented each other. Many rural home industry associations were started by the avid collection of textiles and other handmade products from the homes of the local population. However, encounters between collectors and locals bear witness to the fact that the values ascribed to objects could differ greatly. Against this background, one of the first tasks of home industry promoters was to convince the local population to revalorize old techniques they had already discarded and to find teachers with the knowledge of these skills for the new workshops (see, e.g., Bruck-Auffenberg 1913: 71). In view of this discrepancy, the references to the countryside and rural traditions that were expressed in product design did not necessarily mean that peasants and other rural residents had produced the textiles. Rather, the craft entrepreneurs participated alongside other women from wealthy families in producing supposed rural home industry textiles. This can be illustrated by the charitable bazaar sales at doll exhibitions. Here, noble women donated handmade doll dresses that were sold for a charitable purpose, often in support of children experiencing poverty or with disabilities. In 1906, more than one thousand dolls were displayed in the haute-couture parlors of Wiener Mode (Viennese fashion). The doll dresses shared the same sources of inspiration as the popular carnival costumes. The display featured dresses from different historical periods, fairy tale characters, professions, leisure activities, and many dolls were dressed in folk costumes ranging from Bohemia and Styria to Hungary, Bukovina, Hutsulshchina, and several regions outside the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among the dolls, there was also a Slovak girl wearing Hungarian boots and a dress embroidered by the Women’s Association for the Support of Domestic Industry that Archduchess Isabella had donated to promote her workshop (Wiener Salonblatt 1906: 5). Beyond the attendees of these events, the wider public could regularly read about these activities in parlor magazines and the tabloid sections of

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newspapers. These segments also informed the readers of the purchases that the ladies made or what they donated to the charity bazaars. Moreover, during elite ball season, newspapers and magazines included detailed information on the noble women’s outfits for public events. When the high society convened for the Hausindustrieball in Vienna in 1911, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the detailed description of the ball gowns in the press also included information on the provenance of the textiles. The ball guests had been asked to include an element of the Austro-Hungarian home industries in their attire. The women used their bodies like an advertising panel showcasing the textile products. Archduchess Maria Josepha, wore elements of silk embroidery made by the Romanian Women’s Club in Czernowitz. Her assistant had integrated lace from the Moravian home industry in her green dress. The costume of Baroness von Haas-Teichen, who directed the national dance groups, stemmed from Dalmatia, where she presided over a home industry association (Das Vaterland 1911: 7). Such textiles could be purchased in permanent home industry studios run by the associations and department stores in the larger cities. The products sold at exhibitions could also be ordered via mail from the home industry associations or one of their distributors. In many cases, these different outlets for selling the products were part of one marketing strategy developed by the management of the home industry associations. For instance, when the Vienna-based Verein zur Förderung der Spitzen- und Hausindustrie in Dalmatien (Association for the Promotion of Lace and Home Industry in Dalmatia) started sales, one of its first distribution channels was the International Exhibition of Folk Art in Berlin in early 1909. There Archduchess Isabella was responsible for the Austro-Hungarian exhibition group. Shortly before the exhibition, the Dalmatian association organized a preview in one of the presidents’ estates in Vienna of the objects that were going to be sent to Berlin (Das Vaterland 1908: 7). Upon the success of the exhibition, the association opened a permanent studio near the center of Vienna in the same year. The philanthropic underpinnings of such shops bore similarities to the post-World War II “fair trade” movement (see Helland 2014: 125). The handmade objects were promoted as manifestations of the artistic talent of ordinary people, while consumers believed that their purchase helped to sustain a traditional lifestyle threatened by modernization. The textiles from the Austro-Hungarian home industries also became more readily available to urban middle-class consumers. Since these

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women did not frequent the exclusive shops or possess the financial means to participate in charity events, they were targeted as mail-order consumers by women’s magazines. In particular, the magazine Blatt der Hausfrau (Housewife’s gazette), a periodical focusing on the household, fashion, lifestyle, and handicraft in Austria-Hungary between 1890 and 1921, regularly published details on patterns for sewing and embroidery in the style of rural home industry in the magazine’s fashion section. The patterns could be purchased from the home industry workshops and, in some cases, the magazine even received exclusive distribution rights from these associations (Blatt der Hausfrau 1908: 17). The readers could also order the products directly via mail, and the magazine regularly advertised embroidered bags, caps, tablecloths, and other textiles handmade by peasants. Among these objects was a bonnet from Hungary that could be ordered from the sales department of the Isabella Association in Pressburg (Blatt der Hausfrau 1910: 16) and an embroidered blouse produced by the National Women’s Club in Budapest (Fig. 3). The latter also advertised a pattern that could be ironed onto a cloth to serve as a template for creating a do-it-yourself version of the peasant blouse. With this practice, the rural textiles had traveled from the home industry workshops in the countryside, where peasants had stopped wearing them, to the urban home manufactory of the modern housewife.

Conclusion Textiles like the Isabella Blouse reveal how the rural home industry products from the Austro-Hungarian Empire were integrated into modern consumer practices during a time when consumption in the countryside turned away. Whereas the rural population deemed their traditional dress too expensive or impractical and tended more toward modern urbanized clothing, consumers in cities looked to the countryside for fashion inspiration sold as trendy items. The marketing of textiles from rural home industry workshops as “handmade by peasants” in the late imperial period bore similarities to what later would be called ethical branding or fair trade. Facing competition from mass production in factories, the manual stitching, embroidering, and sewing of textiles were time-consuming and cost-intensive. The high price of these products required novel marketing strategies that would promote peasant garments to luxury consumers in metropolises in Europe and across the Atlantic. The promoters of rural home industries mainly relied on charitable events to reach their target

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Fig. 3 Home industry product advertisements from associations based in Hungary, Dalmatia, and Bukovina were published in women’s magazines. Drawings from Blatt der Hausfrau (1909: 16)

group of luxury consumers. They were willing to pay a surplus amount to support the social cause of halting rural exodus and providing income for the rural population experiencing poverty. The discussion in this chapter has highlighted the role of social entrepreneurship in the transnational networks promoting rural home industries in the late imperial period. Business-like associations established home industry workshops in different rural regions of the AustroHungarian Empire in the last decades of the nineteenth century. These enterprises regarded the financial revenues through sales at exhibitions and in permanent shops as a by-product of the social and cultural values they sought to promote in the first instance. Women from noble and wealthy families took an active role in these associations and emerged as crafts entrepreneurs when many other industries were not accessible to them. Needlework and embroidery presented as a particularly apt

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avenue for women’s economic ventures due to the nexus between nurture and domesticity, diligent and delicate work, and the moral ideals associated with crafts executed in the home. The promotion of the rural home industry was then integrated into modern consumer practices that appeared to be detached entirely from the implied ancient rural traditions. By connecting to the romantic appeal of the idyllic countryside, various visual media and exhibitions staged textiles from rural home industries as part of modern entertainment and consumer culture. Based on source material from the contemporary press, advertisements, and women’s writings, this chapter presented several settings in which rural dress was consumed in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This included dolls dressed in folk costumes, mannequins performing traditional crafts, the carefully staged performance of national dance ensembles, detailed descriptions of ball gowns in newspapers, or purchasing a ticket for wandering through the halls filled with the trousseau of the emperor’s daughter. Something that these practices had in common was the conscious staging of rural culture as a commodity that could be consumed in late imperial society. Therefore, products like embroidered shirts provide insights into the social changes unfolding in Europe’s rural regions during advanced industrialization and an increasingly globalizing economy. The AustroHungarian countryside—from Bukovina to Kalotaszeg, Pozsony, and Dalmatia—emerged in this chapter as a place of ancient rural traditions through its connection with the consumption of textiles in larger cities across the empire, the continent, and overseas. The source material shows that contemporaries were often fully aware of the deliberate fabrication and stylization of the rural dress produced in the home industry workshops. Novel marketing strategies attributed these products to a territorial identity that could promote purchases, irrespective of any lack of congruence between the visual appearance of the costume for sale and actual rural customs. The same incongruency also applied in the case of the popular understanding that peasants were the producers of textiles featuring rural designs. Home industry products were branded as handmade by rural artisans and sold to metropolitan consumers in the urban centers. They were promoted as a testimony to the artistic talent of ordinary people that represented ideas of empowerment and regional development. Yet, the marketing of these products across large distances required multiple intermediaries and go-betweens, making it increasingly

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difficult to reconstruct the routes that the objects traveled from the location of production to that of consumption. The activities of the female crafts entrepreneurs in this chapter have revealed that they could even fulfill both functions of producers and consumers simultaneously. Some textiles, though fashioned in ruralized design, were handmade by ladies.

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Swedberg, Richard. 2007. Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taylor, Lou. 1990. Peasant Embroidery: Rural to Urban and East to West Relationships 1860–1914. The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850—The Present 14: 43–51. Thomas, Zoë. 2020. Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Thompson, John L. 2002. The World of the Social Entrepreneur. International Journal of Public Sector Management 15 (5): 412–431. Thorsteinsson, Gisli, and Brynjar Ólafsson. 2014. Otto Salomon in Nääs and His First Icelandic Students in Nordic Sloyd. History of Education 43 (1): 31–49. Ulmann, Regine. 1890. Der Trousseau der Erzherzogin Marie Valerie. Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung 16 (22): 198–199. Ulmann, Regine. 1896. Die Hauptstadt Ungarns und ihre Ausstellung. Das Blatt der Hausfrau 6 (20): 462–463. Ulmann, Regine. 1904. Wiener Ausstellungen. Das Blatt der Hausfrau 14 (33): 822. Unowsky, Daniel L. 2005. The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. Weil, Mathilde. 1904. Die III. Wiener Modeausstellung. Wiener HausfrauenZeitung 30 (12): 116–117. Weiner, Annette B., and Jane Schneider, eds. 1989. Cloth and Human Experience. Washington, London: Smithsonian Institution Press. [Wiener Salonblatt ]. 1906. High-life: Im Heim Der Puppenfee. Wiener Salonblatt 37 (48): 5–7. Wilsdorf, Lo. 1913. Oesterreichische Moden. Reichspost, April 7: 8.

German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire as a Reflection of Consumer Policies, Culture, and Communication Lilija Wedel

The focus on German and Russian-German advertising is primarily related to the unique position and economic contribution of German and Russian-German entrepreneurship in the Russian Empire (see research on the topic, e.g., by Dahlmann and Scheide 1998, Gavlin 1999, Anan’ich 2010, Kappeler 1994, Dönnighaus 2002, Kabuzan, 1984, and Auch 2001) compared that of other nationalities. The sheer quantity of such advertising alone is clear evidence of the mentioned contribution. German-speaking print media was first and foremost a social, cultural, and trade policy tool, and, to some extent, a political medium of the German people, who had become part of a large diaspora in the Russian Empire since early modern times. This large-scale migration came about partly due to the 1762 manifesto of the Russian Empress Catherine II (1762–1796), who invited Germans to settle in the new Russian territories in the context of a policy to expand the Empire. Migrants

L. Wedel (B) Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, Philosophie und Theologie, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_3

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arrived in waves over the century, building ethnic communities (while preserving their own cultural and religious traditions) in the Empire’s cities as well as in the countryside, gaining the status of German colonists (peasants/farmers) (Dietz 2005, and Koch 1977). Both the press and multilingual advertising of this Russian-German diaspora in the media of the late Russian Empire contributed to the reconstruction of the consumer policies, as well as modernization processes and cultural transfers, and it should also be regarded as an important instrument in the context of the German-speaking and German-Russian communications and cooperation networks in the East, as well as crossborder networks. Advertising in the Russian Empire has been investigated for the last three decades, in particular by experts in media studies, economics, and art history (Kiselev 1990; Kelly 1998; West 2011; Brune-Berns 1995). Regarding the late industrial Russian Empire after the reform period of the 1860s, the cultural and historical perspectives on advertising beyond its economic content and artistic forms were hardly considered, and particularly focused on the twentieth century (Peter 1998; Althanns 2009; Lindner 2006, Kirchner 1896). However, these perspectives and their approaches are particularly relevant to the aforementioned analysis of the consumer policy and communicative processes (Grieß, Ilgen, and Schindelbeck 1995), especially against the background of the characteristic tension between the center and the periphery in the multiethnic and multilingual Russian Empire and within the context of an interregional comparison. Because of the vastness of the Russian Empire and the multiethnic character of its population and industrial enterprises, it seems pertinent to discuss different consumer cultures, and hence different target groups of advertising, for instance, Germans living in the Russian Empire. The reforms of the 1860s fostered slow but steady industrialization, particularly in the European parts of the Empire, which continued for about four and half decades. This became a period of emerging consumer cultures and advertising forms, closely intertwined with industrialization across the whole of Europe, which saw major developments in the various forms of press, for example, publications focusing on different ethnic groups, women, art, as well as within the advertising sector. One quite specific and rapid development was experienced by the German-speaking press as well as the German industrial production of consumer goods in the Russian Empire. The World War I brought these processes to a sudden

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end. After that time, German goods and German-language press could no longer be distributed in the Russian Empire. In terms of advertising forms and formats, we have to distinguish between textual (press advertisements, advertisements in calendars, flyers), visual-textual (affiche, posters, postcards, packaging), and objects (for example, decorated shop windows, figureheads, etc.). Not least due to the pandemic situation in the last two years with regard to the access to relevant archives in Russia, the focus in my chapter is on press advertising, especially since this type of source was the main format of the advertisements in the period under investigation. Methodologically, I have opted, on the one hand, for a comparative analysis, i.e., comparing advertising in the selected locations and analyzing how it relates to local lifestyles and mentalities. A further discussion could consider to what extent the mobility of people and the circulation of goods, ideas, and cultural practices had an impact on living conditions in the Empire. On the other hand, I have used advertising as a prism through which to view and reconstruct financial and economic business and intercultural relationships in the realm and beyond its borders (Sartor 2005, Heller, and Petrov 2005).

Consumer Policy It is evident that consumer policy became more dependent on advertising from the 1870s onward, set against the background of growing industrialization and the expansion efforts of entrepreneurs. As in Western Europe, modern commercial advertising developed in Russia in the coming decades (Borscheid 1995). The nature of advertising changed from what it had been in pre-industrial times, becoming geared toward competitiveness, new formats, and greater profit. There was also a transformation from a purely economic function to an esthetic and enlightening function. The choice and design of the respective form of advertising depended on economic capacities, target groups, and ideas of the client as well as on the creativity of the advertising experts and artists. As the Russian author N. Pliskij explained in his work “Reklama. Eja znachenie, proishozhdenie i istorija. Primery reklamirovanija” (“Advertising. Its Meaning, Origin, and History. Examples of Advertising”) of 1894, the client and the designer had an idea of who would buy which goods (Pliskij 1894). Considering the messages of the advertising beyond the possibility and necessity of participating in medical, technical and scientific progress

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in the era of industrialization, it is clear that profit was in the foreground of the advertising message, beyond its socializing (West 2009), economic, cultural, or gender-specific (Bernold 1997; Haupt 1997) character. In the remote corners of the Empire, such as in Transcaucasia, advertising suggested, both directly and indirectly, a mental and external integration into the capital city’s consumer culture through the acquisition of certain goods already known and consumed in the centers (e. g. fashionable clothing, hygiene cosmetics, photographic equipment, and gramophones). According to Schindelbeck’s definition, these were presented and received as “security products because they were always available in the same quality at the same price at almost any location” (Schindelbeck 2003: 9). In the interregional context, similarities and differences can be determined on the basis of advertising with regard to corporate consumer policy and the articulated needs and concerns of potential consumers in the selected locations. We find advertisements with a range of motives, including serious and naive, funny and refined, simple and original slogans, and representations (Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4).1 At first glance, we see market-oriented advertising techniques, namely the names of the producers, trademarks, slogans, and indications of origin. The producers and sellers wanted to emphasize the attractiveness of the

Fig. 1 “Lokomobili Genrich Lanc, Mangeim” (“Locomobiles Heinrich Lanz, Mannheim”). In Saratovskii Listok. No 45. 25.02.1910

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Fig. 2 “Dekadentskie Z-duchi fabriki T-va R. Keler i Ko v Moskve” (“Decadent Z-perfume of the Fabric R. Koehler & Co in Moscow”). In Golos Moskvy. No 223. 30.09.1909

products. The inclusion of geographical origin indicated quality based on associations with various nationalities (Kühschlem, Eder and Siegrist 2014), which can also be recognized as a modern marketing strategy. The “Saksonskii sukonnyj magazine” (“Saxon fabric shop”) in Tiflis (Kavkaz (Tiflis). No 36. 24.03.1874: 4.), the “Berliner Laden” (“Berlin shop”) in the Alexander Passage in Moscow, the “cleanest and cheapest restaurant” “Germanija” (“Germany”) in Tiflis (Kaukasische Post (Tiflis). No 21. 22.5.1911: 4; a. No 25. 13.01.1910: 4, 16; 18.01.1914: 17), and numerous other texts and illustrations of the German and RussianGerman entrepreneurs and companies advertised German products and traditions as a sign of high quality. At the same time, it can be concluded that the Russian-German entrepreneurs did not rarely choose ethnic or

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Fig. 3 Color lithograph “V pitanii sila. Kakao Žorzh Borman” (“In the Sustenance is a Power. Cacao Georg Borman”). Unknown Author. St. Petersburg 1904, 47*77 cm. russianposter.ru

historical and cultural connections in their marketing strategies.2 In the Russian Empire, the double-headed eagle taken from the Russian coat of arms and the seal of the suppliers were valid for the imperial court. Trademarks and awards ensured a recognition effect, which was fueled by admiration for innovation and, last but not least, ensured the trust of potential consumers. However, the interests of business and society cannot always be integrated to the same extent on the basis of advertising. The aforementioned articulation of potential consumers, for example in press articles expressing criticism or praise toward the consumer policy or certain advertising products (e.g., Kaukasische Post (Tiflis). No 21. 22.5.1911: 4; No 25. 13.01.1910: 4, 16; 18.01.1914: 17) as verifying sources, partly answer the question of the interests, more specifically the question of potential conflicts of interest. In terms of consumption preferences (buying and consumption practices), we should differentiate between local (including ethnic, cultural, and religious specifics), social, and gender-specific dimensions. For example, from Teuteberg’s thesis about the differentiation of markets and the revitalization of regional cuisine (food/eating culture) at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century (quoted

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Fig. 4 “Rojali i Pianino Ja. Bekker i Br. Diderichs. Kavkazskoe central’noe Glavnoe Depo muzykal’nych instrumentov, B. M. Mirimanian. Tiflis” (“Grand Pianos Ja. Becker & Br. Diederichs. The Caucasian Central Warehouse of Musical Instruments. B. M. Miriminian. Tiflis”). In Kavkaz (Tiflislak). No 28. 30.01.1905

in Kühschelm, Eder, and Siegrist 2014: 52), we find in the Russian Empire for the same period a symbiosis of the food practices through the adoption of foreign tastes and preferences. The advertising of German goods and services in the food sector (Spisok 1912) speaks for the spread of national brands. With regard to the Russian-Germans, this meant, to a certain degree, the promotion of identity-creating symbols, such as in advertisements for beer, gingerbread, sausages, canned meat, and vegetables, as well as for German home-style cooking in German restaurants or pubs (Odessaer Zeitung. No 150. 5(18)0.07.1911). It is significant that advertising for beer was associated with “exemplary cuisine”, like the advertisement of the “D. Šmidt ” (“D. Schmidt holder”) in Saratov promised (Saratovskii Vestnik. No 70. 28.03.1910: 6). The statistics on the food industry and evidence of table culture in the interregional comparison suggest that, from the last third of the nineteenth century

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on, a range of foods from the most varied (quasi-national) cultures was being consumed in affluent circles (especially by members of the nobility, entrepreneurs, and higher military and civil servants). Advertisements for food, medicines, and hygiene products carried additional messages regarding the safeguarding of health. A number of the texts under investigation promoted the beneficial effects of healthy eating on body and spirit.3 Advertising from the field of medicine and hygiene promoted more than just the product itself. As a companion and mediator of developments in the medical field, advertisements proclaimed promises of a healthy life or at least an improvement to health and relief in phases of physical and mental exertion (Morissay 2010: 645–46). Similarly, the advertising in other sectors such as gastronomy, fashion, and technology, in addition to economic value, transferred to the consumers a certain intellectual, cultural, and social identity. The central message was that the given products and services could change one’s lifestyle, living conditions and, by this logic, even social status (Sal’nikova 2002: 132–33).4 The entrepreneurial understanding of contemporary worries and demands, for example, can be understood through advertising in the fields of health, nutrition, and hygiene. Entrepreneurs knew about common health-related concerns, which numerous medical advertisements illustrated (Russkoe slovo. i.a. No 75. 2(15)0.04.1910: 8, No 210. 12(25)0.09.1910: 5) and which were articulated in the press throughout the Empire (critically: Saratovskii listok. No 125. 9.06.1911: 3). The range of their promotional products indicates that health, hygiene, and beauty were important issues in the industrial age. In the Russian Empire, the spread of medical and pharmaceutical advances and their end products can be traced back to the period after the late 1890s (Tarasova 2017: 148–153). Advertisements for pharmaceutical and medical products also pointed to instructions for use and educational books. In this regard, detailed advertisements are similar to those of the food industry. Potential consumers were informed about the composition of substances and nutritional values of an advertised product (Saratovskii listok. No 40. 18.02.1912: 4). Goods such as bandages of all kinds, for example the “R. Strol ” waist band for women during pregnancy and after childbirth (Saratovskii listok. No 40. 18.02.1912: 4), artificial legs and arms, gymnastic equipment from the factory that produced surgical instruments and bandages “L. Klug ” in Odessa (Christlicher Familienkalender 1892: 125, ibid. 1905: 172), or artificial teeth at the dentist Otto Heine in Tiflis (Moskovskii listok. No 171. 21.06.1899: 4, and Kaukasische Post. No

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11. 26.08.1907: 16, Kavkaz. No 93. 13.08.1875:4), both directly and indirectly promised the hope of a fulfilled and able life. In the era of industrialization, the speed and challenges of which also had negative effects on people’s health, such promises were made with a certain perceived optimism. The advertising also demonstrated a growing concern for children’s health. The advertising strategists relied on the propaganda of natural products; in their visualizations, they connected the child and being a child with the beauty of nature, as in the depiction of a child with butterfly wings in the advertisement of the fish fat product by “R. Keler i Ko” (“R. Koehler & Co”) in Moscow (Saratovskii listok. No 3. 5.1.1911: 4). The mentioned texts proclaimed new trends not only in the food industry itself, but also in a way of life that could be optimized through healthy nutrition. Undoubtedly, these trends and messages would be impossible without medical knowledge–economic analyses, symposia, and specialist media, especially since the entrepreneurs and industrialists in the field of food were aware of the limits of marketing artificial or chemically produced food (e.g., for the German Empire: Spiekermann 2018). Certain population groups in the Russian Empire, in my case the RussianGerman colonists and the indigenous Transcaucasian (especially Muslim) population, remained–with minimal exceptions–true to traditional food cultures. The entrepreneurs and their advertising agents took this into account in their marketing strategies (Kulisher 1915: 6–8, 11). ˙ For example, the famous Chocolate factory “Ejnem”, established by a Russian-German Prussian national Ferdinand Theodor von Einem ˙ (russ. Fedor Karlovich Ejnem; 1826–1876) in Moscow in 1850 (from 1870 in cooperation with Württemberg national Julius Heuß, Ul’janova 2014: 220–236), demonstrated an understanding of the religious and cultural customs in the Empire by featuring in its Easter advertising a farming couple wearing traditional festive farmer’s clothes presenting Russian specialties such as the Easter cake kulich and dessert pascha (in literal translation “Easter”) (Russkoe slovo. No 83. 11.04.1910: 1, and West 2011: 194–95). Such visual instrumentalization represented a new marketing strategy of the company via new target groups and an expanded product range. In this sense, we can speak about the emergence of a cosmopolitan corporate culture (Saratovskii listok. No 81. 10.04.1910: 6).

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Consumer Culture Advertisements can therefore be viewed as a mirror of the consumer culture. This term (“consumer culture”) has to be studied from two perspectives. On the one hand, it refers to the understanding of entrepreneurs, advertising agencies, trading houses, and state actors with regard to the sense and necessity of the distribution of certain information and products. The production and distribution of these were not only determined by entrepreneurial circles, but they were also informed by the society as a whole, and reflected the interests, demands, and expressed needs of the customers. On the other hand, “consumer culture” refers to the way in which the society dealt with the promoted and distributed information and products. Considering the individual gender-specific offers, preferences, and practices referring to fashion and cosmetics, the following could be stated: Fashion advertisements show and register the intensive marketing of French and German production and the great admiration of urban women across the Empire for French fashion as well as Viennese and Berlin fashions (Teatral’nyj kur’er. No 4. 21.12.1913: 4. Odesskia Novosti. No 2282. 14.05.1892:1). Contemporary media prove that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, not only rich women strived to follow fashion trends, but also women with limited financial capacities; it is a kind of art to design a new piece of fashion from an obsolete dress with few resources, but at the same time, the current styles were so simple that an alteration could be made without the help of a seamstress–one would only need to have taste (Teatral’nyj kur’er. No 4. 21.12.1913: 4). At the same time, it was also criticized that, in the era of mass consumption, many women bought things they did not really need (Malen’kie Odesskie Vechernie Novosti. No 9. 27.11.1913: 3. Tjeffi [1910/1912], 458–46). The overpowering effect of offers and especially “sales”, mostly seasonal or on the occasion of store closures, led to distractions, increasing thoughts, and feelings whereby the sellers were excessively inspired and husbands demonstrated powerlessness. Here it this important to note that sellers manipulated clients through direct advertising, particularly for imported goods, and could sell even an ugly thing by presenting it as “new” and “original” (idem: 458–461). In the mental and physical communication with goods, the most consumers left a decisive action, thus the purchase, to the sellers and shop assistants. It is obvious that the latter were regarded as specialists. The customers relied on their market

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knowledge and subject skills, and not least on their experience in the world of fashion. Indeed, a vast range of promotional items and products “overcomes” the consumer by promising to make life more beautiful, elegant, healthy, luxurious, and easier than before. In advertisements related to beauty or cosmetic products and lingerie, the most important message was to adhere to contemporary ideals and innovations in the Empire (West 2011: 164–65). This message was aimed at both genders, but with different intensity and connotation. Women were practically asked to present an ideal appearance if they did not want to lose social recognition (Tjeffi 1910/12: 392). This becomes apparent when we look at the range of advertising targeting females. The message was more complicated than that presented to men. Particularly, items such as corsets, exquisite stockings and gloves, and fine veils suggested social superiority (Miller 2010: 77, 85, 87, 93–95). At the same time, the advertising demonstrates general female role assignation from the perspective of a male-dominated society. There are advertisements in Central Russian and Transcaucasian cities for washing machines (hand operated) and kitchen utensils that speak especially to women as a target group (Maxwell 2009).5 At the beginning of the twentieth century, we also find the new gender-specific trends with individual emancipatory messages directed to women, for example, cigarette advertisements “especially for women” or car advertisements in which women are present (Russkoe slovo. No 124. 1910: 1). We hardly find such advertising in Transcaucasia as there were very few advertising goods from the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals sector specifically aimed at female target groups. In contrast, advertisements for drugs were explicitly printed for the male audience there, for example, remedies against neurasthenia, which represented a danger especially for men with premature nerve weakness (Kaukasische Post No 5 20.7. (2.8.) 1908: 1, Odessaer Zeitung. No 142. 24.06.1911: 4). The range of goods from the areas of health, hygiene, and cosmetics was presented in Transcaucasia in more general advertisements. Such advertising, which also features articles for women (Kaukasische Post (Tiflis). No 28. 1.01.1908: 16; No 11. 26.08.1907: 16), indicated that female beauty and physicality were not a public issue in the Caucasian region, which stands in contrast to the women-oriented advertising concepts in the Russian capitals (West 2011: 151, 170–172, 176–177). The preoccupation with female health was a media topic there. The Transcaucasian advertising for female target groups focuses on the imported nature of goods, their status character, and usefulness.6

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Similarly, male concerns can be identified from certain social groups and in the context of certain events (for example, business trips). It is an obvious concern for one’s own appearance that underlies the already quoted advertising text of the Leipzig shop “Mei und Edlich” about the linen-like collars, which are especially useful for the military and travelers (Juzhnoe obozrenie (Odessa). 13.12.1903: 8). Indeed, both solo travelers of military rank and also traveling employees, i.e., men from socially middle-class circles with modest financial circumstances (for example, representatives of the lower nobility and civil servants, administrators of small businesses and shops, press correspondents, provincial teachers, and doctors) purchased cheap clothes, which often had to be changed. Such goods made people look neat and saved additional maintenance costs. The German and Russian-German businessmen in the Russian Empire were heavily involved in the spread of Parisian and Viennese fashions as well as cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and technological innovations, mainly imported from Germany from the 1890s on. The advertising of German and Russian-German companies, businesses, and dealers catches the eye; it testifies to a pragmatic instinct in the context of increasingly competitive markets, and to the enterprising spirit that the Russian media lacked within Russian entrepreneurship. Sometimes the criticism of Russian industry and its supply power came from Russian industrial circles themselves. In 1912, for example, the chairman of a Russian stock exchange company G. A. Krestovnikov (1855–1918) spoke to the finance minister V. N. Kokovcev (1853–1943) about the fact that the basic needs of the population were mainly covered by imported goods (Saratovskii listok. No 74. 4.05.1912: 3) and the Russian economist I. M. Kulisher (Kulisher 1915: 1–3) showed in his detailed analysis of German exports in 1915 that German production had long been the export winner, which in turn caused great concern to British, French, and Belgian economists at the end of the nineteenth century and even perceived turmoil (idem: 1–3). Kulisher referred, among other things, to the book by the Englishman E. E. Williams, “Made in Germany” from 1896. Russian-German advertising media not only demonstrates an interest in global trade and thus in higher profits, but above all honed strategic marketing skills. We find useful information in their advertisements besides the description of the product, for example, addresses, telephone numbers (from the 1890s), references to delivery services, free catalogs, and, not uncommonly, instructions for use (in the case of technical or medicinal products), unlike other foreign companies. As Kulisher astutely

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remarked, the Germans “looked after” and “worried” about their potential consumers in contrast to the English or French; the analysis (carried out by traveling agents and branch offices, for example) of the needs and taste preferences of the consumers in different locations was “the nicest thing in the bouquet of the German commercial talents” (idem: 9–10). Those particularities enabled not only optimal profit in the context of corporate consumer policy, but also gave consumers the feeling of having been well informed and well prepared with regard to the intellectual, cultural, and religious specifics and lifestyles of the population groups in different regions. The above-mentioned instructions for use in the advertising of technical goods also speak in favor of the German manufacturers and store owners, who understood the necessity of providing information on how to handle these goods (Corn 2010: 51–76). The inclusion of this information shows an interest in the concerns of the consumers (for example, farmers, housewives, house helpers, amateur laypeople in technical associations). The consumption practices varied not only according to regional and ethnic conditions, but also social, financial-economic, and age-specific factors, as well as according to the season and individual anniversaries (for example, before the holidays), as demonstrated by numerous advertisements before Christmas or Easter (Odesskij listok. No 74. 1.04.1910: 6). Meanwhile, for financially weaker groups, especially workers’ families, the question of cost played a crucial role in the intention of purchasing promotional products. From the 1870s and again in the early 1910s, reports in the press show that housing and food prices represented a major social concern. The dynamic between price increases and consumer demand often also had a political and/or an economic character. At the end of the 1870s, this was connected to the Russian-Turkish war (Kavkaz (Tiflis). No 259. 18.12.1877: 2). According to the newspaper “Kavkaz”, reasonable prices returned to the cities of the region right after the retreat of the military (Malen’kie Odesskie Vechernie Novosti. No 4. 22.11.1913: 3. No 5. 23.11.1913: 2. No 6. 24.11.1913: 1. Cf. Russkoe slovo. No 86. 15.04.1910: 2). In 1910 and 1913, there was public outrage that prices were massively unjust considering, for example, the average monthly income of 10–15 Rubel for a shop assistant, who had to use that money to buy clothes and food and to pay for a flat (Malen’kie Odesskie Vechernie Novosti. No 4. 22.11.1913: 3. No 5. 23.11.1913: 2. No 6. 24.11.1913: 1). The situation appeared even more critical in areas

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where a lower public official earned about 25 Rubel a month. Just as the German bookseller Otto Gahren, who was imprisoned for several months in the Russian provinces in 1914, testified, this amount of money could hardly be enough to meet the needs of a family (NLA WO: 276 N, No 24). The technical innovations and manufactured goods of the industrial age, be it fine tobacco products or technological services such as longdistance telephone calls (Odesskia Novosti. No 5882. 8.02.1903: 2), were not available to all social groups.7 The Russian press expressed the general opinion that the increase in living costs was a disease of all cities in Russia and complaints could be heard everywhere. From the “Saratovskii listok” (“The Saratov daily”) (1911): [...] the purchasing power of the population is growing at an accelerated pace, but in parallel to the rise in prices [...] / As far as Saratov is concerned, the symptomatic signs of general impoverishment are so palpable that it is not necessary to list all the facts: the apartments are expensive (there is no real comfort), the consumer goods are becoming more expensive, the citizen saves on himself and his children, searches, walks around, but that does not help ... [...]. While the interests of entrepreneurs and industrialists are protected in a variety of ways (lobbying, syndicates, tariffs) by the government and legal norms, the interests of consumers remain unprotected. [...]. (Saratovskii listok, Juli 30: 2).

For this reason, around 1910 many consumers embraced the credit system with a certain relief. Numerous advertising texts in an interregional comparison show the willingness of German and Russian-German producers and sellers to be accommodating by allowing individual goods to be paid for in installments, for example, musical instruments, technology, and clothing (Odesskii listok. No 74. 1.04.1910: 6. Kaukasische Post. No 37. 25.02.1907: 16. Moskovskii listok. No 236. 25.08.1899: 5). Was it pragmatic marketing psychology alone that played a decisive role here? We can assume so. However, it is also conceivable that entrepreneurs and their representatives understood the different financial capacities of the various consumer groups. In this context, the entrepreneurial desire for the dissemination of individual cultural values and practices should also be located within the “unsophisticated” population groups.

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Communications and Effects on Lifestyle via Advertising The examined advertising practices make it immediately clear that the entrepreneurs were in contact with Russian-German businesspeople, marketing agents, and press operators when they were conceiving their marketing strategies. At least, it is through advertising that the presence of Russian-German and Reich-German-Russian-German communication networks within the overall Russian context becomes visible. These sources, which were a result of international and interethnic cooperation and alliances, demonstrate a mutual trust in common, profitable business. With regard to Russian-German entrepreneurship, the advertising prism also makes it clear that the German minorities in the Empire can be understood as intermediaries, mediators, and lobbyists for German goods, cultural assets and interests in the public eye, and that quite a few of them (including publishers) also understood themselves as such. The advertising in the Empire’s German-language press under investigation here also allows statements to be made about the cosmopolitan orientation of German and Russian-German entrepreneurs and businesspeople. In the German-speaking media, for example, you can find advertisements for Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian manufacturers, entrepreneurs, bars, artists, authors, teachers, and doctors, sometimes also in Russian. This cosmopolitan orientation was purely economic, that is, of a pragmatic nature, and, can specifically be interpreted in the case of the Germans from Russia as a desire for intercultural contacts in their new homeland. Russian-Germans, in particular, acted as mediators between Russian and German economic and financial groups (Heller 1999: 59–63). The expansion and maintenance of Russian-German communication networks at the national level played just as important a role on the agenda of the German-speaking press (Kaukasische Post. No 7. 29.07.1907: 11). Advertising was used for this as well. Intensive advertising campaigns promoted subscriptions to the German-language press, literature, and journalism. Similarly, we see evidence of cross-border, quasi-ethnic media and communication networks (Auch 2001: 109), which were used to advertise products and services in the (former) German homeland, for example, German bookstores, hotels and health resorts, German shipping companies, courses at technical universities in Germany, etc. (Kaukasische Post. No 35. 22.02.1909: 13, No 15.

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10.04.1911: 19. Odessaer Zeitung. No 145. 28.06.1911: 4, No 144. 26.06.1911: 3. Vsja Odessa 1906: 22). In this way, advertising also promoted knowledge and people transfers. The fact that Russian-German entrepreneurs and media actively cultivated connections to “the homeland”, the reputation of the German cultural spirit and the German achievements played a significant role in the publication and distribution of the above-mentioned advertisements. In the “Odessaer Zeitung ” (“Odessa newspaper”) of 1911, we read the following formulation in the advertisements for the “Splendid Hotel” in Berlin: “The preferred hotel of better German families from Russia.” (Odessaer Zeitung. No 139. 21.06.1911: 4, No 150. 5.07.1911: 3.) At the same time, advertisements in the Russian-German press printed in both the Russian and German languages, for example, about the forthcoming musical evenings at the local German Association (Kavkaz. No 1. 1.01.1871: 4),8 or the advert about the sale of German literature in a shop in Tiflis (Kaukasische Post. No 3. 2.07.1906: 16), in turn fostered communication networks with ethnic affiliation. These networks were promoted as open societies, which are presented on some advertisements in the areas of commerce and services (for example, gastronomy, art, and medicine) (Kavkaz. No 101. 30.08.1871: 4). With regard to the above-mentioned corporate cosmopolitism of the Germans in Russia, besides its commercial purpose, we can also see it as a deliberate move to establish contact between different ethnic groups in the Empire. Furthermore, German advertising did shape the way of life in the Russian Empire through the promotion and distribution of industrial and foreign products (among others, technological innovations, fashion, music instruments, books, furnishings, and foodstuffs). The question of the effect of advertising on local everyday cultures and mentalities, for example in Transcaucasia, produces interesting insights. One might expect that, given the significant barriers faced by the region (including geophysical inaccessibility, climatic conditions, interethnic competition ˇ 2008: 61–62), and the significant distance from Russian (Cernova-Deke cities), there would be limited infrastructures (transport networks, a variety of shops, businesses, bars) during the period under investigation. However, the press and advertising, which, from 1910 onwards, accounted for up to 50 percent of the content in some local newspapers, show that the central Transcaucasian cities such as Tbilisi and Baku were very active and had a wide range of consumer goods. Tbilisi was perceived visually, intellectually, and culturally as a “double face of Asian

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traditions, oriental flair and European progress” (Berzenov and Bakradze 1870: 241–242). The local press reported that European fashions, which were pursued across the Empire, also found recognition in Tiflis (and a little later in Baku). In the first decade and at the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, advertising promoted a wide range of goods from agricultural technology, garden and household appliances, bicycles, cars, car parts, and diesel engines to food, cosmetics, tobacco, paper goods, ready-made clothing, and shoes. There were also advertisements for hand-crafted products (textiles, shoes, furniture) and various commercial goods (gourmet foods, musical instruments, toys, drugstore / hygiene articles, typewriters, office goods, textiles, lamps “in all feasible currents and voltages”). Well before 1900, representatives in Tbilisi and Baku were already promoting a comprehensive range of goods including most of the technology and entertainment goods (for example, musical instruments and toys), drugstore articles (medicines, cosmetics), and home accessories (Kaukasische Post. No 17. 7.10.1907: 1, 15; No 35. 22.02.1909: 14. No 30. 7.1.1907: 16; No 33. 28.01.1907: 16; No 37. 25.2.1907: 16). In the 1870s, for example, the newspaper Kavkaz provided information about the large selection of foreign toys and various haberdashery goods in the German store K. Wejze (Weise), “extremely suitable as gifts for the upcoming holidays”, about the Christmas tree decorations in the bakery and confectionery Robert Alex, and the toys in the magazine E. Meier (Kavkaz. No 1. 2.01.1870: 2; also No 283. 16.12.1878: 4). On the one hand, these and similar goods contributed to the transfer of European entertainment and festival culture and to the integration of new traditions, while on the other hand, they promoted new formats for self-education. German advertising also played a role in the Transcaucasian media as a gastronomic guide (Kavkaz. No 348. 28.12.1880: 4). Increasing diversity of food and beverages at the end of the nineteenth century led to a change in consumption and nutrition practices in some major cities such as Tiflis and Odessa (Spravochnik 1899: 80, 94). The local populations developed new taste preferences, for example for beer, which had previously been consumed almost exclusively by the Germans (Plesskaja-Zebol ‘d 1999: 144). The advertising of alcohol in the Transcaucasian local press shows a mixed drinking culture both within the Russian-German (Kaukasische Post. No 23. 5.06.1911: 13) and the indigenous non-Muslim urban population. However, the living conditions of the local population differed in many ways–especially ethnic and religious affiliation in the region played a role

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in shaping consumption practices–and not all participated in the technical innovations, or purchased fashion and luxury goods. In 1870, the newspaper “Kavkaz” (“Caucasus”) reported on the difficult life of the Georgian farmers who, unlike the Caucasus Germans, did not have the necessary technical equipment for their agricultural needs. Three decades later, the “Kaukasische Post ” (“Caucasian Post”) discussed restricted consumption among most of the indigenous Muslim population (Kaukasische Post. No 24. 30.11.1908: 3). Furthermore, contemporaries believed that the locals were only externally influenced by the cultural transfers of the time, while their lifestyle, world perception, and gender-specific attitudes remained traditional (Berzenov and Bakradze 1870: Chapter VI). Certainly, the technological progress in the region had driven a wide range of modernization initiatives, but the processes of mobilization and modernization took place differently within different ethnic and denominational groups and only to a limited extent within certain social groups (Auch 2001: 36, 41, 101). Exceptions were the wealthy and educated representatives of the local nobility, entrepreneurs, and civil servants. Outside of these circles and contexts, traditional attitudes and taste preferences dominated in Transcaucasia (Vladykin 1885: 144). The importance of advertising in the Volga region in turn, specifically with regards to the life of the Russian-German colonists in the Saratov Government before 1900, had a rather modest dimension, especially since commercial advertising on the Volga “was still in its infancy” (Peter 1998: 500, also 521; Archangel’skaya 2009: 26). The predominantly agricultural interests and the farming traditions of the Volga Germans (German and Pleve 2002: 26) shaped the consumer mentality. There was constant demand, especially for agricultural technology and textile goods, while hardly any for luxury food, household goods, or intellectual or cultural items such as musical instruments and books. It was only when consumer associations with their credit systems were established at the beginning of the twentieth century that new profit horizons and productive sales practices (for example, direct sales of agricultural technology to the villagers) opened up and began to arouse interest in the new advertised goods among the local immigrant population (Odessaer Zeitung. No 230. 11.10.1911: 2–3) Russian-German entrepreneurs played an important role in the economic, infrastructural, and architectural development of the Volga center Saratov, not least thanks to the flourishing RussianGerman flour production and textile industry (German and Pleve 2002:

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26). German production in Saratov was typically represented by the Russian-German provisional agencies. Advertising played a key role in the establishment of communication and business networks. The cited source demonstrates the understanding of the German businesspeople regarding the use of advertising as a crossborder medium for the development of new partners and commercial networks (Saratovskii listok. No 97. 4.5.1911: 4). “Nemeckaja ulica” (“The German street”) in Saratoy with its shops, bakeries, pastry shops, beauty salons, and tailor’s shops was considered the most beautiful street in the city (German and Pleve 2002: 26– 27). Russian-German companies, factories, shops, and restaurants offered goods and services in the areas of nutrition, medicine and cosmetics, household and agricultural technology, entertainment, and hobbies (cinematography, books, musical instruments, and gifts). Goods from the Chocolate factory “Brat’ja Miller” (“Brothers Miller”), mustard products, and Lebkuchen from the German colony Sarepta were in high demand across the entire Volga region (Parochodnoe 1914: 4). The investigated sources enable us to conclude that female consumption in the colonies (as well as in the Volga region and in the Caucasus) was not limited to the purchase of household goods and necessary groceries, although these–as the range of goods on the pages of the local press indirectly suggests (Peter 1998: 521)—were featured on the front pages. The “cultural-historical studies” of the theologian, pastor, and author Jokob Stach (1865–1944), who was born in the Ekaterinoslav governorate, testify to this. Among other things, he pointed to the low use of complicated technology in professional domestic and farm work performed by women. This suggests that either the agricultural or household innovations that most of the advertising in regional and local magazines focused on were not used for reasons of cost, including within the affluent rural population, or because of a lack of knowledge regarding the application of relevant technology, as well as women’s fear of possible technical defects and breakdowns. The technical understanding of this group of consumers was therefore lacking, whether for cost reasons or a lack of technical affinity. We can say that city dwellers also had no special technical understanding for the most part. Still, the colonist’s wife was a good housekeeper. Advertising could also have played a part in the high levels of household organization and rationalization. For example, price information in the local papers made it possible to prepare and manage a family budget. At the same time, Stach criticizes the lack of measures to

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increase and safeguard the physical well-being of women (Stach 2009: 99–100). He is just as critical of the level of education provided for females in the German colonies. This criticism in turn leads to the conclusion that there was very little uptake among local women of the medical and cosmetic “discoveries” promoted in the numerous advertisements during the investigation period, and shows that few heeded the advertisements in the regional and local media about bookstores, including those in the German colonies, or purchased the book, magazines and magazine subscriptions, which were supposed to arouse a general need and interest in reading. Advertised offers of language and music lessons were also hardly ever taken up by local women. Meanwhile, women were able to use the numerous regional, national, and foreign promotional offers (including agricultural goods, household goods, food and luxury goods, drugstore and pharmaceutical products, textiles, shoes, books and stationery, musical instruments, furniture, and toys) from the local newspapers, such as the aforementioned “Clemens ”, “Christlicher Familienkalender” (“Christian family calendar”) or the “Odessaer Zeitung ” (“Odessa newspaper”)–in which the colonists would have a lively interest (idem: 109), or through word of mouth. After all, they could see and purchase new goods in the district towns, at fairs or on a visit to the government center. Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the “Kaukasische Post ” (“Caucasian Post”) complained about the inadequate reading skills of most Caucasian German colonists (Kaukasische Post. No 7. 29.07.1907: 13). Stach also testifies to the cultural and intellectual differences between the German colonists and townspeople in southern Russia: “[…] the interests of the German community in the big city and those of the settlers in the villages have diverged, and the connection has become loose and a certain alienation has occurred, which has not always made it easy for the “Odessa newspaper”, among others, to serve both at the same time in the desired way.” (Kaukasische Post. No 7. 29.07.1907: 13). Another sociocultural characteristic can be identified in connection with the aforementioned dependence of rural women on fashion clothing. The simplicity and frugality in the fashion psychology of those women stood in contrast to the sophistication and love of details of city dwellers. Against the background of their rhythm of life, which was conditioned by the numerous household and farm works, rural women had much less time for the acquisition and use of beautiful items of clothing.

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Conclusion The successive establishment of a consumer and knowledge society in the Russian Empire as well as the socioeconomic and political transformations of those years moved advertising to the center of various developments. In the late Empire, advertising developed beyond its purely economic function to become a motor of urbanization, industrialization, and modernization in such sectors as the economy, production technology, engineering, culture, and medicine. Furthermore, in the era of industrialization, advertising became a vehicle of the modern orientation toward consumerism as a social practice. It also powered the partial westernization of remote regions such as Transcaucasia. German and Russian-German producers and businesspeople played a significant part in this. The investigated print advertisements from this period document especially well the success of these groups in developing markets and in terms of their business superiority in comparison, for example, to the British, Belgian, or French firms and trade agents–not least because, at the Empire level, the more detailed and creative advertising of the Germans and Russian-Germans become an optimal medium for crossborder business and intercultural communication. Advertisements thus demonstrated corporate cosmopolitism as well as a quasi-national pride in their own products. Furthermore, the established appreciation of German and Russian-German advertising reveals a new understanding and complexity of sociocultural identities, as well as their ethnic, intellectual, and gender-specific characteristics in the late Russian Empire.

Notes 1. See Fig. 1. Locomobiles „Genrich Lanc, Mangeim“ („Heinrich Lanz, Mannheim“) Saratovskii Listok. No 45. 25.02.1910: 6 (serious); Fig. 2. „Decadent Z-perfume“, Fabric of cooperative „R. Keler i Ko“ („R. Koehler & Co“) Golos Moskvy. No 223. 30.09.1909, S. 6 (original); Fig. 3. Color lithograph „V pitanii sila. Kakao Žorž Borman“ (“In the sustenance is a Power. Cacao Georg Borman”). Unknown Author. St. Petersburg 1904, 47 * 77 cm. russianposter.ru (naïve); Fig. 4. “Rojali i Pianino Ja. Bekker i Br. Diderichs. Kavkazskoe central’noe Glavnoe Depo muzykal’nych instrumentov, B. M. Mirimanian. Tiflis” (“Grand Pianos Ja. Becker & Br. Diederichs. The Caucasian Central Warehouse of Musical Instruments. B. M. Miriminian. Tiflis”). Kavkaz (Tiflis). No 28. 30.01.1905: 4.

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2. See e.g. the color lithograph of the poster „Novaja Bavarija“. Akcionernoe obšˇcestvo pivo- i medovarennogo zavoda, St. Peterburg (“New Bavaria”. Corporation of Brewery, St.-Petersburg). 1903. 75*48 cm. Author I. Ja. Bilibin. Russian National Library, Moscow Sign. IZO P0 No 7/26. https://search.rsl.ru/ru/record/01009942339 or print advertise˙ ment „Kuliˇci i Paschi […]” T-vo Ejnem (“Easter cakes and curd”. Corporation Einem) „Golos Moskvy“. No 78. 3.04.1908: 1. http://elib. shpl.ru/ru/nodes/63576-78-3-apr (of relevance and interest here is the symbiosis of East European (including Russian) and West European traditional Easter foods and symbols, for example, the Easter Bunny. For more on the Easter cake in Russian traditions and history see, among others, Forma dlja prigotovlenija paschi. Collection Culture of the Russian People. The Russian Museum of Ethnography, St.-Petersburg. https://collection. ethnomuseum.ru/entity/OBJECT/682116?query=pacxa&index=2. 3. E.g. Color lithograph „V pitanii sila. Kakao Žorž Borman“. 4. See e.g. poster of “Odesskij Pivovarennyj zavod F. Enni i Ko.” (“Odessa Brewery F. Enni & Co”) Staraja Odessa. Torgovlja i promyšlennost. Iz kollekcii A. A. Drozdovskogo. Odessa 2009: 121 (the advert features a smartly dressed lady in an elegant room with a newspaper as a symbol of intelligence and interest consuming a beer from a fine glass). 5. See e.g. color lithograph „Rojali i pianino K. M. Šreder” (“Grand Pianos ˙ Puchinger. St. Petersburg K. M. Schröder”). St. Peterburg, Nevskij 52. E. 1900 [o. A.]. 133*93 cm. www.russianposter.ru, and the advert of the washing machine “Ideal” Odessaer Zeitung. No 189. 18.08.1908: 6 and “Dishwashing liquid” change to English speech marks. Russkoe slovo. No 294, 21.12.1910: 12. 6. For instance, the tailor shop E. Wintsch in Tiflis promoted ladies’ and childrens’ clothing based on Viennese fashion. Kaukasische Post (Tiflis). No 17. 8.10.1906: 16. Cf. shops with French fashion. Ibid. No 18. 15.10.1906: 16. See also Kavkaz. No 232. 15.10.1878: 4. 7. E.g. in 1903, a telephone connection between Odessa and Kischinau cost 1 Rubel. 8. The first German Association in Baku was founded in 1911 (Kaukasische Post. No 5. 30.1.1911: 10).

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Tarasova, Irina. 2017. K voprosu o sostojanii i razvitii mediciny i veterenarii v Rossijskoj imperii v konce XIX – nachale XX v. Evrazijskoe nauchnoe ob‘edinenie. 4: 148–153. West, Sally. 2009. Smokescreens: Tobacco Manufacturers’ Projections of Class and Gender in Late Imperial Russian Advertising. In Tobacco in Russian History and Culture. From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, ed. Matthew Romaniello, and Tricia Starks, 102–119. New York/London. West, Sally. 2011. I Shop in Moscow. Advertising and the Creation of Consumer Culture in Late Tsarist Russia. DeKalb.

The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a Consumer: The Case of the Women’s Magazine Eva (1928–1938) Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger

A modern woman does not want to be just a fragile toy in the eyes of men – she wants to be equal to them. That is why she loves sports and, above all, motorcycling. – That is why JAWA 175 ccm for 4.650 CZK and with electrical light became so popular among women. (Eva V/14, 15/05/1933: 1) You enter into a marriage for life. However, do not forget that in addition to joy, a lot of work and responsibilities await you. Therefore, to facilitate the housekeeper’s tasks, your equipment must include a reliable and modern sewing machine that sews back and forth, wraps, sews buttons, sews handles, sews lace, etc. It is the Minerva M18 – sewing machine of the future. (Eva VIII/8, 15/02/1935: 1)

The text of both advertisements could be universal in their times, revealing the New Woman as a consumer in all facets: doing sports,

M. Eriksroed-Burger (B) University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_4

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even motorcycling, which has always been interpreted as a rather masculine hobby, while also fulfilling her housekeeping tasks through modern household equipment. Addressing different “needs of women” and based on complex imaginations of womanhood, they follow a specific esthetic: The first advertisement (Fig. 1) is kept very clean and simple, directing the view on the silhouette of a woman’s profile with a fashionable short haircut and a small drawing of a motorcycle. Moreover, the headline “Modern woman” in clear bold letters attracts attention. Hence, not the product itself, but a certain way of life is the focus of the advertising, while the second advertisement (Fig. 2) is designed as a lush collage showing a lady with a wedding dress, veil and bridal bouquet. The photography of the advertised product, a sewing machine, is placed next to her against the background with a diagonally placed headline “For life”. Moreover, both ads published on the first page of the women’s magazine Eva are advertising quite expensive, luxury equipment making modern life liveable and targeting the self-conscious women in the First Czechoslovak Republic. To put it sharply, they address the urban, well-suited “new” women and not those living in the countryside, considered more backward. Hence, the chapter sheds light on the different layers of the imagined and mediated roles of these upper middle-class modern women as consumers in the First Czechoslovak Republic using the example of the women’s magazine Eva. The New Woman had developed from fin-de-siècle feminism at the end of the nineteenth century to become an important player not only in the First Czechoslovak Republic, but all over the world (e.g. Patterson 2008; Roberts 2002; Sykora 1993; Weinbaum et al. 2008). Extensive scholarship on the different versions of the New Woman conceptualized as flapper, girl or garçonne has revealed her significance as a transnational and global phenomenon in modernity (Felski 1995), as she became the “embodiment of cultural, social and technical progress” (Reinsch 2013: 31). Hence, through the rise of mass media and the development of modern technology during this time, the New Woman and her strong representation in visual culture as photographies and movies (Conor 2004; Otto & Rocco 2011) or the popular press (Marks 1990) has been discussed. In line with the stated significance of the modern mass media, women’s magazines form a valuable source for uncovering the discourses about womanhood and the various conceptions of femininity in the respective socio-historical framework (Huebner 2011: 232). For example, with

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Fig. 1 Advertisement JAWA motorcycle in Eva V/14 (15/05/1933): p. 1

her study on nineteenth-century women’s periodicals, Margaret Beetham (1996) has − for the first time from a historical point of view – convincingly discussed the various ways of negotiating meanings within the magazines. However, especially the interwar period as a “new era of

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Fig. 2 Advertisement Minerva sewing machine in Eva VIII/8 (15/02/1935): p. 1

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mass publishing in women’s magazines” (Hackney 2010: 20) has received growing attention from different disciplines. Representing the imaginations of dreams, expectations, social norms and possibilities of and for women, informing about certain living (and class) standards, expectations on the physical appearance of women as well as specific behavioral codes, these magazines have been crucial sources (e.g. Marks 1990; Hackney 2010; Ritchie et al. 2016; Stanley 2004). From the multifaceted selfimages and external images, “the image of the woman-as-consumer” (Felski 1995: 88) has been particularly negotiated, making her a “central figure in the history of gender and consumption” (Roberts 2002: 843; Peiss 1998). However, as Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough (1996) have shown with their influential collection The Sex of Things of studies on the historical construction of gender roles and the role of consumption from the mid-eighteenth to the twentieth century, the female consumer is neither solely related to modernity nor driven by individual consumer desires. More than that, the commercialized type of the New Woman, while sharing global commonalities as well as taking on country-specific characteristics, was not a Western phenomenon as studies on the interconnection between consumption, modernity and globalization of the modern girl (Weinbaum et al. 2008) as well as gendered consumer cultures in the early Soviet Union (Goldschweer 2013; Hetherington 2015; Randall 2004; Reid 2002) have shown. Whereas a (Western) feminist perspective called attention to a rather pejorative connotation of female consumers, characterized as emotional, passive and susceptible, or to put it straight: “buying machines” (Felski 1995: 62) and “victims of the ideology of consumerism” (Felski 1995: 63), the relationship between consumerism and the modern woman has been ambivalent (Weil Davis 2000; Wilson 2003). For example, within the state campaign for kul’turnost’1 in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, women played a crucial role to “civilize and modernize the masses” as they were imagined to have a “more cultivated sensibility than men” (Randall 2004: 73). Thus, the role of gendered consumption has been negotiated between a variety of dichotomies such as backward vs. cultured, public vs. private, production vs. consumption, freedom vs. new social constraints, or agents vs. objects (Goldschweer 2013: 181–182). So far, the interwar Czechoslovak women’s magazines have received rather little attention from a consumption-oriented point of view: Karla Huebner discussed, for example, the representations of the New Woman in various Czechoslovak magazines using a comparative approach (2011,

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2016), while Blanka Mongu (2010) has focused especially on the discourse on America with her comparative study of Czechoslovak and German women’s magazines. With her comprehensive study resulting in an exhibition on the visual representation of women in the First Czechoslovak Republic, Martina Pachmanová (2021) most recently made a valuable contribution to the research on women’s magazines.2 Especially the women’s magazine Eva, discussed in detail below, with its elitist editorial board and contributors, diverse content and elaborate visual design forms a treasure chest for examining the societal life, the contemporary debates and visual culture as well as the expectations, imaginations and cultural norms of the First Czechoslovak Republic.3 Following a holistic approach as suggested by Penny Tinkler (2016: 25–39), this chapter combines the methodologies of art and cultural studies, media studies and women’s history in order to examine the various roles of the Czechoslovak New Woman as consumer as it has been framed in the women’s magazine Eva between 1928 and 1938. Initially working around the magazine (Tinkler 2016: 25), the contextual analysis provides insight into the broader sociocultural and political contexts of the First Czechoslovak Republic as well as information on the magazine itself. Further working with the magazine, the content and textual analysis of consumer-related ads and texts as well as the imagery will reveal the “textual, visual, material and phonic contexts” (Tinkler 2016: 37) within the magazine in order to trace the “threads of themes, reflect on impressions and attend to the interplay of ‘voices’” (Tinkler 2016: 37). Since women’s magazines are full of different types of content showing a variety and even contradiction of meanings, they should be conceptualized as “complex, fluid, hybrid, inter-discursive spaces” (Hackney 2010: 15) in which “meanings are contested and made” (Beetham 1996: 5) resulting in a “product of negotiation” (Tinkler 2016: 26). Hence, the advertisements in these magazines both reflect and shape an imagined reality, which is based on social norms as well as expectations and provides a lens to examine popular cultural attitudes. The chapter opens up by laying out the sociocultural framework conditions of women in the new independent First Czechoslovak Republic before examing the history of the analyzed women’s magazine Eva. Following, the chapter illuminates the representations and layers of the image of the Czechoslovak New Woman as consumer as represented in the magazine. Drawing on the advertisements and consumer-related textual and visual content, it highlights the relationships between the New

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Woman and consumption, with a special focus on fashion and beauty as well as mobility and traveling. In the end, the conclusion will show how complex New Women’s roles as consumers were between active agents and objects, between national and cosmopolitan aspirations, and between emancipation and being a “flat media toy” (Pachmanová 2021: 474).

The Situation of (the New) Women in the First Czechoslovak Republic The First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938) was a new vibrant state that had formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and maintained close (not only political) relations with the US, UK and France (Huebner 2011: 231).4 The republic was later ascribed the reputation of a Golden Age in particular because of numerous social reforms and the comparatively early achievements in relation to women’s rights, e.g. introduction of women’s suffrage and a reform of divorce law in 1919. Access to higher education and expanded professional fields enabled women striving for independence to control their own lives in a wide variety of areas. Thus, during this time, feminists succeeded in achieving important goals and in strengthening the participation of women in public life, not least thanks to the strong support of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937) (Neudorfl 1990: 258–282). The country’s economic prosperity spurred women’s striving for economic independence and equal opportunities.5 Hence, Western feminists “ever” described the young republic in contemporary periodicals as the “paradise of the modern woman” (La Revue française de Prague 1929: 410). In fact, feminist ideas had been widely accepted in the Bohemian countries since the middle of the nineteenth century, not least because of their close ties with the Czech national movement (David 1991: 26–45; Maleˇcková 2016: 46–59). It is therefore hardly surprising that the Czechoslovak New Woman of the 1920s encountered little resistance compared to her fellow campaigner in Germany or France (Huebner 2016: 66), and that her image was interpreted through the lens of the (young Czechoslovak) nation (Garver 1985: 65). Furthermore, the constitution of the new state provided for equality before the law – regardless of gender, race or ethnicity (Feinberg 2002: 553).6 Nonetheless, the reality of many women looked different, as traditional ideas of womanhood remained firmly anchored in society, meaning that the rights of the nation and the family had priority (Feinberg 2006) – or

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as Karla Huebner (2016: 67) put it straight: “a woman was female first, a citizen second.” That is why there were different versions of feminist ideas that either wanted to strengthen the role of women as mother and housewife or, on the other hand, according to today’s understanding pleaded for equality.7 In particular, the global economic crisis at the beginning of the 1930s brought a slump in the freedoms gained and an upswing in traditional notions of domesticity. Against this background, the image of the interwar Czechoslovak New Woman, according to Teresa Balkenende (2004: 135), developed as a “product of American and European feminist traditions” as much “as of new scientific hygiene and eugenic discourses”. In addition, she was conceptualized as “educated, independent and confident” and at the same time “manifestly Czech”, in the sense that she saw the way into the future “away from imperial […] and toward national as well as personal selfdetermination” (Balkenende 2004: 135). Moreover, her high visibility and crucial role in the visual media made her an embodiment of cultural progress of the cultivated young democracy (Pachmanová 2021: 459). The advertising industry quickly learned to link the products with the (required) political and social freedoms of the New Women as well as to address them with their various roles (Marchand 1986: 186): “from the business modernism of the efficient home manager to the personal modernity afforded by leisure time and outside activities, then to the fashion modernism of the decorative object, and finally back to the hearth as home-beautifier and anchor against the winds of modern distractions.” Hence, companies recognized this potential early on in order to target women as consumers,8 since according to estimates, women made at least 80 percent off all consumer purchases (Tichnor 2006: 5). In this process, women’s magazines in particular developed into an interface between the individual and the rest of the world – between the private, domestic and the public sphere (Hackney 2010: 12).

The women’s Magazine Eva and the New Womanhood New technological possibilities led to a rapid development of the media landscape at the beginning of the twentieth century, whereas the printing press (still) took on a leading role in cultural life of the newly independent Czechoslovak state (Bednaˇrík, Jirák and Köpplová 2011): In addition to daily newspapers such as the popular Prager Tagblatt or Lidové noviny,

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various target-group-specific magazines with differing journalistic quality emerged. After women’s magazines had begun to develop in the last third of the nineteenth century, the range of women-specific offers in Prague gradually expanded to about 14 Prague-based magazines in the 1920s covering a huge variety of religious, political, class and content orientations – and hence covering various models of femininity (Bednaˇrík, Jirák and Köpplová 2011: 167). This included early feminist magazines such as Ženský Svˇet (1896–1938) as well as religious magazines (e.g. the catholic ˇ Ceská žena) and magazines published by political parties (e.g. Komunistka) (Garver 1985: 75–76; Suk 2011: 49–70), covering a diversity of functions ranging from mere entertainment to forums of information and discussion as well as education. The women’s and societal magazine Eva 9 was published from November 15, 1928 every 14 days on the 1st and 15th of the month by Melantrich publishing house, one of the big players in the market (Sylvester 2007: 550–554). The initial subtitle Magazine of the modern woman was replaced 1932 by Magazin of the educated woman (until 1943), indicating the editors’ aspiration in terms of sophistication and civilization of its target group. However, considering the elite editorial board consisting of many popular intellectuals in interwar Prague such as writer Staša Jílovská (1898–1955), actress and writer Olga Scheinpflugová (1902–1968), fashion designer Hana Podolská (1880–1972), artist František Muzika (1900–1974), artist Toyen (1902–1980) or painter František Tichý (1896–1961), that might not be surprising (Mastná 2011: 20). Its elitist claim is also reflected in the small number of copies as well as in its comparatively high costs. More precisely, the circulation was only about 17,000 copies compared to a circulation of up to half a million of the rather unsophisticated magazine Hvˇezda cˇeskoslovenských paní a dívek and a copy initially cost 4 Czech crowns for 28 to 40 pages, whereby the price was reduced to 3 Czech crowns from the second year of publication (1929–1930) due to the economic crisis. While mainly printed in black and white, selected pages had up to four colours leading to a comparatively higher priced magazine, if you consider that the aforementioned Hvˇezda magazine cost under 1 Czech crowns i.e. only 90 Heller (Bednaˇrík, Jirák and Köpplová 2011: 161–167). Thus, as a feminist and socially conscious medium aimed at the modern, rational and fashion-loving woman of the upper middle class with financial opportunities, it also pursued a correspondingly higher

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quality standard. The content orientation of the magazine included primarily topics such as fashion, art and culture (reviews, sequel novels), living (decoration) and health and fitness (sport, dance, nutrition) in order to form a “woman’s guide to art, literature and all the other beauties of this strange world” (Eva XI/1 1936) as the editors state. Family and housekeeping, as well as political issues (e.g. birth control; with the exception of women’s rights), were rarely addressed. Although many of the topics seem traditionally conservative by today’s standards, the magazine gave “strong support for basic feminist goals” (Huebner 2011: 238) compared to other periodicals and followed the Zeitgeist topics. Of particular interest were, for example, the achievements of women outside the domestic sphere, for which a separate section was set up on the working life of women and regular reports on unusual professions or (sporting, artistic, intellectual) achievements of women were made.10 Moreover, the visual design of the magazine played a crucial role, which featured numerous illustrations and photographs: a mix of international photos of French, British or American models, of exotic travel pictures or local artists and celebrities. As Huebner (2016: 72) noted, Eva represented in these visual images “the modern Czech woman as shorthaired, active and young – a rational and thrifty but well-dressed and fun-loving working woman.” In this context, it is important to keep in mind that while the editorial part was led by women (e.g. initially by Jarmila Nováková), the responsibility for the visual part was always held by men (e.g. initially by František Tichý) (Mástná 2011: 20). Therefore, the New Womanhood as imagined and represented – from men and women – in Eva should offer its readers an opportunity for identification or at least desire. Aimed primarily at these (younger) women of the upper middle class with ample time and money for conspicuous consumption, for devotion to their hobbies and (little) concern for the family or household, the financially potent Eva readers embodied an interesting target group for companies.

The Various Facets of Gendered Consumerism in Eva The consumer behavior of the New Woman related to all areas of life, as can be determined from the advertisements and editorial articles in the women’s magazine Eva, what will be further discussed in the following section. However, consumer-oriented magazines like Eva did not just function as advertising platforms, but presented themselves as consumer

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guides, as suggested by the catchphrase: “When buying, refer to EVA and you will be well served.” (Eva II/1, 01/11/1929: 29). Hence, the magazine promised its readers guidance and advice on consumer decisions in the sense of a trusted friend or a personal confidante (Marchand 1986: 13). However, the ways in which women were addressed as consumers were very diverse and differed regarding, for example, position, style and design of advertising. Basically, the obvious advertising pages included the first and last two to three pages of the magazine. In terms of size and artistic design, the ads varied greatly from simple texts advertising individuals (e.g. doctors) to full-page, lavishly designed and colored advertisements, for expensive and luxurious products such as cars or perfumes. Of course, the global economic crisis made itself felt, with the quantity, form and style of the advertisements changing from around November 1930: Overall, fewer and simpler designs (often in black and white) with fewer images were used, with a return to previous forms of advertising from 1932.11 Like the editorial segments of the magazine, the printed advertisements also followed a specific annual cycle that was roughly based on the seasons (e.g. ball season, summer and winter holidays). Striking, if not surprising, is the absolute and relative increase in advertising pages shortly before the commercialized holidays, such as Christmas or Easter. During these periods, up to a third of the magazine was dedicated to mere advertising.12 On these occasions in particular, consumption-specific contributions were included in the editorial section as well, for example in the form of a window-shopping Christmas walk through Prague (Eva VIII/4, 15/12/1935: 2). With titles such as “Santa Claus is shopping — functionally and tastefully this year” (Eva X/23, 15/12/1938: 30), supposedly necessary products were handily presented with names and addresses of the respective shops. However, more subtle forms of advertising in the sense of product placement or embedded marketing can also be found in the photographs and contributions. For example, a full-page photo of a little girl hanging up laundry also, incidentally, shows a Lux soap bar (Eva I/13, 15/05/1929: 1). Overall, the fashion and interior sections of the magazine stimulated consumption by informing readers about the constantly changing trends and encouraging them to keep their lifestyle up to date (Gronow 2009: 129–130). Thus, the consumption-related topics in the editorial articles corresponded with the advertisements at the beginning or at the end of the magazine, while individual advertising pages in the middle

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of the editorial section were the exception. Furthermore, the image as a consumer guide is supported by a magazine’s survey examining the readers’ interests and needs in relation to advertising and advertising strategies, in the sense of a modern market analysis (Eva II/9, 01/03/1930: 28). However, as there are several calls to advertise in the women’s magazine combined with the numerous own advertisements of Melantrich publishing house in the early 1930s, the temporary decline in advertisements due to the economic crisis must have led to financial challenges, since ad contracts – typical for such magazines – secured a large part of its funding (Mastná 2011: 18). Having a closer look at the advertisements in the November 1, 1929 issue of the women’s magazine, they reveal, for example: what to read (Anna Karenina by Tolstoi, published from Melantrich), why to buy a gramophone, where to buy which dresses, coats, fabrics, hats and accessories (e.g. Busch, Engelmüller) and which automobile combines tradition and quality (Auto Praga); how to prevent health problems with pills, food supplements (Sana) and aromatic tinctures (Alpa) or even which sanatoriums and which doctors are recommended; and how to stay hygienic with soaps (Otto) and detergents (Schichtal ), and where to get your hair cut (J. Klaus ) as well as where to get furnishings such as Persian carpets and chandeliers (Jan Müller). Ranging from (assumed) life necessities concerning health and hygiene as well as home and living, up to sophisticated leisure time activities as well as entertainment, mobility and luxuries, they offer a glimpse of the multi-layered image of the civilized New Woman represented in the women’s magazine Eva. Five different, though not always distinct, areas of consumption with different weighting in the women’s magazine Eva illustrate the role(s) of the New Woman as a consumer13 : 1. “What adorns a beautiful woman”: Fashion & Beauty 2. “Housewives must take care to restore their strength”: Sport, Health & Hygiene 3. “We are modernizing our household”: Living, Household & Interieur 4. “Woman, motorize!”: Mobility & Travelling 5. “The joys of the modern human”: Entertainment & Pleasure

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These areas differ by the level of gender-stereotypical connotations and are subject to general developments in consumer societies and contemporary discourses (Haupt 1997).14 For example, the modernization of the household was taken up in keeping with the spirit of the times, as editorial articles on modern American kitchens or advertisements for high-tech household items show (Heßler 2001):15 This included multifunctional devices for cleaning the floor to irons and refrigerators. Most of the products came from well-known foreign brands such as Neff or Philipps, but the local Praga group is also represented, indicating that women should bring their household up to date and follow international developments such as in the US.16 Especially the openness toward American culture is striking, where American is becoming the epitome of modern, namely in the sense of progressiveness (Mongu 2010: 11). Indeed, the strong Czech-American relations rooting back to the nineteenth century manifested themselves through examples as the so-called American Ladies Club. Co-founded by Vojtˇech Náprstek (1826–1894) in 1865 after his return from America, the club is seen as the beginning of a Czech women’s movement.17 Overall, the advertisements for household-related products took up a comparatively small amount of space in Eva, unless specifically aimed at these brand new technical products.18 Moreover, ads such as the above quoted sewing machine advertisement addressing the traditional image of the housewife, keep appearing in smaller formats. In general, the sewing machine was considered a permanent fixture in these households of the aspiring middle class as proven by the numerous sewing patterns and advertisements for handicrafts magazines. Hence, inspired by the latest fashion trends even less financially equipped readers should participate in the luxurious fashion world through tailoring at home. However, even if many Eva readers probably did not have to take care of their own household, they were responsible for the cosines and comfortable ambience of the private home. Editorial contributions on furnishing issues, exemplary room designs and decorative objects were an integral part of the magazine. Of course, these contributions were often linked to advertisements, from tableware and lamps to tables and flower arrangements. Paradoxically, the private sphere as a historically grown domain of women was again associated with the new freedoms (Hackney 2010: 81–83): Speaking with contemporary advertisements, women should create their own realm through arranging their own separate room at home “as a manifestation of granted freedom” (Eva III/9, 01/03/1931: 1).

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However, as women have already formed an integral part of public life, the magazine presented a variety of options for the New Woman, striving for entertainment and indulgence in pleasure in her spare time, such as visiting a ball, having a coffee party with friends in a café or visiting an exhibition. Particular attention has been drawn to sport, promoting leisure time activities such as gymnastics or dance lessons, hiking in the mountains or swimming with friends on the weekend (Pachmanová 2021: 403–407), whereby appropriate clothing and equipment had to be purchased.19 In the following, the consumer areas “Fashion & Beauty” and “Mobility & Traveling” are examined as examples in order to get a deeper insight into the consumer behavior of the Czechoslovak New Woman.

“What Adorns a Beautiful Woman”: Fashion & Beauty Suggesting a distinctive luxury life, the full-page advertisement of Bat’a, one of the world’s leading shoe manufacturers from Czechoslovakia at the time (Doleshal 2022), combines the advertised product, an elegant women’s shoe with a high heel, with two small bottles of perfume, a pearl necklace, a simple two-tone lampshade with a pleated structure and the headline: “What adorns a beautiful woman.” (Eva II/6, 15/01/1930: 28). Fashion played a particularly important role in the editorial section of the women’s magazine Eva, suggesting to readers a degree of significance for their lives. Moreover, it became a way of self-representation, a display of social standing and an expression of one’s own personality and current mood – all concerns that are still being propagated (Delgado 2010: 55–89). Hence, the fashion-conscious woman of the First Czechoslovak Republic as imagined in the magazine was excited about charming dresses, original jewelry, assorted shoes and admirationenhancing accessories, whereby the paradigm of change and transience made the previous appear old-fashioned and obsolete (Gronow 2009: 130). In each issue, several pages presented current fashion trends and future taboos in order to spare attentive readers from any faux pas. These reports from international fashion shows were followed by large-format fashion illustrations20 and, later, fashion photographs, which were mostly international, i.e. of French or English (more rarely American) provenance (Huebner 2011: 232–233),21 in line with the focus on current fashion from France (Paris) but also the UK.22 In between, models from

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the Prague fashion salons such as Hana Podolská, Oldˇrich Rosenbaum (1886–1991) or Arnošta Roubíˇcková (1896–1942) were printed, who added local elements to international fashion with their own creations such as hats, belts, shoes, jewelry and other accessories (Palkovská 2012: 51–52). While photographs indicating modernity and “evidence of the authenticity” have been mainly used in such glossy magazines, the use of sketches has not just been cost-driven, but offered stylised representations, various ways of interpretation as well as a deeper engagement with the readers’ aspirations (Tinkler 2016: 32). Especially the shoe manufacturer Bat’a has committed itself to international orientation as its advertisement promises “made in accordance with the fashion of world cities”, while suggesting that quality, appearance and affordability create shoes at a “world level” (Fig. 3). Concerning the design, the advertising stands out with its catchy esthetics among the otherwise less spectacularly designed advertisements. Since the pulsating life and the developments in the international metropolises are visually combined into an elegant women’s shoe, the advertisers’ promise for the New Czechoslovak Woman is to participate in the urban lifestyle in Paris, London or New York City and, hence, to become a cosmopolitan by consuming this Czechoslovak product. Therewith this ad is in line with the editors’ aspiration to “open up a new world” (Hackney 2010: 15) by giving their readers the possibility to get in with a global culture or rather global womankind. A glimpse at the articles in the editorial part following this Bat’a ad further reveals this policy: a two-page photo-series explains how women of different parts of the world do their laundry, followed by a travelogue from Honolulu, short news on the situation of women in the US, a report on an exhibition of applied arts and home facilities in Stockholm as well as a report on the meeting of representatives of the International Federation of University Women with President Masaryk. In contrast to the overall rather traditionally classic-looking clothing style, innovations in sportswear (e.g. for skiing, tennis) were presented from numerous models and famous celebrities showing that “like sport itself, it was in reality a social privilege and, as a blend of the modish, the modern and the mondaine, featured in women’s magazines […].” (Pachmanová 2021: 469). Self-confident models presented even the comparatively revealing swimwear and beachwear as well as underwear revolutions (e.g. bodice instead of corset),23 highlighting the ambivalent significance of the female body between body reform and normative

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Fig. 3 Advertisement Bat’a shoes in Eva II/21–22 (01/09/1930): p. 1

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media images while transforming the biological body into a cultural body (Pachmanová 2021: 468). The New Woman was asked to constantly ask herself (more or less consciously) who she is, what she would like to look like and who she would like to be, requiring “a degree of agency, self-creation, and pleasure in self-representation” (Peiss 1996: 322). Referring to international customs as well as to the emancipatory potential of cosmetics, advertisements usually suggested slogans like “The power of beauty is applied all over the world” (Eva II/19–20, 01/08/1930: 33). Indeed, the “idea that women ‘became women’ in the application of cosmetics” (Hackney 2010: 129) helped the global beauty industry to a veritable boom – especially in Eastern Europe, as the Soviet discourse around kul’turnost’ 24 emphasized the importance of the external appearance for the Soviet women (Gorsuch 2008: 174–193), while thereby indicating the “cultured mode of consumption” as it was propagated in the Soviet Union (Hetherington 2015: 426). Again, magazines like Eva spread the new visual image of the “civilized” women while highlighting their tastefulness and representing the “woman as sophisticated urbanite” (Hetherington 2015: 431).

“Women, Motorize!”: Mobility & Traveling According to the idea of civilizational progress in interwar Czechoslovakia (Pachmanová 2021: 472), the modern woman has been increasingly associated with science and technology (Wånggren 2017)25 leading to new possibilities of mobility, hence new freedoms of movement. What the bicycle was for women in the second half of the nineteenth century,26 the automobile became in the first third of the twentieth century: not just a status symbol for the New Woman – moreover a facility to mobilize them physically and politically in the sense of a “freedom machine” (Wånggren 2017: 62), the epitome of emancipation (Fig. 4)27 : Women, motorize! Emancipate yourself with all the consequences! Don’t be left behind by men! This sport is for you too! Have your own car! You will definitely buy either PRAGA PICCOLO or PRAGA ALFA. These cars are not only reliable and elegant, but now also affordable due to their price, as they have just been significantly discounted. Visit us and view our warehouse without obligation. (Eva V/12, 15/04/1933: 1)

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Fig. 4 Advertisement Auto Praga in Eva V/12 (15/04/1933): p. 1

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In line with the motorcycle advertisement mentioned above, the (sporty) woman who wants to be progressively modern, who does not want to be left behind by the men and who does not want to be a “fragile toy in the eyes of men” (Eva V/14, 15/05/1933: 1) but wants to be equal to him, is also addressed in the Praga advertisement. Hence, she is no longer just a passive companion, but takes to the steering wheel herself while transforming the car from a mere status symbol for the New Woman to a “symbol of women’s new social status in the First Republic” (Pachmanová 2021: 473). Contemporaries imagined the car “above all, [as] an educational tool that leads her [the modern woman] to judgement, ˇ courage, thrift, global horizon” as the writer Ema Rezᡠcová (1903–1997) stated 1932 in Eva (IV/8, 01/08/1932: 7). Overall, the car brand Praga advertises the most frequently, with its full-page advertisements placed prominently at the beginning or at the very end of the magazine. While addressing motifs such as freedom, independence and emancipation associated with feminist tendencies, the ads follow correspondingly different esthetics.28 Traditionally connoted as masculine (Pachmanová 2021: 473), these technologies were also marketed as fashionable for women in Eva using an emphatically emancipatory tone as proven from both advertisements above. Driving a car as necessary practice of the New Woman formed an integral part in the editorial section of Eva with reports often published even on the first pages of the magazine, while popular and publicly active Czechoslovak women artists and actresses like Olga Scheinpflugová posed as testimonials. Actually, with their modern physical appearance, charisma and professionalism such embodiments of this new lifestyle became quite typical as personalized advertising strategy in the interwar period (Hackney 2010: 54). Another popular motif was the “lady on the road”: On an emotional level, driving a car is linked in advertising with images that suggest pleasure and relaxation in nature and is set against the contemporary issues of the modernizing metropolises (e.g. air pollution, overcrowding, rushes). The pleasures of swimming and the sweetness of rest on the banks of watercourses will be enjoyed to the fullest by every motorist. If you have a car, you will quickly find yourself from the stuffy streets of the city in the fresh air in the heart of nature, in shady groves and on the banks of rivers. Driving a Praga is perfectly pleasant – the soft cushions of the wide body sit very comfortably and the engine works reliably in all circumstances. The

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charming appearance of the Praga Piccolo will delight your eyes and arouse the admiration of all your friends. (Eva V/17, 01/07/1933: 34)

The suggested combination of a luxury-equipped, impressive status symbol with mobility, freedom and pleasure stands for a culmination of imagined consumer desires, while further arguments such as technical reliability as well as comfort target the consumer on a more rational level. However, particularly these car-related advertisements presented “ideals such as […] assertiveness, power, rationality, and control not only as desirable qualities women should attain through consumption but also as qualities women already possessed, which positioned them as valuable consumers” (Rabinovitch-Fox 2016: 399) and framed furthermore, “women’s freedom as a necessary component of the modern woman” (Rabinovitch-Fox 2016: 387). Hence, while emphasizing the luxury and emotional gratification achieved through consumption the developments in mobility offered the New Woman possibilities to renegotiate gender roles in a wider cultural context.

Conclusion The economic boom after World War I allowed for the development of mass consumption in the newly founded nation states. The First Czechoslovak Republic, a comparatively progressive state especially with regard to democracy and women’s rights, was one of them. While women had long been central to discourses surrounding patterns of consumption, the New Woman as a symbol of modernity and cultural progress, in particular became a projection surface for desires, imaginings and expectations in the interwar period. Women’s magazines, both reflecting and shaping reality based on social norms, built complex discursive spaces with a diversity of representations of women and constructions of womanhood identity. Most of these highly commercialized magazines, including the researched societal and women’s magazine Eva (1928–1938) published in Prague, addressed women in her imagined roles as “the household manager or housewife, the mother consumed with guilt, and the selfish and immature flapper” (Delgado 2010: 107). Thus, the relationship between women and consumption was ambivalent. Overall, the development of modern consumer society was linked to some degree of empowerment and mainstreaming feminism while also highlighting the role of the New Women, especially the financially well-off, as an agent

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of consumption. Therefore, the widespread acceptance and openness to feminist ideas in the Bohemian countries created the basis for (more) feminist advertising messages. However, charged with expectations and normative meanings by the mass media and advertising industry, they again became objects of consumerism underlying gendered constraints supported by visual media. Regarding the geographical orientation of the imagined Czechoslovak New Woman, the Westernization is striking while not surprising, as the young state positioned itself between France, the UK and the US. Reading the magazine Eva, readers found connection to a global version of modernity suggesting that being a Czechoslovak New Woman and living this way of life meant being international and cosmopolitan, participating in Western consumer culture, but also appreciating local traditions. Moreover, although often pejoratively connoted elsewhere, the female consumer in Czechoslovakia was considered a civilized and cultured consumer, as already suggested in the 1930s’ Soviet Union. Future research looking through the lens of discourses around civilization should shed light on commonalities between these contexts in more detail. Discussing the women’s magazine Eva as an representative example for urban upper middle- and upper-class lifestyles, the chapter could not take under consideration, how the “average” woman of the lower strata and from the countryside were considered as consumers. Whereas even for some of Eva’s readers the consumer goods advertised remained only unfulfilled wishes, the magazines provided new space for imagination and a sense of substitute consumption. Hence, as a window into the world, women’s magazines enabled participation in a variety of national and global cultures in a socially dynamic time in which the relationship between modernity and womanhood was continuously renegotiated.

Notes 1. For further information on early Soviet consumption, see Iryna Skubii’s chapter in this book. 2. The exhibition “Civilized Woman: Ideal and Paradox of Visual Culture of the First Czechoslovak Republic”, curated by Martina Pachmanová and Kateˇrina Svatonˇ ová, has been shown between October 2021 and July 2022 at the Moravian Gallery in Brno (Czech Republic). 3. Additionally, there are a few highly interesting master and bachelor theses from Charles University in Prague or Masaryk University in Brno. (e.g. Mastná 2011; Palkovská 2012).

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4. On questions of Czechoslovak-American political and trade relations in the interwar period, see e.g. Polišenská (2012) and Manák (2017). 5. For further information on interwar Czechoslovak economic development, see Pryor & Pryor (1975). 6. The multiethnic nature of the country (including e.g. Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Ruthenians) cannot be dealt with at this point, see e.g. Koeltzsch (2012). However, the following analyses mostly relate to the industrialized Czech-speaking areas in the north-west of the country (in particular Bohemia and Prague). 7. For more information on the situation of women in interwar Czechoslovakia, see Feinberg (2002, 2006). 8. Christine Frederick (1883–1970) was one of the first advertisers to write about the so-called American Mrs. Consumer in her 1929 published book “Selling Mrs. Consumer”. See Rutherford (2003). 9. This magazine is not to be confused with the same-titled magazine that has been published under the editors Marie Kavánová (?) and Alois Kolisek (?) between 1904 and 1925 in Nový Jiˇcín in the Moravian-Silesian Region. The catholic magazine with the subtitle monthly for the czech women’s and girls’ education aimed to combat immorality and to support women’s charities. Later in the 1970s, another women’s magazine entitled Eva has been published in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Mastná 2011: 17). 10. The page entitled Life and work of women dealt in each issue with women and their work. From time to time, there were also articles published on working women in rather untypical working fields (eg. engineering, mathematics, politics). See e.g. Eva IX/20 (15/09/1937): 12–13. 11. For more information on depression advertising as a shift in style, see Marchand (1986: 300–312). 12. For instance, in the 47-page issue before Christmas 1937, a total of 16 pages (excl. contents) were used exclusively for advertising. See Eva X/4 (15/12/1937). 13. The selected advertising slogans from the magazine are paradigmatic for the respective consumer area. 14. For the history of the consumer society, see e.g. König (2013). 15. There are editorial and commercial articles with titles such as “Household” and showing a photo of an American kitchen (Eva II/13, 15/03/1930: 20), “We modernize our household “ (Eva VIII/9, 01/03/1936: 28) or “Kitchen showcase of the modern Eva” (Eva IX/17, 01/07/1937: 27). 16. On the Czechoslovak-American trade relations, see Mának (2017). 17. For the history of this women’s association, see Secká (2012). Unfortunately, the discourse on America cannot be further elaborated at this point due to lack of space, see Mongu (2010).

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18. For the social and cultural history of household technology, see Heßler (2001). 19. For a further discussion on the emancipatory potential of sports in the First Czechoslovak Republic, see Pachmanová (2021: 403–407). 20. Although these illustrations were mostly unsigned, it is known that famous artists were among the authors, such as Hedvika Vlková (1901– 1986), Zdenˇ ka Mayerová-Fuchsová (1903–1988), Božena Vavreˇcková (1913–1970), and Vojtˇech Michal (?) (Uchalová 1996: 32). 21. Photographs by the Parisian Studio D’Ora were published most frequently. The Prague studios included František Drtikol, Carola as well as Schlosser & Wenisch and Jaroslav Balzar (Palkovská 2012: 51–52). 22. It was not uncommon for the magazine to have its own fashion correspondent in Paris. 23. Overall, the magazine was quite open to scantily clad women, as you can see from photos of dancing women. 24. For more general information on kul’turnost’, see Iryna Skubii’s chapter in this book, whereas Randall (2004) and Hetherington (2015) have discussed the specific women’s role within this state campaign. 25. On the general discourse of the New Woman in technological modernity, see e.g. Wånggren (2017), or more specific in the First Czechoslovak Republik, see Pachmanová (2021: 389–433). 26. The bicycle as a means of emancipations has been previously discussed in various contexts. See for example Maierhof & Schröder (1992), Ross (2020), Wånggren (2017: 62–100). 27. For more information on the cultural significance of cars in the First Czechoslovak Republic, see Pachmanová (2021: 396–407). 28. This is basically not atypical for car advertisements, but such advertisements also appear later in the First Czechoslovak Republic of the 1930s, when more conservative messages are conveyed again in other countries and women there have to give up their place in car advertising. See Baumann (2002: 98–125) and Delgado (2010: 120–121).

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“Soviet Style” of Advertising and Consumption

Fur Trade in Turmoil: Pelt Commodification in Leipzig from Fin de Siècle to Sovietization Timm Schönfelder

Downy sins of streetlight fancies Chase the costumes she shall wear Ermine furs adorn the imperious Severin, Severin awaits you there The Velvet Underground, Venus in Furs (1966).

When Lou Reed penned these rather kinky lyrics in the mid-1960s, the glory of Leipzig’s pelt trade had already faded. While the American singersongwriter demonstrated an interest in furs as the adornment of a fictional lover, his literary inspiration Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836–1895) was also acquainted with the business side of it. During the 1880s, the Austrian author had spent several years in Saxony’s trade metropolis. There, he witnessed the markets and the grandiose city fairs that spurred his imagination and inspired the notoriously devious style that came to be labeled masochist by the German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in

T. Schönfelder (B) Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa (GWZO), Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_5

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his Psychopathia Sexualis (1886–cf. Deleuze 1991; Kobelt-Groch 2011). In order to provide the raw materials that dressed the rich and the powerful, quarterly fairs dated back centuries to the Middle Ages when Leipzig’s leading trade district, the Brühl , evolved at the junction of the two main merchant roads that crossed the German lands: the via regia and the via imperii. While the former, the “royal road”, connected the West and the East of the European continent, eventually spanning from Santiago de Compostela to Moscow, the “imperial road” ran from Stettin in the North to the eternal city of Rome in the South (Hardt 2015; Denzel 2012). Thus, the fur trade linked the remote corners of Europe and inspired consumer practices on the whole continent. With the decline of the Hanseatic League in the sixteenth century, a southern trade route across today’s Ukraine gained relevance, dubbed the Pelt Road. Integrating hitherto lesser known and traveled places into the trans-European commercial network, it reached all the way from the fur markets of Irbit in the Urals through Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kyiv and Sacher-Masoch’s birthplace Lemberg (today: Lviv) to Leipzig across a distance of more than 2.300 kilometers, as the crow flies (Fellmann 1995). The fairs in Siberia and Northern Russia had especially gained relevance after the Russian state monopoly on the fur trade was lifted in 1762. Until the eve of World War II, the annual Irbit Fair (Irbitskaia iarmarka) in February ranked among the most prominent places to peddle pelts (Buchholz 1954; Drew 1961). Reportedly, larger groups of traders from Russia first arrived in Leipzig in the 1770s; in the mid-nineteenth century Russia’s main focus eventually switched from trading with China to also supplying the furriers of Paris and London. They brought their linenwrapped and their wooden-boxed goods in large wagons to be sorted and sold (Aus Leipzigs Handels- und Verkehrsgeschichte 1928). For centuries, Jewish merchants had been the driving force in establishing east-west economic relations in the pelt trade. As so-called “trade fair Jews” (Messejuden), they were granted short stays in Leipzig. The Kingdom of Saxony eventually passed its first series of Emancipation Laws in 1837 and allowed Jews to acquire urban citizenship the year after. It took until 1868, however, for them to be granted full civil rights and freedom of settlement in all of Saxony. This was followed by the Law on Freedom of Occupation, which was passed as part of the Trade Regulations Act in the Reichstag of the North German Confederation in 1869. As a consequence, many Jewish traders from Eastern Europe moved west, establishing their own branches in Leipzig. The majority of

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them originated from the historical region of Galicia in today’s Ukraine and southern Poland that became a crownland of the Habsburg monarchy in 1772. Especially the city of Brody (situated in today’s western Ukraine) played an important role as a hub on the pelt road–coincidentally, it also was the Brody Synagogue, named after the supposed place of origin of its community members, that solely endured the destruction of the 1938 November pogroms and of World War II. Today, it serves as the center of Leipzig’s Jewish community (Nitsche 2021; Reinhold 2010).1 The evolution of civic and economic liberties in the nineteenth century coincided with a revolution of overland transport: in 1839, the LeipzigDresden railway was completed as Germany’s first long-distance train line. In 1869, Brody was eventually connected to the European grid. This not only shortened delivery times of pelts and other goods drastically, it also changed the way merchandise was ordered. Before the arrival of the railway, large warehouses held most of the goods between the trade fairs. This was costly, and it encouraged illegal dealings. Ontime delivery, however, catered to the interests of sellers and buyers alike. Sample catalogs that could be carried easily by merchants facilitated presenting what was on offer. Meanwhile, technological advancements in the textile industry during the nineteenth century like the fully automatic power loom, the mechanization of cloth printing and the diffusion of improved sewing machines soon provided affordable ready-to-wear clothing that competed with made-to-measure haute couture (Geschichte der Mode 2021: 128–135; Godley 2001). Nonetheless, furriers found their own lucrative niche that united traditional forms of production with modern techniques, new chemicals for fur dying, and ways of engaging in commerce that were oriented toward a growing market, which became commonly referred to as haute fourrure (Lehmann 1954: 25–26; Müller 2021).

Turning Fetish into Fashion Before pelts were made into furs that adorned the women of SacherMasoch’s fantasy, high-quality variants like ermine were mostly reserved for reigning members of the aristocracy and the clergy as a sign of rank and status. Since antiquity, sumptuary laws had been known that regulated who was allowed to wear which animal hides in what way. These rules eventually became obsolete with industrialization and the rise of mass production since the end of the nineteenth century that was more

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oriented toward the common consumer (Ingram 1911; Faiers 2020). Formerly exclusive cloths and garments were now affordable for almost everyone. Notably, it was also at that time that the fur coat was reversed: no longer were only the cuffs and the collar visible–as a new signifier for a woman’s elitist status, fur was worn on the outside. In France, the luxury goods trading company Revillon Frères with its branches and bureaus in London, New York, Leipzig and later also Moscow is credited with coining the corresponding term “confection en fourrures” (‘fur confection’, see Revillon 1953). The increasingly central role of fashion within society was clearly symbolized by the figure of La Parisienne at the gates to the Paris World exhibition in 1900: Sculptured by Paul MoreauVauthier, and dressed in the latest haute couture with fur lining her gown by the renowned designer Jeanne Paquin, she embodied a modern feminine form of luxury and patriotism alike–much to the dismay of certain onlookers who believed to see “the smile of a harlot” on her lips (Mandell 1967: 58; Dymond 2011). This insecurity of the male gaze aside, commodification and luxury went hand in hand in haute fourrure. As philosophers and economists have argued, the art of being seen and the “private esthetic experience” through seemingly superfluous and unnecessary possessions have their own functional rationality which is more than sheer provocative pretentiousness: luxury items elevate their owner; they are a visualized transgression of norms and standards (Wiesing 2015; Sombart 1992). In this vein, showing off one’s fur coat served as an important counterpoint to the often-purported dreary sentiments of the fin de siècle. As apparel, it defied pessimistic outlooks and situated its wearer right in the treacherous warmth and coziness of what was nostalgically referred to as the Belle Époque in hindsight after World War I (Starostina 2013; Stora-Lamarre 1996). Much like the regal aura of ermine fur, it represented newfound female power as it was characterized by Venita Data: The fin de siècle also witnessed the rise of the feminist movement and the figure of the New Woman, both of which threatened to blur traditional gender lines and assume a greater role in the heretofore (mostly) male public sphere. Changing gender roles, along with a decline in the national birthrate, gave rise to a “crisis of masculinity.” This crisis was exacerbated by the emergence of modern consumer culture, which was associated with the feminization and concomitant emasculation of French society. (Datta 2011: 227–228)2

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Gender stereotypes played a major role in mobilizing costumers at the turn of the century. Ideas and ideals of beauty were displayed and cultivated in the newly opened department stores that soon spread all across Europe and the New World. There, one was invited to go window shopping as a flâneur–an attentive stroller in the metropolitan promenades both aware of and subject to the fetishism of commodification (Benjamin 2002).3 His counterpart, the passante, which was soon read as a “female shopper”, became increasingly politicized. Thus, consumer activism as a response to social issues found its outlet in newly organized consumer leagues and cooperatives (Westermann 2020; Chessel 2006). These developments influenced the understanding of fashion and the socioeconomic connotations of style along the trade routes throughout Europe. The expansion of the modern fashion industry was propelled by the growing middle classes in Europe and the USA which replaced aristocrats and members of the haute bourgeoisie as the primary clientele at the beginning of the twentieth century.4 Demand for fur fostered international trade relations and promoted the specialization of both merchants and workers. As such, German furriers from Leipzig, Berlin, and Hamburg were highly renowned for the outstanding quality of their craft that dated back centuries. Their professional practices were well-kept secrets, which is why pieces of clothing made from Siberian animal hides were even exported back to Russia. Leipzig was Russia’s main trading partner, as the Brühl handled two thirds of its yearly “harvest”. Its Easter trade fair reached its peak around the 1870s, lasting six whole weeks. It was a melting pot of different cultures with merchants from all over the world filling the streets. Customs were changing, however: as the new railway lines allowed for fast and direct shipping of goods, traders increasingly settled down and opened branches in the big cities. This allowed for business to be conducted all year round. According to Leipzig’s chamber of commerce, sales climbed from 6 to 8 million thalers per annum in the early 1860s, to around 42 million marks in 1879, to an estimated 200 million marks in 1911.5 Roughly half of these 200 million marks were made by foreign traders, and around 50 million marks each by local merchants and by representatives of the German market (Brass 1911: 219–220, 231–240). However, such highly promising economic developments were put to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of what became called the “Great War” in 1914.

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From Isolation to Cooperation World War I as the “great seminal catastrophe” of the twentieth century (George Kennan) left large parts of the Old World impoverished. Global trade networks collapsed and were only slowly rebuilt; national debt reached record highs while inflation and world prices rose. Europe, which had been known as “the world’s workshop” before the war, was affected by “a need for consumption far in excess of her power or inclination for production” (Litman 1926: 24). Meanwhile, the USA evolved as a major economic power, and the US-American fur market flourished. Record sales worth tens of millions of dollars were done at auctions in St. Louis and New York.6 All over Europe, the war had encouraged strong anti-Germanic sentiments which isolated the former empire internationally. During the armed conflict, the state-controlled Kriegsfell AG (War Fur Co.) had been tasked with requisitioning pelts to equip the German troops. It took some time for the private market to recover and to become competitive again. In order to achieve this, Leipzig’s Association of Fur Merchants decided to follow the Anglo-American example by establishing auctions that were to be organized through specialized independent companies (Declercq 2017: 98–102). The changing geopolitics in Europe strengthened Leipzig’s ties toward the east. Following the nationalization of foreign trade in the wake of the October Revolution in 1917, almost 80 percent of all exports from Soviet Russia comprised of raw materials like timber, flax, and furs in 1921 (Zolotarev 1968: 9; Turin 1931). Pelts had again become an important source of revenue for the war-ridden state. Cooperation between the two pariahs was formalized by the Treaty of Rapallo, signed in midApril 1922.7 Incidentally, the developing framework for auctioning furs in Leipzig played into the hands of the new Soviet state monopoly on trade which could (at least officially) not rely on personal networks anymore. In 1921, the first “Russian auctions” (Russenauktionen) were held at the Brühl. Organized on a semiannual basis, usually in March and September, they drew an ever-larger crowd from all over the world. They reached their peak just before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 and helped Leipzig regain at least part of its former glory as a fur trading metropolis (Fellmann 1987: 141–150). While the Brühl was responsible for one third of the global fur trade by the end of the 1920s, this decade saw fundamental changes in fostering local consumerism. Following the French example, yearly fashion shows

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were organized. Starting in 1921, Germany’s designers of haute fourrure met during Leipzig’s traditional Easter fair to present their new creations. This open competition was accompanied by a strong specialization of the trade. Thus, in 1922 the prestigious École professionnelle de la Fourrure opened in Paris, and the German Furriers School (Deutsche KürschnerSchule) was founded in Leipzig six years later as a voluntary technical and commercial school. These institutions were essential to keep pace with the accelerated changes in the industry, as they offered a much broader education than a classical apprenticeship did (which was a prerequisite to attend the Furriers School in Leipzig), ranging from practical fur confection to applied economics.8 Apart from changing tastes and strong international competitors, the fur trade faced another problem that had become evident before the war: the endangered sustainability of its animal resources. In the case of the Russian market, centuries of exploitation took their visible toll. The “soft gold” of Siberia, which had played a vital role for the eastward expansion of the empire, was at the brink of extinction. Already in 1912, Tsar Nicholas II had recognized the gravity of the problem and declared a three-year moratorium on sable hunting from 1913 to 1916. Special nature reserves (zapovedniki) were created to give its populations a chance to stabilize. At the same time, the possibility to breed sables in captivity was extensively studied. It was mainly owed to the ruptures in international trade through the Russian revolutions of 1917 and the ensuing civil war, however, that Siberia’s fauna was able to recover slightly (Breyfogle 2021; Etkind 2011; Portisch 1967: 94–95, 111–118; Buchholz 1963: 35–41). Meanwhile, positive results had been achieved with fur farming in Canada since the 1880s. In the 1920s, it gained popularity and reached a larger scale. For some contemporaries, this form of domestication signified the end of the age of the North American hunter and trapper–and of its Siberian counterpart, the so-called promyshlennik. It was expected to upset established international trade relations. Especially rare silver foxes had proven themselves as highly profitable furbearers that could be kept well in captivity. During World War II, minks, which are the North American variant of the Siberian kolonok, started to replace these foxes on the Canadian farms. This method of rearing animals was usually considered “scientific” and “controllable” with a constantly high quality in furs. Seemingly, animal suffering mattered little to producers, as long

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as their skins remained undamaged (Colpitts 1997). The Canadian experience inspired a wide variety of endeavors to farm fur-bearing animals. In the case of Germany, colonial ambitions even lead to experiments with Karakul sheep farming in today’s Namibia which enjoyed scientific support from the Agricultural Institute in Halle (Saale) near Leipzig (Declercq 2016). Early undertakings were modest, however. During World War I, it rather was the small animal breeders (Kleintierzüchter) who were the most important source of pelts from domestic animals like rabbit and hare for the above-mentioned Kriegsfell AG, along with forced requisitions in the occupied territories. Nonetheless did the experiments in fur farming pave the way for future endeavors that were to reorder the international market. In 1926, the Reichszentrale für Pelztier- und Rauchwarenforschung (Reich agency for the research of furry animals and fur products)–more of a private network organized by local fur merchants than an official state institution–was founded in Leipzig with the goal to educate and connect breeders and traders. It even maintained a small research station to the south of the city (Fellmann 1987: 128–134; Albrecht 1931: 36– 38). Plans to enlarge the farms around Leipzig were discussed after the end of World War II.9 Yet they were seen as mismanaged, unproductive, and in an increasingly dire state–a fact that was not helped by the policies of nationalization under Soviet command.10 Due to economic limitations and a brain drain of prominent local experts to the West after the war, Leipzig never developed into a center of fur farming in Germany. Hirschegg-Riezlern in Vorarlberg by the Austrian border was leading in research while Europe’s largest fur farm Pelztierfarm Appelburg in Plau am See, situated in Mecklenburg, was much more productive–not to mention the already strong competition from abroad like Norway’s large silver fox farms (Nestler 1929: 27–32). Overall, the 1920s were a decade of great economic and political fluidity. While the commodity markets were awakening from their war-induced isolation, new paths–especially toward the east–had to be established (cf. Kindleberger 2019: 39–95). The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 stopped this propitious development, however, putting further strain on the fur trade which saw itself confronted both with shifting patterns of production and with changing practices of consumption.

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At the Turning Point Despite the looming economic crisis, the 1930s started out promisingly. Furs were still en vogue–unlike lace or artificial flowers, which had both gone out of style as more modest and functional designs were preferred (Feistle 1931: 126–130; Nestler 1929: 43–46).11 As a center for global trade, Leipzig’s Brühl offered a versatility unmatched by London and New York with furs of all kinds from all over the world on offer (Albrecht 1931: 76–77).12 Also, local pelt processing and confection had seen a strong mechanization and automatization in preservation, dressing and dyeing which was evidenced by the highly specialized factories and workshops located at the outskirts of the city near its rivers Pleiße, Parthe, Luppe, and the White Elster (Malbin 1927: 45–48). Industry and trade were closely connected; sales figures had slowly recovered until the beginning of the decade. One must not forget, however, that a series of financial scandals had shaken the local fur trade during the turbulent 1920s with several businesses being forced to declare bankruptcy. While private and joint-stock banks had granted exceedingly generous credit lines with small securities before World War I, they became more careful in its aftermath (Declercq 2017: 40–44, 151–157).13 Nonetheless, risk-taking was still excessive in the fierce competition for costumers. When the ripple effects of the financial crisis were starting to be felt in Germany, the resulting trade slump was further exacerbated by a severe banking crisis (Schnabel 2004). In spite of these developments, Leipzig’s fur merchants followed through with an ambitious idea to present the wonders of their occupation to the world, which was first formulated in 1926: The International Fur Trade Exhibition (Internationale Pelzfach-Ausstellung, IPA) was eventually held from the end of May until the end of September 1930 on the fairgrounds to the south of the city, intended both to advertise and to educate. It thus focused on the whole way of all pelts–from trappers to retailers. It even featured a little zoo with live fur-bearing animals. Another central piece of the exhibition was the recreation of the old Brühl with its winding streets and backyards that even had a fully operational furrier’s workshop. Before being introduced to the practical dimensions of the trade, visitors passed through the imposing Deutschlandhalle (Hall of Germany). There, one was confronted with a variety of supposedly stimulating artistic interpretations of hunting practices. This was followed by four colossal paintings that depicted “the world of furs”

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ranging from ancient Persian archery to Leipzig itself as the aspiring center of global trade. The “Masters’ Hall” (Meistersaal ) delved deep into the cultural history “of the honor and dignity of German craftsmanship” concentrated at the Brühl as “the world power in the fur industry since time immemorial” (“der ‘Brühl’ ist die Weltmacht in der Rauchwarenbranche seit unvordenklichen Zeiten”) before presenting “fur fashion through the ages”. The next hall was an homage to modern science and technology that included a thematic library and a reading room. This was followed by the international part of the exhibition representing the Soviet Union, France, the USA, Great Britain, Poland, Rumania, Finland, Greenland, and others. The two remaining pavilions housed the fairly unpopular International Hunting Exhibition (Internationale JagdAusstellung ) which nonetheless presented some of the most renowned trophy collections of the time (Amtlicher Katalog 1930: 55–58, 254, folding map). The elaborate–and extremely costly–fur trade exhibition was positively received by critics. In the face of the Great Depression, however, it did not mobilize the public as expected. The large financial losses it incurred were then met by harsh accusations of mismanagement and of unnecessary lavishness. Ultimately, creditors were forced to waive part of their claims, and the city of Leipzig had to foot a bill of more than two million reichsmarks, which only added to its already enormous budget deficit of 17,3 million reichsmarks in 1931 (cf. Declercq 2022; Fellmann 1987: 168–173). What is more, the negative financial outcome was not outweighed by the seemingly promising discussions on international cooperation and trade liberalization during the first week-long World Fur Congress (Weltpelzkongress ), convened at the IPA on the end of June 1930. While offering an important forum for leading representatives, it did not reap any tangible results. A planned second congress never took place. Given the unfavorable political and economic circumstances, this was hardly surprising. In the years that followed the IPA, the climate worsened notably. The Soviet Union completed the monopolization of its domestic market with the creation of the state fur trading organization Sojuzpushnina in 1931. It orchestrated its own international auctions in Leningrad, which delivered a bitter blow to the Brühl. Also, US-Soviet relations normalized when a commercial agreement was signed in 1935 that facilitated direct trade between the nations without the need of an arbiter like Leipzig. The rising specter of fascism in Germany further isolated its market. Soon, English replaced German as the official language

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of the trade auctions in Leningrad (Ropes 1944; Sojuzpushnina 2022). The Brühl’s once-tight grip on the fur business was visibly waning.

Expropriation and Destruction By the year 1930, 574 fur merchants were officially registered in Leipzig– almost all of them situated at the Brühl and in its immediate surroundings (Denzer 2015: 92–93). At least half of the local traders were Jewish. Many were extremely well connected on the international stage: Ch. Eitingon AG, named after its founder Chaim Eitingon (1857–1932) who had expanded his business from Moscow to the Brühl in the 1880s, maintained branches in New York, Bombay, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Harbin, Chicago, Kobe, Łód´z, London, St. Louis, Montréal, Paris, Peshawar, Sydney, Shanghai, Tianjin, Urga (today’s Ulaanbaatar), and Warsaw.14 Such dependencies were often managed by family members. Powerful networks like this were the backbone of the fur trade. For some of the merchants, this facilitated emigration and the start of a new life abroad later on when they were faced with repeated bursts of fascist violence. Anti-Semitic sentiments were not new to the Brühl. Rather than resulting from the racist politics of the “Third Reich”, they had been deeply rooted in German society for centuries. This is not least evidenced in a short illustrated history of the Leipzig fur trade, published in 1923 by two representatives of the chamber of commerce and the museum of city history. It featured anti-Semitic depictions like that of the “Polish scroungers” (“Polnische Schnorrer”), which had first been printed in the famous local literary journal Die Gartenlaube in 1875 (Clad 1923).15 What is more, it did not care to mention the important part the city’s Jewish population had played in establishing Leipzig as a global fur trade metropolis since the nineteenth century (Harmelin 1966; Kowalzik 1999: 65).16 After the National Socialists’ rise to power in 1933, age-old stereotypes were successfully catered to in state propaganda fostering hatred and societal division. Anti-Jewish resentment intensified, and the politics of “Aryanization” and “Gleichschaltung ” increasingly isolated Jewish traders. Company formation and expansion was prohibited, properties and assets had to be officially declared to the authorities. Many left for the fur and textile cities of Paris, Brussels, and London. The famous merchant Max Ariowitsch (1880–1968), often referred to as the “éminence grise of the Brühl”, eventually emigrated to New York. His Anglo-American Fur

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Merchants Corporation became the second largest fur trading company in the USA. In the early hours of October 28, 1938, Jews with actual or former Polish citizenship were hastily arrested and deported from Leipzig to the Rzeczpospolita. On that day, around 1.600 people lost all of their possessions which were sold off or transferred “into Aryan hands”, usually for a fraction of their value (Kowalzik 1999: 155; Ahbe 2012). In the wake of the November pogroms in 1938, the situation worsened drastically with escalating anti-Jewish violence. Expropriation intensified, and Jews were forced to live in segregated houses (‘Judenhäuser’). In several waves, they were sent to concentration camps like Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen, later also to the death camps of Auschwitz, Belzec, and Majdanek. Economic elimination was followed by physical extermination (Held 2019a). When the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was decided in January 1942, only around 2.000 members of the once 11.500 peoplestrong Jewish community remained in Leipzig. About 800 of them were forced to work in private firms, including the local fur dressing business (Held 2012, 2019b). Pelts and furs were of central interest to the war economy. Especially after the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS repeatedly expressed their need for thousands of fox and hamster furs to be prepared as inner lining for winter clothing by Leipzig’s industry.17 Such orders were processed through the Reichsstelle für Rauchwaren (Reich Office for Fur Products), situated near St. Thomas Church not far from the Brühl. As a subdivision of the Wirtschaftsgruppe Groß-, Ein- und Ausfuhrhandel, an “economic group” which regulated wholesale, import and export trade within the Reich Chamber of Commerce (Reichswirtschaftskammer), the Reichsstelle coordinated merchants and furriers, sometimes under threat of punishment. From 1934 onward, this structure had gradually replaced the employers’ federations through a hierarchical reorganization of the national economy (cf. Newman 1948; Temin 1991).18 While the true extend of the Reichstelle’s influence on economic affairs is difficult to fathom, it was nonetheless instrumental in distributing the spoils from the newly occupied territories, including so-called “Ostlandware” from Eastern Europe. This happened in close cooperation with local organizations like the Leipzig-based Reichsverband der Deutschen Rauchwaren-Firmen e.V., founded before World War I as an association representing the Brühl’s furriers and fur merchants with only a few non-local members, and the Fachgruppe Rauchwaren und Pelze, another

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subdivision of the Wirtschaftsgruppe on fur trade. Their respective tasks and competencies were not clearly delineated. Until October of 1941, the Fachgruppe was headed by Paul Hollender (1883–1950), himself managing director of the Thorer fur empire, spiritus rector of the IPA, and chairman to the above-mentioned Reichsverband. These organizations also coordinated confiscations and special collections for military purposes at home, proudly proclaiming: “Here, the German fur trade can once again prove how it feels about its Führer and its soldiers.”19 Such professed obedience was more than lip service, as several members of the fur trading corporation Deutsche Rauchwaren-Gesellschaft mbH (short “Deurauch”) were later accused by Soviet military tribunals of having committed severe war crimes on the Eastern Front (Weigelt 2015: 170, 361, 416, 470, 732). The “joint project to facilitate and expand the procurement of goods” which was embodied by the Deurauch had been decided on December 5, 1940 by members of the Fachgruppe and the Reichsverband who were exclusively allowed as its shareholders. With management located in Leipzig, the company’s goal was to secure the city’s place in the global fur trade.20 Hopes to see the Brühl prosper again remained unfulfilled, however. Before the sun rose on December 4, 1943, the district was almost completely destroyed in a British bombing raid.21

No Place for Fetishism When Leipzig was liberated by US-American troops in April of 1945, there was no private entrepreneurship left that could compete globally. It soon became clear that the Red Army would take control over Saxony, which prompted many of the merchants to flee. This was hardly surprising, considering their above-mentioned involvement in the organizations of the Nazi state as well as the dire outlook of retribution and, possibly, a Soviet-style administrative command economy. The WestGerman city of Frankfurt am Main became their destination of choice. This can be attributed to the work of Walter Leiske (1889–1971), a former member of Leipzig’s city council acquainted with the customs of the fur trade. After the war, he served as chief executive of the Frankfurt chamber of industry and commerce before being elected one of the city’s mayors in 1948, charged with traffic and economic development. Not only did he manage to relocate the book publishing business to Frankfurt and revive its trade fairs, he also helped with the creation of a new Brühl in Frankfurt’s Niddastraße as a fur trading hotspot (Lerner 1985).

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Meanwhile, the USSR’s grip on East Germany’s economy tightened (Werner 2012; Steiner 2004). On January 11, 1946, the Soviet Military Administration issued order no. 10 “On the organization of the registration of raw leather and fur materials and pelts in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany”, which was an important step toward the integration into a centralized planned economic system. Under threat of punishment, all animal hides, skins, pelts, and furs–including of game and small animals–were subject to delivery against receipt.22 Their value was usually offset against the reparation payments imposed on local furriers. Firms like Deurauch and Thorer & Co. were nationalized.23 In the case of Deurauch, the managing director and 15 appointees of the board, who had been members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), were still on the run by mid-October of 1945.24 In accordance with the Soviet Military Administration’s order no. 124 “On the confiscation and provisional acquisition of certain property categories in Germany” (October 30, 1945), companies known to have been connected to the regime were liquidated.25 The foundation of a German branch of the state fur trading organization Sojuzpushnina expanded the Soviet trading monopoly, generating valuable foreign currency. The once mighty furriers of Leipzig were relegated to the processing of pelts from the Soviet occupation zone (Wegweiser durch den Brühl und die Berliner Pelzbranche 1950).26 This aimed at strengthening Leningrad’s position as a trading hub. Mass emigration of skilled workers, which was officially deemed a result of “targeted poaching” by firms from the West, put further pressure on the industry.27 What is more, luxurious fashion could hardly be perceived as a necessity in the developing socialist concept of demand that was to be satisfied through centralized planning (cf. Merkel 1999). This rang especially true in the postwar period and in the early years of the German Democratic Republic when, as state ideology suggested, socialists “would consume in a reflective and responsible way, deeply aware of collective needs” fulfilling “a technocratic vision of standardization and functionality” (Spiekermann 2006: 163). This idealistic outlook stood in stark contrast to the message one would have conveyed with a piece of fur to “adorn the imperious”. In the ruins whence the GDR rose, there was no room for the individualistic decadence of haute fourrure. Thus, the same year that Lou Reed channeled Sacher-Masoch in his ode to fetishism, local state-owned firms like Sachsenpelz, Stadtpelz, Edelpelz were united as a publicly owned enterprise under the label Brühlpelz VEB Leipziger Rauchwarenindustrie

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(‘Brühl fur’)–in an obvious attempt to conjure long-gone glory days just the same.

Conclusion Leipzig’s fur trade collapsed in three main stages: after World War I, it faced an extremely challenging political and economic climate of isolation and recession which culminated in the Great Depression. Under the fascist regime of the “Third Reich”, the most important business carriers were expropriated, expelled, and executed. Some of them committed suicide. The destruction of many of the remaining firms at the Brühl by Allied bombardment was the final nail in its coffin. After World War II, fears of nationalization and retribution led to a drain of local expertise to the West. New state-mandated consumption models under socialism and the relegation of the Brühl’s resources to the creation of foreign currency, not least under the auspices of the Soviet state company Sojuzpushnina, stood in stark contrast to the luxurious ideals of haute fourrure as it had developed by the turn of the century. Thus, from fin de siècle to sovietization, Leipzig’s fur trade was caught in constant turmoil as practices of commodification were rearranged in accordance with the changing socioeconomics of a highly competitive global arena. Eventually, the Brühl lost its status as a commercial center due to erroneous self-imposed politics of violence and one-sided answers to an increasingly complex world. Acknowledgements I am deeply thankful to Prof. Christian Lübke and Prof. Werner Scheltjens for accepting me into their network of ‘fur historians’ as well as to Robrecht Declercq and Robert Eisold for sharing their experiences on the topic.

Notes 1. For a comprehensive microhistory of a Jewish family that emigrated from Brody to become active in the Leipzig fur trade, see Langeheine (2013). 2. See also Brevik-Zender (2014). 3. For a critique of Benjamin’s concept as a ‘modernist myth’, cf. Lauster (2007). 4. See the chapter on “The Early Internationalization of Haute Couture” in Pouillard (2021: 11–42).

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5. After the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871, the Goldmark was introduced as common currency. From 1873 onward, it could be exchanged for the hitherto used standard silver coin of the Vereinsthaler at a rate of 3 to 1. Thus, 6 to 8 million thalers in the early 1860s were the equivalent of around 18 to 24 million marks in 1879 which means that fur sales had doubled, if not tripled in Leipzig within less than twenty years’ time. 6. “The winter sale held in St. Louis in 1920 totaled $ 27.102.588,” (Ashbrook 1922: 7). At the time, a dollar–which was also based on the gold standard–was worth roughly four gold marks. Compared to the estimated sales in Leipzig as stated above, the St. Louis winter sale alone was worth more than half of the yearly sales in Leipzig in 1911. 7. The Treaty of Rapallo was followed by a German-Soviet trade agreement in October 1925, see Pohl (1988; 57–110); cf. Cameron (2004), Morgan (1963). 8. StA-L [Leipzig City Archive], Schul-Amt, Nr. 1998 (Fachklassen für Kürschner- und Zurichterlehrlinge, 1923–1945). 9. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11677–11679. 10. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 12353 (1946–1948). 11. For the general trends of the time, see Geschichte der Mode (2021: 290– 297). 12. See The German Fur Trade (1926) for a richly illustrated brochure that includes advertisement by leading local furriers and traders. 13. Cf. Klein (1937: 48–55) for a business management point of view. 14. See for example their advertisement in Amtlicher Katalog (1930: 60). The Eitingons truly were an illustrious family that also brought forth the psychoanalyst Max and the alleged KGB-killer Leonid (Naum), who is said to have orchestrated Trotski’s murder in 1940. For a conjectural account by a descendant that is to be enjoyed with caution, cf. Wilmers (2009). 15. The lithograph, according to its caption “taken from nature in Leipzig by G[ustav] Sundblad,” a local painter and graphic artist (1835–1891), can be found on WikiCommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Die_Gartenlaube_(1875)_b_469.jpg. 16. Fundamental for many of the discussions led at the time about Jewish influence on economic structures was the work on ‘Jewish economic life’ by Werner Sombart (1911) which exhibits the prevalent racist stereotypes that influenced the anti-Semitic politics of the decades to come. 17. StA-L, Fa. Kleemann, Nr. 5. 18. See also the pre-war circulars by the Fachgruppe Rauchwaren und Pelze (‘Functional trade group fur products and pelts’) to its member in StA-L, Fa. Kleemann, Nr. 1.

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19. StA-L, Deutsche Rauchwarengesellschaft mbH, Nr. 15, 30 (circular nr. 1/42, 2 January 1942): “Der deutsche Rauchwarenhandel kann hier erneut unter Beweis stellen, wie er zu seinem Führer und seinen Soldaten steht.” 20. StA-L, Deutsche Rauchwarengesellschaft mbH, Nr. 15, 77–79 versa (Feldpostbrief Nr. 12, December 1940). 21. StA-L, Amt für Kriegssachschäden, Nr. 188–189; Nr. 668–670. The fire raged for days; 140.000 people lost their homes and thousands were killed–Lehmstedt (2013). 22. A desired side effect of this was to counter the trading in furs on the flourishing black market, see “Der Brühl – wirklich ein Sumpf!,” Leipziger Volkszeitung 58 (28 July 1946), “Neugestaltung der Rauchwarenbranche,” Leipziger Volkszeitung 23 (28 January 1947), both filed in StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11676, 22, 70. An exemplary trial can be found in StA-L, Fa. Kleemann, Nr. 6. 23. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11676. For a case file on reparation accounting, see StA-L, Deutsche Rauchwarengesellschaft mbH, Nr. 16. Cf. Schweisfurth (2000). 24. StA-L, Deutsche Rauchwarengesellschaft mbH, Nr. 17, 42–43. 25. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11103. 26. Cf. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11691. 27. StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11689, 57.

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Archival Sources Cited Stadtarchiv Leipzig [Leipzig City Archive] StA-L, Amt für Kriegssachschäden, Nr. 188–189; Nr. 668–670. StA-L, Deutsche Rauchwarengesellschaft mbH, Nr. 15–17. StA-L, Fa. Kleemann, Nr. 1; Nr. 5; Nr. 6. StA-L, Schul-Amt, Nr. 1998 (Fachklassen für Kürschner- und Zurichterlehrlinge, 1923–45). StA-L, Stadtverordnetenversammlung und Rat der Stadt Leipzig um 1945–1990, Nr. 11103; Nr. 11676–11679; Nr. 11689; Nr. 11691; Nr. 12353 (1946– 1948).

Early Soviet Consumption as a First “Battle” on the Cultural Front Iryna Skubii

Arjun Appadurai considers consumption practices as an outgrowth of and dependent on politics (1988, pp. 56–58). Consumption and advertisement constituted a major part of the experiences of Soviet society and the functioning of the planned economic system. Trying to fill up their consumer baskets, ordinary citizens faced with various issues, which resulted in the evolvement of a set of everyday practices. These prevailing grim pictures of everyday realities made their way into historical scholarship, where the Soviet Union have been predominantly considered a repair economy, with the constant shortages, queues, poverty, and social crises as the key features of its social and economic system (Osokina 2005; Gerasimova and Chuikina 2009, pp. 58–74; Crowley and Reid 2012, pp. 3–52). Though the studies represent the noninherent “character” of the Soviet social order, one should move beyond the concepts of the “culture of shortage” and “economy of scarcity” and the explanatory tropes of

I. Skubii (B) Department of History, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_6

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their framework, such as “scarcity” and “poverty,” as Serguei Oushakine suggests (2014, p. 201). Consumption of elite commodities is another side of Soviet everyday realities. It was based on privileges and access to limited resources. Those realities coexisted despite that a significant portion of the population was deprived of access to essential goods. While millions barely made ends meet, a minor part of society was able to “enjoy small pleasures and even bigger privileges,” as Jukka Gronow writes (2003, p. 13). Aiming to contribute to the extensive scholarship on the socialist trade and consumption culture in the first decades of communist rule (Osokina 2001; Hessler 2004; Randall 2008; Hilton 2012), this chapter will expand further on some lesser-studied areas of the field: elite and prestigious commodities. Although the ambiguous relationships with some of these goods, such as cars, drinks, and food delicacies, have already been examined (Gronow 2003; Siegelbaum 2011), the chapter will focus specifically on some “small pleasures”–chocolate and furs. As the historical scholarship has already uncovered the tensions that existed between the consumption practices of elite commodities and collectivist ideology (Siegelbaum 2011, p. ix), the chapter will focus on their meanings in the Soviet cultural context and draw from Arjun Appadurai’s definition of luxury commodities–ones that are “not so much in contrast to necessities as a contrast filled with problems, but as goods whose principal use is rhetorical and social” (1988, p. 38). As in the Soviet Union, the social and cultural meanings of elite goods played a major role, since the first days of power, when the Bolsheviks were extremely critical of the “old,” bourgeoise, consumption culture. In this sense, one could argue that consumption became the area of one of the first “battles” of the new communist state on the cultural front, raging both against inner and outside enemies. Chocolate and furs, perceived initially as a major representation of anticommunist behavior, became consequently seen as one of the most characteristic material incarnations of prestigious consumption and non-inherent signs of Soviet modernity and prosperity. Even though millions of Soviet citizens, in particular in Ukraine, had to survive three famines during the time of peace, elite consumer practices were a distinctive feature of everyday life and the social hierarchies emerging around new political and economic elites (Skubii 2019). In the early Soviet period, luxury goods, as Jukka Gronow demonstrates, helped the Bolshevik authorities create the Soviet Union’s material culture, nurturing “cultured consumers” and their “proper” (meaning

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Soviet) tastes (Gronow 2003, pp. 17–66). In the following decades, in the middle and late Soviet era, the “appetite for luxury” manifested itself in a specific set of elite commodities capable of producing the symbolic meanings of distinction (Tikhomirova 2010, pp. 283–308). This chapter draws on a wide range of sources, including the state documentation originating from Soviet Ukraine’s regional authorities, local industries, and the customs service, literary and film fiction, advertisements, and newspapers, to analyze how elite commodities were “seen” by the early Soviet ideology and how this view was represented in commercial and state advertisements of the 1920–1930s. By looking at the commercial advertisement during the Stalin years, one could expand our understanding of consumption in Soviet propaganda and its contribution in creation of Soviet modernity (Cox 2003, pp. 125–126). As the emergence of the so-called world of Soviet goods took a non-linear path, from rejection to adoption, and later from adoption to appropriation, this chapter will uncover the logic behind the advertisements of elite goods in the early Soviet period. This chapter begins with a discussion of why prestigious consumption became the arena of rivalry. Following this analysis, it illuminates the place of chocolate and furs as objects of ideological criticism and social belonging. It then traces how these goods made their way through the tenets of communist ideology, from social discreditation to state promotion. The concluding part of the chapter provides the explanations why, given the analyzed relationships with elite commodities, the early Soviet cultural “battle” failed.

A First Cultural “Battle” Since the early 1920s, with its emergence as a new socialist state, the Soviet Union made tremendous efforts to create an alternative space of communist modernity (Kotkin 1997; Steinberg 2002; Hoffmann 2014; Krylova 2014; David-Fox 2015). Kul’turnost,’ or cultureness, became the major manifestation of the new socialist values and ideas, which the Bolshevik authorities aimed to raise in society. As the “battle” against the bourgeois style of life started immediately as the communists came to power and imposed their control over the market and social relations, it became a starting point for the development of a communist-driven understanding of culture and values. The ideology of the emerging state was based on the critique of the “Western” way of life while focusing

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on the search for internal and outside enemies. Although the Bolshevik criticisms were predominantly focused on anthropomorphic adversaries, such as “Whites”, “Western imperialists”, and Ukrainian “nationalists”, a significant amount of their attention was concentrated on the material possessions of their opponents, i.e., their symbols of prosperity and wealth. Serguei Oushakine argues that for Soviet society, “the battle against goods was indistinguishable from the battle for goods” (2020, p. 89). While the Soviet Union would aim to prove its economic superiority in the following years, during the first Five-Year Plans, its authorities focused major attention on the cultural front. As elite goods and commodities were considered inseparable indicators of political and social status, they were placed at the epicenter of the first battle against the “West.” Owing to years of deprivation due to the World War I, national revolutions, and civil wars, the population of the former Russian empire had to survive significant everyday hardships. The first political and economic course of action imposed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 (so-called military communism) initiated an extremely militant approach toward the wealthy social classes, predominantly entrepreneurs (nepmen) and wealthy peasants (kulaks ). This also resulted in the proliferation of the unofficial economy and the decades-long ideological hostility to private ownership and property (Davies et al. 1994, p. 6). The limited restoration of the market following the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 neither led to a significant reconsideration of communist antimaterialist dogmas nor resulted in any crucial mitigation of the existing perceptions of the “former” privileged social groups. The beginning of the ideological critique against elite commodities coincided with the years of the aforementioned “military communism” and the post-revolutionary famine of 1921–1923, which encompassed Soviet Ukraine, South Russia, and the Volga region. As the correspondence of children’s homes illustrates, in addition to food, the starving lacked clothing, shoes, and underwear (Perepiska 1923, p. 42). This dire situation forced the majority of the starving and underprivileged population to re-evaluate their everyday needs (Movchan 1990; Fedotova 2018). In the early 1920s, although a significant number of people were barely making ends meet, the restoration of the economy entailed the need to develop commercial advertising. Although some “old communists” perceived the use of any market instruments as a betrayal of the

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revolution, discussions regarding whether state institutions should use any market instruments took place at all levels of the Soviet regime. In November 1921, Vladimir Lenin argued that “[t]rade is such a branch […] which we should grab with all forces available to us. If now we ‘grab’ this branch, then in the near future we would be able to take control over the whole chain.” (1974, p. 214). The discussions held in 1922 at Second Congress of the All-Ukrainian Executive Committee were aligned with his suggestions: “… we [Soviets] are creating a new force of capital, with all the negative properties it bears, […] to subordinate this force, the state of workers and peasants must play in this force the leading role” (Stenograficheskii otchet 1922, p. 41). According to this logic, advertising was considered not only as the tool of communist propaganda and a mouthpiece of communist ideology, but also an economic instrument that the Soviet authorities would need to use. Since the foundation of the NEP, commercial advertisements in combination with communist ideologic slogans had become important tools for industrial propaganda, aiming to promote the consumption of everyday commodities (Tverdiukova 2014, p. 213). Inspired by the constructivist movement, the idea behind socialist advertising was to promote commodities of “cultural significance” and confront the petit bourgeois desires of a consumer more generally (Kiaer 2008, p. 174). Considered as symbols of social belonging to “former” privileged classes, almost all elite commodities were immediately “ostracized”. The growth of the new communist elite coexisted together with the social deprivation and inequality faced by the majority of the population. As the early 1920s press illustrated, a worker wearing good clothes and boots could easily be accused of being “bourgeois” (Prodavaite odezhdu 1922). However, despite the everyday hardships and ideological critique, prestigious goods did not disappear from the Soviet consumer landscape. In fact, the opposite was true, since they remained instrumental in the consumption practices of opposing social classes, such as private entrepreneurs and the newly emerging upper strata, party elites, and upper-level bureaucrats.

Chocolate and Furs as Objects of Ideological Criticism and Social Belonging Following the October Revolution, the scarcities of everyday life and the presence of a hostile ideology toward the prosperous lifestyle turned noneveryday foods and clothes into decadent luxury items, the presence of

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which was initially against the principles of “a true Communist” and the Revolutionary doctrine of taste (Gurova 2006, p. 92). Chocolate and furs were among those items that fomented significant ideological confrontations in the “battle” between “old” and “new”, between “bourgeois” comfort and communist ascetism. Hence, the communist ideology condemned chocolate and furs as decadent luxury items representing selfindulgent consumerism, false beauty, and a philistine way of life. The manifestations of excessive consumption were associated with the comfort and material well-being of the former “bourgeois” class. As the objects of ideological criticism in the communist propaganda, elite and prestigious commodities were usually not advertised through the official marketing campaigns. In the early Soviet decades, the hostility of the communist ideology toward excessive consumption behavior and bourgeois material culture left out many elite goods outside of the socalled pantheon of officially promoted goods. While being integral for consumption practices of the upper strata, i.e., party elites, upper-level bureaucrats, and the state-praised intelligentsia, the elite commodities were officially “ostracized.” The establishment of Soviet power caused revolutionary changes in the ownership of the industrial enterprises. While in the pre-revolutionary Russian empire, private entrepreneurs played a leading role in the confectionery industry, with the introduction of the NEP and the easing of restrictions on private trade and small-scale industry, they were prevented from acquiring control over this large industry. In Kharkiv, the early capital of Soviet Ukraine, one of the best-known production facilities in the confectionery industry was the former Georges Borman’s factory. Before the revolution, its trademark was known all over the empire and Europe for its high-quality chocolate. After 1917, the factory was nationalized and taken under control of Soviet authorities, and consequently, in 1922, it was renamed–with a symbolical reference to the Bolsheviks’ revolution–Oktiabr’ (October). Alongside being given this new communist name which brought along ideologic implications, the enterprise was aiming to learn how to use marketing tools in order to promote the produced assortments and to compete against private entrepreneurs (Kiaer 2008, p. 172). Contrary to the Moscow-based marketing giant Mossel’prom 1 that regulated processing and food industry in Moscow hubernia and where two highly acclaimed constructivist artists Aleksandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Mayakovsky worked, it had access to limited resources. Although this

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trend was central to Soviet propaganda and visual representations abroad, it was not actively incorporated at the republican and peripheral level. As the example of the Kharkiv factory illustrated, they had a much more restrained approach to their advertisements. The visual images of this confectionary were simple and plain. As can be seen from the example of the gilded marmalade, this consisted of several images depicting the produced assortment pictured on a solid color background (Khar’kov). However, even this simplistic approach to marketing was meant to appeal to local privileged consumers. The existence of state-owned confectionary factories and some successful marketing ventures did not significantly change the social perception of chocolate as a luxury item. Indulgence in chocolate was mainly associated with those “opportunistic” representatives of Soviet society who benefited from easing state control over the economy (LeBlanc 2018, pp. 6–7). In the first years of Soviet power, the aura around chocolate was effectively captured in Aleksandr TarasovRodionov’s novel Shokolad (Chocolate) ([1922] 1930), which highlighted the life of a Cheka, secret police, official called Zudin, whose career was fatally destroyed due to his failure to appreciate the powerful and destructive allure of chocolate. In the novel, chocolate was depicted as a delicious foreign food and an object of bribery, which eventually became the reason for Zudin’s arrest and execution. During his interrogation, he explained his rationale for helping Elena Val’ts, a ballet dancer and White Guard sympathizer: “I would help her shake off the cobwebs of the despicable bourgeois mode of life […] But, apparently, I made a mistake: chocolate proved to be stronger” (Tarasov-Rodionov [1922] 1930). In another dialog, Zudin criticized the existence of chocolate per se: “There are many places where there is a great deal of sweet chocolate, […] but that is alien to us. We are not at all accustomed to it. With its softness, it only hinders us in our cruel struggle: and since that is the case, we do not need it” (Tarasov-Rodionov [1922] 1930). Supporting the ideological narrative, this literary fiction represents chocolate as a symbol that could easily harm one’s social image. Being extremely popular among the younger generation of communists, the novel effectively illustrated how the new Soviet men and women should resist the enticing temptation of chocolate, the representation of bodily pleasures, that could hinder one from the total dedication to the communist state (LeBlanc 2018, p. 13). Tarasov-Rodionov, the author, depicted chocolate as a luxury food product and a source of bourgeois comfort

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that, according to the “proletarian standards” of ethical conduct, should be avoided. He argued that real Bolsheviks do not eat chocolate, while their class enemies are chronically addicted to its sensual pleasures. His understanding is reflected in the norms of communist ideology, according to which a Soviet consumer should be opposed to middle-class comforts and be able to battle with them on the imaginary cultural front. Indeed, as Eric Neiman notes, during the NEP, excesses in gastronomic consumption were perceived as a sign of social corruption that was helpful in distinguishing members of the bourgeois elite from their hard-working proletarian counterparts (1997, p. 214). A more nuanced picture of elite consumption and its social perception and marketing is illustrated by the example of non-food commodities, in particular furs. After the years of revolution, the ensuing economic devastation caused a significant decline in the internal fur market. It was 1923 before the Bolsheviks seized the Far North and started the “economic transformations” that would benefit the emerging communist society and fur industry. Many fur traders left the region, causing supplies to dwindle (Demuth 2019, pp. 105–109). The “uneven” development of the fur industry resulted in the unstable functioning of its network across the Soviet republics and its urban markets. According to the data, in 1922, only two shops sold furs in Kharkiv (Materialy 1922, p. 78). The recurring shortages of goods led consumers to the “black market”, which was flourishing, especially in the big cities: one could easily find almost any elite commodities, e.g., watches, silk brocade, silk shirts, white silk for blouses, imported shoes, black silk capes, overcoats, and ekspri (feathers for women’s hats) (Zahal’ne lystuvannya 1928–1929, pp. 1, 3– 6; O zaderzhanii 1928–1929, pp. 2–6). Ostap Bender, a famous hero of Il’f and Petrov’s novel Zolotoi telenok (Golden Calf) (1931), elaborated on the intricacies of the co-existence of state control and the private market in the 1920s: “What a cold country we live in. Everything is hidden there; everything is underground. Even the Commissariat of Finance with its super-powerful tax apparatus could not find a Soviet millionaire” (Il’f and Petrov 2018, p. 36). With the increasing smuggling rates, the state tried to impose more control on the private market and forbade illegal activities that threatened its monopoly on foreign trade. Even insignificant packages containing furs or other prestigious foreign goods were confiscated (Zahal’ne lystuvannya 1928–1929, p. 3). The tightening of state control over private trade did not stop entrepreneurs from bringing elite commodities to

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their consumers, nor did it deter them from willing to possess such desired high-status commodities. Wealthy female consumers demanded cosmetics, henna, basma, nail lacquers, jewelry, and pearls (Zahal’ne lystuvannya 1928–1929, p. 4). Less well-off citizens were often deceived by experienced traders who knew how to pass off cheap goods as betterquality commodities and how to make fakes out of less expensive items. In addition, the high demand for furs and the lack of stable supply brought to the market different types of animal furs. In 1928, among the items confiscated by the Kharkiv customs service were coats trimmed with less desirable kinds of fur, such as rabbit, squirrel, and mole (Zahal’ne lystuvannya 1928–1929, p. 6). Being instrumentalized as symbols of social status, furs and other prestigious commodities became indistinguishable elements of the illegal market and wealthy consumers. The latter’s prosperity was perceived critically both by the representatives of the Soviet authorities and the former elites. The well-known professor and rector of Kharkiv University after the World War II, Ivan Mykolayovych Bulankin, while a student there in the 1920s, captured in his memoirs the apparent social diversity among the students. He argued that it was their outfits that visually represented the social and economic hierarchy: The diversity of faces and clothes was striking. A big melting pot was there: young people avoiding military service, sons and daughters of merchants, speculators, children of former officials, unsuccessful officers, and just Whites hiding under the ‘canopy’ of a Soviet university [...]. There was a variety of garments, including shabby coats, frayed student raincoats, faded flattened student caps—a sign of an ‘old student’—the blue bands of new entrants glittered with novelty, polished buttons with a doubleheaded eagle on a student jacket, bought especially on the occasion of admission to the [former] University […]. Occasionally new fur coats—a sign of the embryonic nepman class. (Ivashchenko 2016, pp. 177–178)

As one can see from Bulankin’s account, the rare students who wore a fur coat were considered representatives of a new economic elite, nepmen, the only ones who could afford an expensive fur coat. Belonging to this social class did not provide them with any direct social or economic privileges, given the strict state regulatory and tax policies imposed on private entrepreneurs and members of their families (Volosnyk 2014). However, some still chose to display their economic prosperity.

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Penelope Eckert’s theory of “communities of practice” suggests a framework for understanding of such demonstrative consumer behavior (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992). Referring to its explanation, Peter Berta argues that the members of such communities “are bound together by shared interest and shared (passive or active) participation, by a consensus on the meanings, patterns, and value preferences” (2019, p. 12). Developing this theoretical framework further, one can argue that fur coats were popular among private entrepreneurs of the 1920s because of their willingness to display their belonging to a shared community of practice, a prosperous class, and also as a way to compensate themselves for their exclusion from state-privileged social groups. Looking at Torstein Veblen’s theory of “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen 1984), one could argue that buying fur coats was a conscious choice of some consumers, who were more interested in displaying their level of wealth than adapting their consumer demands to Soviet ideology. Partially, this was also the case with less prosperous consumers, i.e., ordinary workers and peasants. As scholars argue, working women felt happiest when they could appear in public wearing well-made, expensive clothing because this indicated that they had better taste and financial means than common laborers (Sukovata 2009, p. 76). In a well-known satirical novel, Dvenadtsat’ stul’ev (Twelve Chairs) (1927), one can find a vivid description of these types of women, who imitated the luxurious lifestyles of wealthy Americans or the daughters of billionaires by wearing fur coats made from dog and rabbit pelts instead of mink and sable (Il’f and Petrov 2009). As this fictional story illustrates, the shortages and expense of prestigious furs allowed less wealthy consumers to replace them with more affordable types. However, even in this case, their consumer behavior was guided by the need to demonstrate their social and economic status. A different perception of everyday reality is pictured in the novel Misto (City) (1928), authored by the Ukrainian writer Valerian Pidmohylnyi. In this famous literary work, he describes the lifelike case of a young man perusing window displays and looking at the different sweets and types of chocolate, despite having no money with which to buy any of them: “He is consumed by gloomily eyeing lots of biscuits, […], rum pies, gellied nuts, a lot of chocolate, […] and cakes of different types and content” (1929, p. 64). Although relative prosperity had been achieved by the end of the 1920s, everyday shortages, long queues for state and cooperative shops, and rationing cards became a new reality for ordinary

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consumers (Osokina 2001, pp. 3–28). As was illustrated in the novel, unobtainable foods and goods caught the imagination of passers-by once they appeared in a shop window. Being either advertised by some private traders and state enterprises or criticized in literary fiction, the image of sweet chocolate and beautiful fur coats was still a powerful instrument of social belonging.

From Public Discreditation to State Promotion The peculiarity of the Soviet economic and social system lay in the coexistence of two different realities that represented: the real situation of the common people and the one that existed in state plans. The plans for large-scale industrialization, as Mark Harrison argues, deprived a significant number of peasants of their essential foods to the benefit of the growing number of urban workers and their families; nor were these peasants promised a rapid improvement in their living standards (1994, pp. 52–53). Due to the series of famines in the 1920s and 1930s, which left the vast of rural and urban population on the verge of survival (Movchan 1990; Kis 2013; Cameron 2018), elite and non-essential goods became unattainable commodities for a significant proportion of the starving and undernourished population. Despite these tragic realities of everyday life, from the early 1930s, the much-discredited luxury foods and clothes became the focus of the state’s economic planning. In addition to the existing focus on heavy industry introduced by to the First Five-Year Plan, new consumer goods and household items quickly became the object of ideological propaganda and state-marketing campaigns, both in internal and in external markets. The state’s industrial enterprises and retailing agencies actively promoted the growing assortment of goods (Liakhov 1972, 1977). One of the examples of early Soviet fur marketing campaigns is the cover for an exhibition folder, created in 1930 by the highly acclaimed artist El Lissitsky (Liakhov 1972, p. 107). Picturing a man holding a huge animal skin, while some smaller ones were placed at the exhibition stand, the image aimed to advertise fur exports and portray them as a representation of the Soviet state. Although the northern regions of former Russian empire traditionally played a leading role in the fur-trapping industry (Demuth 2019, p. 108), the central and southern areas also occupied a significant place in the state export plans. As can be seen from the data, in the early 1930s, despite the famine in Ukraine, known as the Holodomor, the republic was

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expected to fulfill its fur quotas in the export plan. Subsequently, however, in December 1933, according to Kharkiv’s export council, the yearly plans for furs were not fulfilled and only reached 43.7 percent due to the unsatisfactory rates in collecting barn rats, dogs, and minks. However, as the example of gophers illustrates, the plan for some wild animals’ furs was overfulfilled sevenfold (Kalinichenko 2009, p. 76). This drastic increase in the collected skins could be explained by the fact that the realities of everyday survival forced peasants to consume gophers en masse (Borodin et al. 2008, p. 1128), leading to the rise in collected furs. This grim reality was not reflected in the state press. The readers of one of the leading regional newspaper of Soviet Ukraine Sotsialistychna Kharkivshchyna (Socialistic Kharkiv Region) were encouraged to buy a diverse assortment of women’s fur jackets, coats, cloaks, and other commodities made of furs, though with a price discount: “In UKRMEKhTORG’s2 shop [former UKRSBYTPUShNINA]3 on Svobodnaia Academia street from January 19th prices will be reduced by up to 45 percent” (V magazine 1934). This promotional information was aimed predominantly at upper-level consumers, such as top- and highranking state employees with high salaries and access to the rationing system (Osokina 2001, pp. 70–81). For party officials, nomenklatura, and the managerial staff of industrial enterprises (so-called red directors), the possession of elite goods was a symbol of their high social status and prosperity (Skubii 2019, p. 204). As a result of the state’s promotion and the softening of restrictions on the consumption of elite goods, the demand for clothes containing fur grew. In fact, production could not keep up with demand, having to rely on artificial furs either for collars or coats (Perepiska 1931, p. 7, 15). The rebirth of chocolate in the 1930s went through a similar “recognition” path to that of furs, with hundreds of types becoming available (Gronow 2003, p. 6). Being among the most highly praised of Soviet consumer goods, this was presented as a sign of having achieved a happy and prosperous life. In the local press, one can find images of formerly unacceptable chocolates. Hence, the photograph of an Oktiabr’ confectionary factory worker constructing chocolate bombs for children was a symbolic shift in militarization and consumption politics (Shokoladyni tsekh 1935; Skubii 2021, pp. 62–64). Since chocolate had made it into the official ideological discourse, it suggested that the earlier problems with shortages, the insufficient quality of goods, and rationing had been

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eliminated. As Julie Hessler argues, the Soviet state was willing to stimulate this “rational” demand and tried to promote the consumption of new products (2004, p. 213). From the mid-1930s, a so-called novelty fever emerged, with chocolate factories producing a growing number of new products. Jukka Gronow calculates that, in 1935 alone, the confectionary industry created for the Soviet market around two thousand new commodities (2003, pp. 51–52). However, similar to furs, chocolate was not in the list of the everyday goods for ordinary Soviet consumers, including workers and peasants. By the end of the 1930s, the crucial shifts in Soviet ideology and cultivated consumption practices were highlighted in the famous cookbook and household guide, Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche (The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food) (1939). In its introduction, Anastas Mikoyan, who had held position of the head of the Ministry of the Food Industry in 1934–1938, a leading figure in the field, outlined the main idea behind the concept of the new Soviet consumption: The most important task is to awaken new tastes in the population, to create new demand, to educate new needs, cravings for the new products, for the new assortments. We should not wait till fresh demand will emerge by itself and bring to life new industries and new products. On the contrary, it is necessary to break old habits actively. And it is very difficult to do so […] Our task is to introduce the most nutritious, the tastiest products into consumption, to provide further rapid improvement in health, the fortress of the Soviet person, based on an abundance of products, based on the care of the people, based on a prosperous, cultural life. (Kniga 1939, p. 24)

The cookbook provided about a dozen different recipes with chocolate, such as chocolate and cacao, chocolate and milk, chocolate mousse, chocolate souse, and chocolate butter. While reading this manual of Soviet cuisine, a new Soviet consumer could find valuable advice on cooking, preserving, and eating chocolate (Kniga 1939, pp. 234–236). By teaching how to cook dishes made with chocolate as a newly available food ingredient, state officials were aiming to develop new food and consumer tastes among the masses of ordinary consumers. The fact that recipes with chocolate as a key ingredient had finally made it into this iconic book of Soviet cuisine was an “official permission” to incorporate it into the world of socialist consumption.

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Instead a Conclusion: The End of the Early Soviet Cultural Battle? In the history of Soviet society, consumption had played an exceptionally crucial role, although it could also be compared with the historical analogy of the “Trojan horse”. During the 1920s and 1930s, the space of elite consumption and advertising became an example of confrontation and of the soft adaptation of newly established Soviet ideological, social, and economic norms. Since the Bolsheviks established themselves in power, consumers had witnessed drastic and revolutionary transformations in attitudes toward the perceptions of luxury goods. Although, in the 1920s, furs and chocolate were the objects of severe ideological criticism, by the mid-1930s the shift in consumer ideology had made them appropriate for proletarian consumers. If in the post-revolutionary years and the NEP era, these goods were perceived as hostile, in the 1930s, through the means of different mediums, including advertisements, the Soviet state actively promoted their recognition as symbols of the new Soviet taste and modernity. From the mid-1930s, many new types of food, drinks, and consumer goods, formerly criticized as markers of bourgeois decadence, became symbols of the achievement of material well-being and of the economic prosperity of Soviet society. The continuation of this process can be traced up to the late Soviet society. The satirical depiction of the world of furs as a crucial instrument of social hierarchies was sharply criticized in the novel Fur Hat (Shapka) (1991), authored by the emigrant writer Vladimir Voinovich. In the post-Soviet period, despite the former republics of the USSR facing deep economic crises, chocolate still played a significant role in elite consumption practices and even became a symbol of new social inequalities, hierarchies, and corruption (Patico 2002). Critical reflections on the process of recognizing elite commodities during the 1920s and 1930s and their advertisements shed light on the dialectics of the Soviet culture of consumption and material culture. As Hessler points out, it was luxuries that formed the cornerstone of “cultured Soviet trade” (2004, p. 215). Although a significant number of consumers across the regions of the country did not have a chance to enjoy the taste and pleasures of the newly promoted goods either due to shortages or survival crises, the incorporation of so-called bourgeois commodities into the official landscape of the new Soviet consumption

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became an evocative illustration of the lost “battle” against “Western” consumerism. Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to the editors of this volume, in particular, to Heidi Hein-Kircher, for exceptionally valuable comments on the chapter and to my thesis supervisor Rebecca Manley for the thought-stimulating discussions on the place of furs in Soviet everyday life.

Notes 1. Mossel’prom—Moscow All-Union State Trest of Processing of Agricul-tural Products. 2. UKRMEKhTORG—Ukrainian Fur Trade Organization. 3. UKRSBYTPUShNINA—Ukrainian Fur Distribution Organization.

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Voinovich, Vladimir. 1991. The Fur Hat. San Diego, New York, London: Mariner Books. Volosnyk, Yu.P. 2014. Pidpryyemtsi i pryvatne pidpryyemnytstvo v radyans’kiy derzhavi v dobu NEPu (na materialakh Ukrayiny). Kharkiv: Kontrast. V magazine UKRMEKhTORGA. 1934. Sotsialistychna Kharkivshchyna. January 24. Zahal’ne lystuvannya konf[iskatsiyno]-realiz[atsiynoho] vid[dilu] na 1928/9 byud[zhetnyy] rik. 1928–1929. State Archive of Kharkiv Region. Fund 341, inventory 2, folder 431.

“They Even Gave Us Pork Cutlets for Breakfast”: Foreign Tourists and Eating-Out Practices in Socialist Romania During the 1960s and the 1980s Adelina Stefan

In 1974, Vacances en Roumanie, a Romanian tourist magazine published abroad (in French, English, and German languages) advertised the newly built “Caraiman” Restaurant in Mamaia, a resort on the Romanian Black Sea Coast, as “beautifully resembling the Moldavian monasteries, so exquisite in their simplicity and rurality.”1 The references to rurality and religion might look odd in a socialist regime that placed modernization at its core. However, when it came to tourism, the Romanian socialist regime skillfully blended references to religion and folk traditions with modernity, with the purpose of attracting a large number of foreign tourists. The advertisement of traditional Romanian cuisine as a component of cultural heritage was also part of the socialist regime’s strategy

A. Stefan (B) University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg e-mail: [email protected] Maison Des Sciences Humaines, Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_7

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to encourage foreign tourists, especially from capitalist countries, to visit Romania. References to food became ubiquitous in tourist magazines, promotional films, posters, or brochures, and tourist flyers. In 1973, Remember, a Sahia documentary film geared at Romanian diaspora in the United States, lavishly displayed Romanian dishes, such as pork fat eaten with bread, in order to elicit their nostalgia and, hence, to persuade them to return as tourists.2 But to the dismay of tourist promoters, foreign tourists, be they of Romanian origins or not, often did not want pork fat or meat in their meals, as they came from slightly different culinary cultures. In fact, in the 1970s, numerous surveys conducted at the request of the Ministry of Tourism revealed a plethora of complaints regarding the overabundance of low-quality fat in the food served in restaurants that branded themselves as offering international cuisine.3 Strikingly enough, this practice went against the official recommendation (i.e., manuals for chefs) that emphasized the importance of diversified menus, which would mostly include vegetables and rice. (Chirv˘asu˘a, Grigoriu 1980: 23). This chapter examines this conundrum with a focus on how and why traditional/national cuisine became part of the tourist advertising in socialist Romania. It explores how food was depicted in promotional materials designed for Western tourists and what the official policies regarding food service in restaurants were, but also how foreign tourists, who arrived from the “capitalist West”, read this message. I show that there was a tension between the way in which Romanian tourist advertisement used food to popularize socialist Romania as a travel destination and the actual services foreign tourists received in restaurants. In the end, this tension led to dissatisfied tourists, which, in part, compromised the socialist project of marketing Romania through national cuisine. With some exceptions, the topic of food and tourism under socialism has remained signally under researched. Wendy Bracewell’s work on cookbooks and consumption in socialist Yugoslavia has shown how cookbooks speak about the intricate relationship between socialist consumerism, women’s status, and the pursuit of nationalism in a multi-ethnic nation. (Bracewell 2012:169–196). A 2017 special issue in Gastronomica “Culinary Revolutions: Food, History, and Identity in Russia and EastCentral Europe” has added to the literature on food during socialism. (Neuburger, Livers, 2017:1–8) Yet the focus remained on Russia and the Soviet Union, while the smaller Eastern European states have been rather overlooked. One major exception is Mary Neuburger’s article about food policies and representations in travel writing on the Bulgarian Black Sea

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coast. In her piece, she convincingly shows that food was an important component of tourist attraction during socialism, but also part of the promise of “the good life”, that the Bulgarian communist regime was striving to fulfill, in order to acquire both domestic and international legitimacy. (Neuburger 2017: 48–60). Romanian communist officials too wanted to put on display the “good life” that socialism brought about, and improving facilities of eating out and food options for tourists became one means of accomplishing this goal. Tourist specialists in Romania followed tourist developments and success (sometimes with a jealous eye) in their neighboring socialist countries, but also elsewhere. Similar to Bulgaria, Soviet Union, or Yugoslavia, socialist Romania too aimed at developing a national cuisine that would showcase not just socialism as a way of life, but also a so-called Romanian specificity in terms of foods and drinks. This stance coincided with the surge in nationalist rhetoric in the early 1960s (Kemp 1999: 149– 154). The adoption of nationalism alongside Marxism-Leninism took place against the backdrop of Romania’s political elites’ wish to develop the country’s industrial sector. As the Soviet Union planned an economic integration through COMECON, that would have turned Romania into an agrarian country, Romanian officials opposed this and sought to grow heavy industry with the help of Western technology. But Western imports were also meant to improve the availability of consumer goods, and one of the main reasons for this was the fact that Romania planned to welcome western tourists. In fact, international tourism became the poster child of the economic opening toward the West throughout the 1960s, while food served to these foreign visitors was meant to offer a taste of Romanian identity and culture, but also of the modernity and progress that socialism engendered. Specialists agree that, compared to other socialist East European countries, Romania turned nationalism into a core ideology, that became synonym with self-determination in relation to the Soviet Union and with Romania’s specific path to socialism. (Verdery 1995: 102) Against this backdrop, food served to Western tourists became a political act, as it was supposed to epitomize both the availability of consumer goods and certain positive national values, such as hospitality and generosity. Based on archival documents from the Romanian National Archives, Central Committee Collection, but also the holdings of the Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, which have been recently made available to researchers, as well as on travel magazines and textbooks for

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chefs, this article shows how food served to tourists from capitalist countries was advertised as a marker of both Romanian identity and of the socialist regime’s economic success. Yet, due to both systemic imbalances (i.e., the regime’s particular response to economic crisis in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the lack of coordination within the tourist sector) and everyday life tensions (i.e., some tourist workers’ wish to have personal gains from their workplace against the backdrop of everyday shortages), the availability of food and the service provided in restaurants remained below the standards aimed at by the regime. This chapter examines this riddle with an eye to how food advertising and consumption mirrored both the advent of socialist modernization and its limits in Romania from the 1960s into the 1980s. In the first part of the chapter, I look at how international tourism with the capitalist West began in Romania in the late 1950s and early 1960s; in the second part, I follow the socialist regime’s food policies and advertising within the tourism industry, while in the last part I examine tourists’ consumption practices in restaurants with the help of two oral history interviews and two opinion polls made by the National Institute for the Research and Development in Tourism in 1969 and, respectively, in 1974.

Developing International Tourism in the 1960s In the late 1950s and early 1960s, socialist Romania developed a taste for international tourism. If during the early to mid-1950s, foreign visitors came mostly from neighboring socialist countries, as of the late 1950s and early 1960s, tourists from Western Europe, United States, or Israel started to flock to the Romanian seaside. In 1955, Sorin Firu the head of the newly established National Office for Tourism-Carpathians (henceforth ONT-Carpathians) touted in The New York Times that Romania “plans to throw her gates wide open to tourists.”4 The ONT-Carpathians expected 100,000 tourists to visit especially from “Western Europe and [the] Western Hemisphere.”5 At the same time, S. Firu noted that Romanians were also allowed to travel, and two hundred Romanian tourists were getting ready to leave for Moscow, as he spoke.6 The Romanian government’s intention to re-establish ties with capitalist countries was exemplified by a proposal made to Pan American Airlines, the main airline carrier in the United States, in which it expressed its interest in establishing an airline connection between New York and Bucharest. Hence,

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in August 1956, the chief of Romanian Air Travel (TAROM), Vl. Stângaciu wrote to H.E. Gray, Executive Vice-president of Pan Am’s Atlantic Division with the intention to prospect the chances of such a project: We have the honour to inform you that we are desirous of augmenting the air transport relations between our two companies. It is with this idea that we propose to you that one of your lines make a flight in transit via Bucharest, and if you are in agreement with our proposal we would like to initiate discussions relative to this matter. In the event of your reaction to the above proposal, will you kindly advise us of your agreement and, also, the date on which your representative would come to Bucharest to discuss the matter.7

The proposal took the American company by surprise. After informal consultations with the State Department, Pan Am decided to ignore the Romanians’ proposal. Cold War prejudgements and fears remained strong on both sides. Yet, the number of visitors from capitalist countries continued to grow in socialist Romania. In 1957, 7,800 tourists visited Romania; by 1961, the number of Western tourists reached 40,000.8 The growth of international tourism with Western countries in Romania, in the late 1950s, took place in a historical context marked by the Geneva Summit in 1955, Nikita Khrushchev’s détente, recommendations from Western leftist leaders, and, last but not least, similar trends in other East European socialist countries. Despite the Cold War divide, socialist states were part of the global economy and, after 1955, both the USSR and East European countries began to regard international tourism with capitalist countries as a source of hard currency, but also as a step toward economic reconciliation with the capitalist West.9 From 1955 onward, economic delegations from socialist and capitalist countries met regularly under the umbrella of the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe, to discuss ways in which to mend economic collaboration among them.10 It was also in the mid-1950s, when representatives of tourist agencies from socialist countries started to meet to discuss how to improve international tourism. A summit in Varna, in 1955, put forth some general principles and, in 1957, the national tourist authorities of the COMECON member states held their first conference in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia, to discuss the matter in greater detail11 (Garay 1969: 35, Bechmann Pedersen 2018: 130–145). The meeting focused mostly

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on international tourism within the socialist bloc. It was only from the 1960s onward that socialist countries also sought to develop international tourism across the East–West divide. During the fourth meeting of socialist tourist organizations that took place in Moscow in 1961, tourist delegations from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but also from Mongolia, North Korea, and North Vietnam, addressed more convincingly the possibility of tourist exchanges between socialist and capitalist countries. The second point on the summit’s agenda noted the “importance of developing international tourism between socialist and capitalist countries as a means of popularizing the accomplishments of socialist regimes and of counterattacking the unfriendly imperialist propaganda towards socialist countries.”12 Furthermore, the participants to the meeting emphasized that socialist states could be attractive tourist destinations, as the prices for tourist services were lower than in southern or Western Europe. The meeting also stressed that socialist countries should find ways to promote themselves on the capitalist countries’ tourist market.13 In the socialist officials’ view, tourist relations with capitalist countries could not only counter-attack unfriendly propaganda, but they could also prove that socialist reality was not as gray as the Cold War discourse in the West described it. Last but not least, international tourism was supposed to bring important revenues to socialist economies. During the 1961 meeting, Romania was not the strongest voice in the discussion of tourist relationships with capitalist countries. The Romanian delegates’ main concern was rather to secure the country’s relationships with the other socialist countries. As a result, Romania’s representatives presented a report that tackled the issue of “rest tourism” and the prospects for its development within the socialist bloc.14 Romanian delegates also used this meeting to sign tourist agreements with Intourist (USSR), URBIS (Poland), CEDOK (Czechoslovakia), IBUSZ, and EXPRES (Hungary) for 1962. These actions mirrored the Romanian socialist regime’s perspective on tourism that still emphasized tourism’s role in helping workers to recover and to regain their strength, in order to become more productive at work. However, in the aftermath of this meeting, lured by the possibility to easily acquire hard currencies, Romanian officials became more interested in welcoming tourists from capitalist countries as well. Immediately after the meeting, the Council of Ministers asked for a report about the possibilities to develop tourism with Western countries. The findings, however,

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were far from promising. Although there was an increase in the number of Western tourists (the definition was flexible enough so to include visitors who traveled for business and academic purposes as well) the type of activities available in the tours were rather dull. The report took Bulgaria as an example and, while in the neighboring country, tourists were offered guided tours that focused on the history of the country and on cultural aspects, in Romania Western tourists visited collective farms that usually ended with a “comrade dinner party.”15 Despite this rather gloomy itinerary, some progress became visible. According to a 1963 report of the Propaganda and Foreign Relations Section within the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers Party (RWP), the quality of advertising materials began to improve: If during the previous years the tourist propaganda and the advertising of our country abroad focused only on general information, in 1962 these advertising materials became more detailed. Both printed materials and commercials advertised specific tourist destinations, including information about the travel conditions, prices, and where one can book a vacation to the RPR [Romanian Popular Republic]. Some of the materials were printed in collaboration with the partner travel agencies from abroad, while others were made at the request of foreign firms to be disseminated in their respective markets.16

But advertising was not enough, and concrete measures to improve food and lodging facilities were needed, in order to attract tourists from capitalist countries. In 1964, an internal note from the Economic Direction of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party asked to have tourist specialists, especially from the food sector, sent to France, in order to learn how to welcome foreign tourists and to improve services in restaurants: To boost commercial activities and the professional/technical level of tourist workers, it is necessary to send them abroad in order to get acquainted with the practices of tourism in other countries. Therefore, we recommend the following actions: - To send 15 bakers, pastry cooks, butchers, and grill cooks to France for a one to three-month period. - For the school year term 1964/1965 six students in tourism will study in a hotel/restaurant training school in Paris.

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- We are in the process of negotiating with the International HotelsRestaurants Association to send waiters, hotel workers, and chefs in various countries for six months. - To invite French tourist specialists to visit Romania in the following months, in order to train Romanian students and restaurant workers.17

As international tourism was then a recent priority for the Romanian government, no money was allocated in the budget for this serendipitous trip, so the tourist workers’ training was funded from the Council of Ministers’ emergency fund.18 Yet, in the coming years, the government would take more consistent measures to support international tourism. A 1965 report, put together by the representatives of ONT– Carpathians, the State Committee for Planning, the Ministry of Interior Trade, the Ministry of Finances, and delegates of the counties where tourism was a key economic activity proposed a number of measures to improve the tourist activity in Romania.19 This document was important because, based on its recommendations, the necessary funding was included in the 1966–1971 five-year plan. The conclusion was that international tourism had a high economic efficiency, comparable to that of industries that produced goods to be exported to capitalist countries.20 To support their arguments, they offered concrete numbers: in 1965, one million foreign tourists were expected to visit Romania, as compared to only 200,000 in 1960, while the revenue from international tourism had increased from 34.4 million lei valuta in 1960 to 117 million lei valuta in 1965.21 The most economically beneficial growth was that of the hard currency income, coming from Western tourists. While in 1960, Western tourists contributed 5.3 million lei valuta to the Romanian budget, in the next five years this amount increased 16-fold, reaching 88 million lei valuta in 1965.22 The report proposed an investment in tourism of three billion lei of which 2.3 billion lei were allocated for international tourism, with the mentioning that Romanian tourists could use those respective hotels outside the tourist season and when they were not fully occupied by foreign tourists. The Politburo of the Romanian Communist Party approved of this measure, in the hope that international tourism will deliver the expected results. The main institution in charge with tourism was ONT-Carpathians. This was created in 1955 and placed under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior Trade, while in 1959 it became part of the Union for Physical Education and Sport.23 A new reorganization took place in

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1962, when the institution became in charge for both domestic and international tourism and was transferred from the authority of the Union for Physical Education and Sport to that of the Ministry of Foreign Trade.24 The same decision gave ONT-Carpathians priority access to hotels, restaurants, and other tourist facilities, as well as to the means of transportation for tourist purposes.25 However, in 1966, an internal report by the ONTCarpathians underlined that international tourism could not properly function and flourish as long as the organization did not have control of the entire tourist infrastructure. In 1967, the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party approved of a new reorganization of ONT-Carpathians. Decree No. 32 of the Council of the State granted ONT-Carpathians full responsibilities for “organizing, supervising, and coordinating tourist activities” in Romania.26 That same decree charged ONT-Carpathians with elaborating long-term plans for the development of tourism, its infrastructure, and expected revenues. ONT-Carpathians could sign tourist agreements with foreign agencies, but it also had to make sure that tourists received the services promised in their vouchers because it directly oversaw the accommodation and eating facilities. ONT-Carpathians was empowered to organize trips abroad and within Romania for foreign tourists, and to promote Romania as a tourist destination.27 The ONT-Carpathians’ reorganization streamlined the development of tourism. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers allocated another four billion lei investment in tourism during 1971–1975 five-year plan, while for the 1976–1980 fiveyear plan four more billion lei were added.28 These investments did pay off, as the number of tourists from both capitalist and socialist countries continued to grow in Romania and reached 4.5 million in 1975, rising to7 million in 1980, while the revenues soared from 1313 million lei valuta in 1965–1970 to 3512 million lei valuta during the 1971–1975 five-year plan.29 A large amount of this money went toward building and renewing the tourist infrastructure, including restaurants and other eating facilities. If in the early 1950s, Romanian socialist elites’ view on modernization coincided with that of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and mostly involved the growth of heavy industry, as of late 1950s and early 1960s, consumption and tourism became part of the modernizing strategy as well. Hence, the development of international tourism became part of the Romanian socialist state’s project to modernize and to open the country toward the capitalist West. While modernization was one of the goals of the

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socialist regime from the onset, détente with capitalist West came in the corollary of a change in discourse in both the Soviet Union and socialist Eastern Europe, that understood the economic opportunities which could arise from these contacts. For socialist Romania, the arrival of Western tourists was an avenue to showcase its modernity with the help of the brand-new hotels, restaurants, and shops, but also to supplement its hard currency reserve and, hence, to equalize its balance of payments. When it came to welcoming tourists from the capitalist West, pragmatism silently replaced ideology, while their experience in Romania was supposed to be as exciting as in the better-known Mediterranean region.

Tourism and Food Policies Food is an important part of the tourist experience in any geographical setting or historical context. Lucy M. Long, a folklorist and specialist in food studies, argues that food is one way for tourists to immerse themselves in the culture they are visiting and even become “active agents in constructing meanings within a tourist experience.”(Long 2004:21). Socialist countries also used food to temporarily submerge foreign visitors in the culture they were just getting familiar with (Masterovoy 2017: 323–532). Socialist Romania was not an exception to this rule. Starting in the 1960s, tourist brochures and magazines stressed the uniqueness of Romanian cuisine and praised the variety of eating options for a foreign tourist. For example, a 1969 tourist brochure about Romania published in French presented “where to eat” possibilities: “One can go to a restaurant which serves either international or Romanian food, or to the numerous bistros where the tourist can find anytime in the day warm or cold plates, or one can stop at the various bars and café shops.”30 After this brief introduction, the brochure allocated space on offering details about the Romanian type of food that most of these restaurants and bistros would serve: These restaurants offer Romanian drinks and food. Among Romanian dishes we mention “sarmale” (stuffed grape leaves), Romanian soup called ciorb˘a which can be with meat or vegetables, carp soup, carp in brine, chicken à la grecque, all served with polenta. Also, with polenta goes the cheese, Dobrudja cheese, white cheese, or cream cheese (a sort of cottage cheese with cream). Let’s not forget that the Romanian dishes are always accompanied by tzuica (a type of plum brandy) or wine (Cotnari,

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Murfatlar, Târnave, etc), renowned all over the world for their bouquet and intensity.31

This alluring description of Romanian dishes is accompanied by a caricature of a foreign tourist sitting at a table piled with plates and happily raising his fork and knife like he was prepared to eat everything that was offered to him. A waiter is politely offering him a glass of wine and a cup of coffee. On the next page of the brochure, another caricature portrays a man lying on a barrel and pouring wine into a pitcher. The message that the brochure conveys is that of culinary richness and variety waiting to be discovered by potential tourists. However, this variety of dishes, beside indulging tourist readers in a sort of culinary “exoticism,” was also supposed to make them get a taste of Romanianness. This message becomes even stronger when one looks at the type of restaurants the brochure recommends: out of forty-eight restaurants, thirty-two offer only Romanian type cuisine, while the brochure labels the remaining sixteen as having “classical/international” cuisine.32 The intention was to stress the availability of restaurants offering Romanian dishes for those Western tourists (or any tourist who read French) interested to taste Romanian cuisine, but also to arise the curiosity of those holidaymakers who knew nothing about it. The trope of national cuisine had been present in Romania’s promotion of international tourism since the mid-1960s. Tourist exhibitions that advertised Romania in Western Europe along with tourist guidebooks published in French or English began to include sections on food and restaurants. For instance, for a tourist fair put together in France at Orly Airport, in 1968, Romanian dishes were served at Les Trois Soleils, a luxury restaurant exhibited in the exposition.33 One year later, at another exhibition organized in Brighton, UK, and attended by “fifteen tourist offices from different countries and 80 tourist agencies” a Romanian day festivity was organized.34 Besides the presentation of the newly built resorts on the Black Sea coast and in the mountain region of the Prahova Valley, the event included, along with other cultural artifacts, a session on “Romanian culinary art”.35 Similarly, the general guidebooks of Romania that advertised the country as a tourist destination in the West included short sections on gastronomy. (Stefan 2022: 1–20) Such a travel book, published in 1974 by the Tourist Publishing House (Editura Sport-Turism) together with the West German based Rombach Edition, contained a chapter on Romanian cuisine, which was described as “very

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rich and diversified with dishes that have received many compliments from the connoisseurs.” (Bonifaciu et al. 1974:36). Yet despite this appealing description, when it came to more information (i.e., the address) about specific restaurants that tourists could visit while in Romania, the guidebook offered little to no information. Only the itineraries that detailed the Romanian seaside and the mountain region of Prahova Valley pinpointed several restaurants, like the ones in Constant, a on the Black Sea Coast which “successfully fuse Romanian and international dishes.” (Bonifaciu et al. 1974: 325). However, these restaurants remained unnamed, and a less informed tourist might have found the rendition rather confusing. The dearth of information came from the editors’ lack of familiarity with advertising strategies, as the majority had a background in geography or history and, hence, little marketing skills. At the same time, despite significant investments in tourist infrastructure, the number of restaurants was still insufficient in some tourist areas, which was, in fact, a complaint made by the tourist and communist officials alike. In 1965, a meeting of the Council of Ministers took place, that discussed the development of tourism and light industry, and in which a three billion lei investment was approved for 1965–1970. It was then that several officials warned that the investments on the seaside are disproportioned, compared with the rest of the country, and that regions with tourist potential will lag behind.36 Although food was a recurrent topic in the advertising of Romanian tourism during socialist time, it did not get the same attention in the official policies regarding the development of tourism. For example, there is no clear data about the amounts invested in restaurant infrastructure as there is for lodging or transportation infrastructure. In most cases, restaurants were subsumed under the category of hotel construction. For instance, on the Romanian Black Sea seaside, the construction of hotels went hand in hand with that of restaurants, but still only one restaurant was built for every two hotels.37 In 1966, in Mamaia, on the Black Sea Coast, there were 31 hotels comprising 13,454 bed places and only 18 restaurants, while in Eforie Nord, another seaside resort, only one restaurant was built for seven hotels with a total capacity of 2455 beds.38 The discrepancy between food and lodging infrastructure seems to have had been an endemic problem of the Romanian tourism. A report of the Ministry of External Commerce from 1966 highlighted that “between the lodging and restaurant infrastructure there is little coordination which affects both tourist services and the adequate use of these capacities.”39

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The lack of coordination between hotels and restaurants resulted mainly from the fact that they belonged to different administrations. Until 1967, hotels were under the administration of the Minister of Exterior Commerce, while restaurants were under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior Commerce. This situation was partially resolved in 1967, once the ONT-Carpathians was established as an independent institution under the authority of the Council of Ministers.40 The common administration resolved the issue of coordination, but it did not significantly improve the meager supply of food/drinks available to restaurants and bistros or tourist services. In 1976, a report of ONTCarpathians about the functioning of restaurants and hotels on the Black Sea Coast and Bucharest stated that, although the plan’s targets had been met and even exceeded, there were still a number of deficiencies.41 First of all, the inspected restaurants were short on foodstuff, such as meat, fruits, and vegetables. The supplying of tourist facilities with alimentary products was under expectations between May 15 and July 15. For example, the quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables were insufficient, as well as those of meat and dairy products. Also, the restaurants had few supplies of mineral water, soda, Pepsi cola, beer, and ice.42

The shortage of alimentary products in restaurants was mainly the consequence of centralized economy and the blockages that came along with it. This triggered a chain reaction that made restaurants deal in various ways with food shortages. While the official reaction was to acknowledge these deficiencies and to report them to responsible institutions, one way in which restaurants dealt with shortages was to replace some of the ingredients in the original recipes. One example was that of substituting lemon with vinegar in the soup, or not adding the corresponding quantity of wine and gravy in the mititei (grilled minced meat rolls), which was one of the foods advertised as traditional.43 Replacing the original ingredients lowered the quality and affected the taste of the product, which thus became far different from what was advertised in the brochures about Romanian tourism. The 1976 report chose to blame the tourist workers and poor management for the wrecked situation. It stated that the training of tourist personnel was problematic, services were inadequate, and, in some cases, rules of commerce were not applied. “In many restaurants, the costumer

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services are below standards, the personnel are poorly trained and there are multiple cases of professional misbehaviour. (…) There are cases in which tourists do not get a check, prices are not displayed, the schedule is not respected, and the tourist workers’ outfit is improper.”44 Also, the report complained about a number of thefts and wrongdoings, for which tourist workers were to be blamed: A number of restaurants lower the portions of foods and drinks, as well as those of Sibiu salami, ham, and cheese. At Nuf˘arul coffee shop in Mamaia and soda kiosk no.1 in Eforie Sud, the soda cups were of only 161 grams (5.7 ounces) instead of 180 grams (6.7 ounces), the normal doze.45

These deficiencies exemplify the socialist state’s lack of means to control what happens at the grassroots level and to get tourist workers’ allegiance. By contrast, tourist workers had their own agenda, and, obviously, they used their workplace to get access to food resources. Foodstuff was extremely valuable, as basic food was gradually rationed in the official commerce at the end of the 1970s and almost completely from 1983, while products such as lemons, butter, various type of cookies, and fish were impossible to find. (Câmpeanu, 1994: 53). The same report from 1976 also emphasized the importance of diversifying the dishes in restaurants by lowering the quantities of meat and subsequently increasing those of rice, vegetables, and pasta. However, this initiative had a weak response among tourist workers, and an inspection from 1976 that checked how the initial assessment was applied, which showed that little progress had been made. A reason for that situation could have been a sort of cultural resistance of Romanian chefs, who cooked mostly meat-based dishes, starting from the premises that meat is a calorie-rich food. Although tourist promotion touted food as part of the exquisite experience Western tourists would receive in Romania, the socialist state faced serious difficulties in fulfilling this promise on the ground. The reason lies in the poor functioning of hyper-centralized economy and the bottlenecks it produced with products that were in excess in certain places, while lacking in others, but it was also connected with the tourist workers and managers’ lack of motivation to meet the demands set up by the central authorities. The initial lack of coordination in the tourist system with lodging and food placed under different managements seemed like a major reason for the shortcomings of food network in Romania. At

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the same time, the lack of resources made chefs improvise and replace ingredients in the original recipes, at times not with the best results. Throughout the 1980s when shortages became more pervasive, the Romanian socialist state’s inability to admit systemic deficiencies and its inflexibility in relation to tourist workers were the final nails in the coffin.

Food and Consumption Practices in Restaurants The way foreign tourists, especially the ones from capitalist countries, regarded service in restaurants and hotels was a topic of concern for the Romanian tourist officials. In 1969, ONT-Carpathians along with the Institute for Research and Development in Tourism carried out a survey on the Black Sea Coast, to assess how pleased Western tourists were with service in restaurants and hotels.46 Thus, 10,000 questionnaires were distributed, but only 2345 tourists chose to respond.47 The goal was to find out tourists’ opinion about how to improve food and accommodation facilities. For a more complete assessment, tourists were asked to mention their country of origin, age, profession, and gender. West German tourists provided most answers (15,559) followed by French (122), Belgian (97), Austrian (96), British (82), Swedish (63), and Swiss tourists (50).48 With regard to food, foreign tourists expressly complained about the excessive presence of low-quality meet in their meals, the lack of variety in their menus (which were included in their packages and pre-arranged), the warm dishes that were served cold, and the long waiting time in restaurants.49 A 41-year-old German entrepreneur complained that the “food in Mamaia is inedible, because the chefs are using refrigerated lowquality meet, which in our country is only given to dogs,” while another German, working in hospitality industry, appreciated that, “Romanian cuisine is not too diverse in terms of taste. The potatoes are low quality, and no vegetables are served. Green salad and cucumbers lack completely. Coffee is undrinkable. Why don’t you serve espresso or filter coffee? Personnel in restaurants is nice and well-meaning.”50 The poor experience with food led this West German tourist to question the Romanian cuisine in general, as he did not regard this episode as an isolated occurrence. This tourists’ sheer opinion challenged the Romanian state’s ambition to promote Romania through national cuisine and, consequently, the official project to present food as part of the national heritage and identity.

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Moreover, Western tourists who visited Romania did not always appreciate the country’s traditional cuisine, which they were not familiar with in the first place. German tourists asked for more German specialties, including German beer, to be included in the menus. “Food should be adapted to the German taste. Ninety-five percent of the visitors, including children, have stomach problems, especially because of the fat, which we think it has been reused. German tourists do not want a lot on their plate, but the food they get needs to be fresh and tasty.”51 Only one out of 33 tourists who answered the questionnaire at hotel Parc in Mamaia was pleased with his food.52 It was not only the West Germans who were unhappy with the food served at their restaurant, but French and Belgian tourists expressed their grudge as well. One 52-year-old French woman appreciated that, “There is a lot to be improved. Many French and Belgian tourists won’t return to your country because of the low-quality and insufficient food.”53 A Swiss couple in their forties also suggested that food service should be improved: “Enhance your restaurants facilities, serve more diverse food, improve services. It’s a pity that wines like Murfatlar and Cabernet are served in Pepsi-Cola bottles. These wines served in traditional coffers would gain much more appreciation from tourists.”54 The restaurant managers’ lack of experience and, perhaps, interest in offering decent services, but also in attracting and educating tourists in regard to Romanian food wrecked the Western tourists’ holidays and, by and large, the state’s project to turn international tourism into a lucrative activity. In response to this worrisome survey, the state did try to correct the highlighted deficiencies, and a 1974 opinion poll that included tourists from both capitalist and socialist countries, but also Romanian tourists, delivered more positive feedback. Like the previous survey, this also covered the Black Sea Coast, which was the most sought-after tourist region in Romania. Representatives of ONT-Carpathians sent out 16,377 questionnaires of which 12,930 were returned by tourists. Amid them, 2588 were Romanian while 10,342 were foreign tourists.55 Among foreign tourists, West German and Czechoslovak tourists provided most answers, respectively, 30.3 percent and 23.7 percent.56 Unlike the 1969 survey, two-thirds of questioned tourists rated service in restaurants as good or very good and only 9.3 percent declared themselves dissatisfied with food services.57 Interestingly enough, it was Romanian and East European tourists who were most critical of the services provided.58 This

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happened particularly because of the Western tourists’ preferential treatment, which did not pass unnoticed by tourists from the neighboring socialist countries and by Romanian tourists themselves. Marioara V., a Romanian tourist, remembers that restaurants of various hotels in Mamaia separated tourists, contingent on their nationalities: They were making a difference [between tourists]. Both at “Jupiter,” where Mr. Dima was, and at “Doina” where my uncle was working- he was only given Swedish and British tourists, because he knew English—there were some mini-saloons separated by green fences [of plants]…and on one side British were seated, on the other Swedish, or Russians. Romanians were seated in the centre.59

Not only were tourists physically separated, but they also received a different treatment. Often, Romanians and tourists from socialist countries complained that “they are treated with less consideration than tourists from the West.”60 As tourists were offered a fixed menu, they could easily notice over the green fences what others were eating. Marioara V. described this disparity as follows: For example, they [foreigners] would get two-three choices for breakfast, that included tea, milk, coffee, bacon with eggs, cheese or Swiss cheese, salami, etc. For Romanians or ‘easterners’ it wasn’t like that. You would get either tea or milk, in case you were with children, we wouldn’t get coffee and to eat we would only get a boiled egg and a piece of thick rosy sausage. […] They would all get refreshments like Nectar and Pepsi and mineral water, while we would only get tap water. For us, everything was in smaller quantities and less diversified.61

Although the different menus had an economic explanation, as Western tourists were charged more for the offered services, tourists were hardly aware of that, and they could only notice the discriminatory practice toward Romanians and tourists from socialist countries. Coffee, which was an imported product in short supply in Romanian shops, was crossed off the menu even in vacation resorts (Florescu 2008: 105). In addition, in popular culture, thick rosy sausages epitomized a cheap replacement for salami, another product difficult to find in regular shops. At times, Romanian tourists would manage to get a better treatment than officially prescribed because of “connections.” It was the case with Marioara V. whose uncle was a waiter in the hotel she stayed in and who would arrange

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for her to receive the same menu as the “Westerners.”62 But such informal practices were not at hand for all tourists. Most of them could only pursue “official channels,” which did not always lend an ear to their complaints. Against the backdrop of the oil shock in the late 1970s and early 1980s that turned air travel more expensive, tourists from Eastern Europe became a majority in Romania, and tourist services further declined in the absence of finickier Western tourists. Still, some old practices like the presence of meet in all dishes remained in place. Armina H, an Austrian tourist who visited Romania in 1981, was stunned by the large amount of meat in her food and interpreted this as an attempt of the Romanian socialist state to hide the internal food shortages. “I was told that meat is hard to find, but when I got there, meat was in all dishes. But in all! It was usually cutlet, one time even for breakfast, come on, even for breakfast!!! My impression was that they were trying to show westerners that meat was not a problem in Romania.”63 When asked whether they could choose between two or three dishes Armina said that, “No, you arrived at the hotel and there was only one option for lunch or dinner. However, we didn’t complain too much, because it was very inexpensive for us.”64 When asked to name one thing she liked and one she disliked during her trip to Romania in 1981, Armina said that she liked the overall treatment, that was extremely flattering, but she disliked that there were waiters who tried to scam them. On the other hand, on a comical side, she recalled a story about a waiter at an inn in Transylvania, who was so drunk that he could not remember what she and her friends have had consumed, so they cheated him. Both foreign (Western and from socialist countries) and Romanian tourists were rather disgruntled with the service in restaurants, but for different reasons. Romanians and tourists from socialist countries explained the poorer services in the corollary of Romanian socialist state’s preference for Western tourists, because these holidaymakers paid in coveted hard currencies. At the same time, Western tourists remained unaware of their privileged status and blamed socialist managers and employees for their cold served meals, or greasy meats in their plates. On the long run, these shortcomings affected tourism development because food constantly appeared in tourists’ complaints, and was one of the main reasons Western travel firms cancelled contracts with ONT-Carpathians in the 1980s. More importantly, the promise of experiencing Romania through food was also seriously compromised, as well as the country’s socialist modernity. This was not something the socialist regime in

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Romania took lightly, but its means to control conditions on the ground were limited, as long as tourist managers and blue-collar tourist employees could hardly be convinced to cooperate because of the lack of incentives.

Conclusion Food became a central topic of tourist advertising in Romania in the 1960s mostly in connection with the growth of tourism from capitalist countries. Similar to other socialist countries food was supposed to epitomize the promise of the good life that socialism brought about. Abundance of meat on Western tourists’ plates was one way to suggest the success of socialism as an economic system in the Cold War context. At the same time, meat was also a key ingredient in most traditional Romanian dishes, which the state wanted to promote through tourism. Moreover, food was also meant to convey some supposedly specific Romanian values, such as hospitality and generosity. In a nutshell, when it came to tourists from capitalist countries a banal occurrence like eating out carried a multitude of meanings that ranged from economics to politics, and ideological undertones. This is why significant investments were made into the restaurant infrastructure across the country, but especially on the seaside, while chefs at renowned hotels and restaurants received training abroad. Advertising centered on food, when attempting to lure Western tourists to Romania, showcasing the so-called traditional dishes (which are in fact a fusion between Balkan, Central European, and Russian cuisines) and more cosmopolitan foodstuff available in both Romanian and international restaurants. Tourist magazines and brochures stressed the variety and multitude of choices tourists had also as a way to prove the country’s modernity in the era of socialism. Yet despite the alluring discourse about food in the advertisements, the Romanian socialist regime had serious trouble to implement the proposed food policies at the grassroots level. One reason for this situation rested with the deficiencies that resulted from the centralized economy, and, as a paradox, with the little coordination between various state agencies. Another reason was that tourist workers had a different agenda than the state and almost no allegiance toward it, once the socialist stated failed in its self-proclaimed paternalism and it did not provide adequate access to basic resources, such as food. Foreign tourists’ recollections confirm the socialist state’s findings about tourism services in restaurants, but the two

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parties hold different interpretations for it. Whereas Armina’s recollections center around the idea that the Romanian socialist state wanted to convey a certain image abroad and to simply hide the Romanian realities, the state wanted to improve tourist services, but, many times, it lacked the means to be fully successful in this undertaking. While the attention given to Western tourists’ complaints suggests the central authorities’ willingness to adjust to tourists’ demands, the blockages generated by central planning and the overall request to keep the costs down prevented them from meeting their goals. At the same time, some of the issues tourists complained about (i.e., do not put wine in Coca Cola bottles or serve the food warm, etc.) were rather trivial and fell under the responsibility of restaurant managers, who did not seem to care much about the success of the socialist project. It was in fact the tension between the central authorities’ requests and the local managers’ actual practices along with the shortages at the grassroots level that plagued the restaurant network in socialist Romania. On the long run, this led to serious clashes between the way food was promoted in advertising materials and how it was actually served and tasted in restaurants in tourist areas.

Notes 1. “L’Hotel Caraiman” in Vacances en Roumanie, no. 25, 1974. 2. Remember, 1973, director Eugenia Gut, u, 21 minutes in Sahia Vintage DVD V Efemere, One World Romania, 2018. Sahia was the Romanian Documentary Film Studio during the communist period. 3. National Romanian Archives, (henceforth ANIC), The Institute for Research and Development in Tourism Fund, file no. 5/1969, folio 11, file no. 7/1974, folio 8. 4. “Rumania will open gates to tourists”, The New York Times, September 28, 1955, 56. 5. Ibidem, 56. 6. Ibidem, 56. 7. University of Florida Libraries, Pan American Airways Papers, collection no. 341, Bilateral files with Romania, box no. 764, folder no. 15, no folio. 8. Central National Archives of Romania, henceforth ANIC, Council of Ministers Collection, 29/1961, folio 46. 9. In 1957–1958, Cedok tourist agency in Czechoslovakia began to sell tourist packages to American tourists. https://www.cia.gov/readin groom/document/cia-rdp80t00246a003100040001-2. Accessed 19 June 2022, 6:18PM.

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10. See United Nations Archive, Industrial development& trade committee on development, GX1812329, 24,481. 11. ANIC, Council of Ministers Collection, file number 29/1961, f. 5. The first discussion about international tourism, but only between socialist countries took place in 1953, at a COMECON meeting. Yet, a more focused discussion took place as early as 1955. See Garay and Bechman Pedersen. 12. ANIC, Council of Ministers Collection, file number 29/1961, f. 6. 13. Ibidem, folio 10. 14. Ibidem, folio 39. 15. ANIC, Council of Ministers Collection, file no. 29/1961, folio 46. 16. ANIC, CC of PCR Collection, Propaganda Section, file no. 21/1963, folio 3. 17. ANIC, Central Committee –Chancellery Collection, file no. 15/1964, folio 47. 18. Ibidem, folio 50. 19. Proposal for the development of tourism in Romania, 1965, ANIC, CC of PCR Collection, Chancellery Section, file no. 113/1965, folio 2. 20. Ibid., folio 3. 21. Ibid., folio 5. In 1965, the revenue obtained from international tourism (tourist packages and extra services) was expected to reach 14.5 million dollars and from domestic tourism 10 million dollars (calculated at the rate of 18 lei to a dollar). This was an increase from the 9.3 million dollars and 4.8 million rubble clearing obtained in 1964. See Minutes of the Council of Ministers/Economic Council Meeting, 23 May 1965, ANIC, Council of Ministers Collection, Economic Council, file no. 227/1965, folio 49. 22. Proposal for the development of tourism in Romania, 1965, ANIC, CC of PCR Collection, Chancellery Section, file no. 113/1965, folio 3. For 1965, 70 per cent of the total income from international tourism was planned to come from Western tourists, more precisely from West German, Scandinavian, British, Austrian, or Swiss tourists, who were the most numerous. The ONT- Carpathians’ report was first discussed within the Council of Ministers and, after that, a shorter version was sent to the Politburo of the Romanian Communist Party. 23. HCM no. 1781/ 5 September 1955, 40, 41. 24. ‘Decision no. 162 in regard with enhancing and developing of tourist activity’ in Colec¸tie de legi, decrete, hot˘arâri, vol. 3, (Collection of laws, decrees, and decisions) (Bucharest: Scientific Publishing House, 1962), 53. 25. Ibidem, 55. 26. ‘Decree no. 32 regarding the establishment, structure, and functioning of the National Office for Tourism of the Socialist Republic of Romania’

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27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

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in Collection of laws, decrees, decisions and other normative acts, vol. 1 (Bucharest: Scientific Publishing House, 1967), 33. Ibidem, 33–34. ANIC, Fund CPCP- DOCALS, file no. 82/1977, folio 159. Ibidem, folio 160. “Roumanie,” Informations Turistiques, Office National du Tourisme, 1969. Ibidem. Ibidem. Open Society Archives, Budapest, Hungary, Romanian Unit, Item no. 1148/1968, Romanian Tourist Exhibitions in France. Open Society Archives, Budapest, Hungary, Romanian Unit, Item no. 319/1969. I bidem. ANIC, CC of PCR CC al PCR Chancellery, file no. 150/1966, folio 28. Ibidem, folio 29. Ibidem, folio 29. ANIC, CC of PCR Economic Section, file no. 31/1966, folio 22. Decree no. 32 regarding the establishment, structure, and functioning of the National Office for Tourism of the Socialist Republic of Romania in „Collection of laws, decrees, decisions and other normative acts”, vol. 1, (Bucharest: Scientific Publishing House, 1967), 33. ANIC, CC of PCR Chancellery, file no. 81/1976, folio 10. Ibidem, folio 11. Ibidem, folio 21. Ibidem, folio 23. Ibidem. folio 24. ANIC, Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, file no. 5/1969, folio 1. Ibidem, folio 1. Ibidem, folio1. Ibidem, folio 41. Ibidem, folio 42. Ibidem, folio 42. Ibidem, folio 41. Ibidem, folio 43. Ibidem, folio 44. ANIC, Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, file no. 7/1974, folio 5. Ibidem, folio 5v. Ibidem, folio 7. Ibidem, folio 8.

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59. Marioara V., 70-year-old, high school education, personal interview, July 2013, Bucharest. 60. The Archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (henceforth ACNSAS), Documentary Fund, file No. 16629, vol. 3, 1971, Prahova, folio 3. 61. Marioara V. 70-year-old, high school education, personal interview, July 2013, Bucharest. 62. Marioara V., 70-year-old, high school education, personal interview, July 2013, Bucharest. 63. Armina H. age 49, university degree, personal interview, Wien, Austria, May 2013. 64. Ibidem.

References Bechmann Pedersen, Sune. 2018. Eastbound Tourism in the Cold War: The History of the Swedish Communist Travel Agency Folkturist. Journal of Tourism History 10 (2):130–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X. 2018.1469679. Bonifaciu, Sebastian, Nicolae Docs˘anescu, Ioana Vasiliu-Ciotoiu, 1974. Roumanie, Guide Turistique. Bucharest: Edition Turistiques, Freiburg im Breisgau: Editions Rombach. Bracewell, Wendy. 2012. Eating Up Yugoslavia, Cookbooks and Consumption in Socialist Yugoslavia. In Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe, ed. Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger, 169–196. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Câmpeanu, Paul. 1994. România: Coada pentru Hrana, Un Mod de Viat, a˘ .. Bucharest: Litera. Chirv˘asut, a˘ , A., V. Grigoriu. 1980. Tehnologia Culinara si Tehnica Servirii, manual pentru licee economice si de drept administrative, profilul alimentatie publica, clasa a IX-a. Bucharest: Editura Didactic˘a Di Pedagogic˘a. Florescu, Gheorghe. 2008. Confesiunile unui cafegiu. Bucharest: Humanitas. Garay, Martin A. 1969. Le tourisme dans les démocraties populaires européennes. Paris: La documentation française. Kemp, Walter A. 1999. Nationalism and Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, A Basic Contradiction? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Long, Lucy M. 2004. Culinary Tourism: A Folkloristic Experience of Eating and Otherness. In Culinary Tourism, ed. Lucy M. Long, 21–50. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Masterovoy, Anton. 2017. What Was Socialist Food and What Comes Next. Contemporary European History 26 (3): 523–532.

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Neuburger, Mary. 2017. Dining in Utopia: A Taste of Bulgarian Black Sea Coast Under Socialism. Gastronomica 4: 48–60. https://doi.org/10.1525/ gfc.2017.17.4.48. Neuburger, Mary, and Keith Livers. 2017. Introduction: From Revolution to Globalization: Foodways in Russia and East Central Europe. Gastronomica, Special issue on ‘Culinary revolutions: Food, History, and Identity in Russia and East-Central Europe’. 17 (4): 1–8. S, tefan, Oana Adelina. 2022. Unpacking the Cold War: International Tourism and Commercialism in Socialist Romania, 1960s-1980s. Contemporary European History. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777321000540. Verdery, Katherine. 1995. National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Archives National Archives of Romania, Central Committee Collection- Chancellery. National Archives of Romania, Central Committee Collection- Economic Section. National Archives of Romania, The Institute for Research and Development in Tourism. Open Society Archives, Budapest, Romanian Unit. The Archives of the National Council for the Securitate Archives United Nations Archives, Geneva.

Magazines Vacances En Roumanie

Oral History Interviews Armina H. age 49, university degree, personal interview, Wien, Austria, May 2013. Marioara V. 70-year-old, high school education, personal interview, July 2013, Bucharest.

Transformations in Socialist Consumer Cultures and Advertisements

Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker of Growing Social Difference in 1980s Hungary Annina Gagyiova

Many scholars have written on the question how the good life in Hungary during the 1980s was only possible through a considerable legalization of the Second Economy in 1982 (Sík 1992; Böröcz and Southworth 1998; Germuska 2008; Fehérváry 2013). This, indeed, has been a crucial factor, setting Hungary apart from the rest of the socialist bloccountries. But how the Second Economy changed consumption practices and laid bare growing socio-economic differences within the Hungarian population is a question fairly unexplored up to now. While the earning potential outside the socialist framework created possibilities for reported and unreported earnings, this chapter investigates the question of how these differences manifested themselves through Western-style consumption by applying Thorsten Veblen’s concept of “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen 2009 [1899]). It stems from the observation that Hungarian consumers of Lacoste Polo shirts, Pierre Cardin suits, and BMW cars conveyed not

A. Gagyiova (B) Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_8

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only socio-economic privilege but also reminded the remaining population of how the socialist system was changing. Consequently, this chapter explores how Western markers of growing social difference became increasingly contested on an Everyday level. It argues that the cultural conflict was not only taking place between two entirely different economic systems but also among the population on the question of how much social inequality is acceptable within an imagined socialist society of equals. Ultimately, this chapter aims to answer the question of how varying consumption practices expressed a loss of socialist utopia. In the field of socialist consumption history, major emphasis has been laid on scarcity of consumer goods. This, together with the allure of largely absent Western products and the desire for Western-style consumerism across the Soviet bloc, was one of the main causes why many rejected an increasingly unpopular socialist system, ultimately leading to the failure of the communist project (e.g., Hessler 1996; Merkel 1999; Jastrzab 2004; Landsman 2005; Patterson 2011).While scarcity has been without doubt a central feature of state socialist societies, more recent literature—mostly in the form of edited volumes—engages in a more differentiated approach and emphasizes that living standards and consumption practices differed significantly, e.g., during the 1980s between Poland and Romania, on the one hand, and the GDR and Hungary, on the other (Crowley and Reid 2002, 2010; Bren and Neuburger 2012; Reid and Crowley 2000; Scarboro et al. 2020; Tomka 2020). Especially during the previous decade, historians, sociologists and anthropologists added to the early concentration on scarcity a range of social-cultural questions based on the everyday experiences of ordinary citizens. In their research, they show that citizens of Eastern Europe developed a plethora of practices ensuring the provision of goods and services. The approach resulted in new findings on multifaced consumption practices and meanings on an Everyday level. Major studies point out that socialist citizens navigated themselves through layered consumption spheres which, also provided plentyness, joy, and luxury to the consumers east of the “Iron Curtain.”

Negotiating the Market Within the Plan Since the unfavorable development on the world market due to hikes in oil prices in 1973 and 1979, Hungary—as most other socialist states— found itself in a severe economic downward spiral. The disadvantageous

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conditions reminded Hungarian planners painfully of the low competitiveness of domestic production beyond the Comecon framework. To avert imminent sovereign default, the Hungarian state pulled what was understood to be the emergency brake by accessing the IMF and the World Bank and implementing far-reaching economic reform in 1982 (Phillips et al. 2006). The latter has been the most groundbreaking economic realignment after the New Economic Mechanism in 1968, which earned Hungary the popular notion of “goulash communism,” alluding to the couleur locale of mixing elements of planned and market economies (Nyyssönen 2006). In the context of pressuring crisis at the beginning of the 1980s, reform economists pushed for a considerable expansion of the private economy and introduced two distinct cultures of employment into socialist society (Gagyi 2016). The so-called Second Economy, which according to sociologist Endre Sík was “perhaps the most important economic policy element of the Kádárist experiment,” extended the possibilities for ordinary citizens to be economically active outside the realm of the state (Sík 1992). The party strategy revealed that the command economy could still not respond to diversifying and increasingly sophisticated needs. As a consequence, the state had to rely on private initiatives to fulfill its central promise of rising living standards, or, as Judit Bodnár refers to it, its “provisioning responsibility” (Bodnár 1998). By the beginning of the 1980s, it was widely understood that only a major shift toward marketisation and Western integration could maintain current consumer standards. Since a severe liquidity crisis forced Hungary to join the World Bank and the IMF in 1982, the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party passed economic reforms which legalized the Second Economy on an unprecedented scale (Swain and Swain 1993). Joining the Western Economic Framework via IMF and World Bank ultimately lowered the influence of the Soviet Union and forced Hungary to adapt to economic requirements set by the two international financial organisations (Ger˝ ocs and Pinkasz 2017). Peter Wilkin states in his thought-provoking book “Hungary’s Crisis of Democracy: The Road to Serfdom” that, At the same time for Western financial institutions, both private and public, economic interaction with Hungary and other East and Central Europe states was a weapon with which to bring pressure to bear on the Soviet bloc. The money was lent for political and economic reasons, to gain profit and to weaken the Soviet bloc. Thus, this financial relationship was part of

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the trade wars that had shaped the Modern World-System and clearly not a commitment to support socialism, in any form, by the major capitalist institutions of the West. (Wilkin 2016: 29)

The influx of neoliberal economic ideas did not only take ground through international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World bank. During economically challenging times, the party became also influenced by domestic and internationally respected Hungarian economists in pursuit of neoliberal strategies to help the economy on its feet again. Johanna Bockman described in her book “Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism” how ideas of liberal market economies gained ground on an academic level and were discussed within the capitalist as well as the socialist framework (Bockman 2011). For the reform process at the beginning of the 1980s, she describes that Hungarian reform economists participated in the transnational self-criticism of neoclassical economics as part of their own frustration with, and criticism of, the Hungarian Party-state’s narrow approach to reforms, which reinforced centralized power. These critical reform economists turned to decentralizing, democratic institutions to make markets run effectively and without political interference, not to introduce capitalism. (Bockman 2011: 164)

The liberalization of the Second Economy in 1980 and 1982 built up on an already significant body of entrepreneurial Hungarians, in everyday parlor called maszek,1 which comprised small-scale traders and artisans as well as service sector members. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the number of maszek remained stable at between 80,000 and 100,000 people (Valuch 2005: 171). While the entrepreneurs’ main economic activity was solely in the private sector, during the 1980s, most Hungarians pursued safe but low-income work in the first economy tied to social welfare with demand-driven activities in the second economy. According to sociologist József Böröcz, this was the most lucrative form of employment strategy, resulting in a salary increase of nearly 10% on average (Böröcz and Southworth 1998). While estimates place the number of citizens who pursued these diverse economic activities at 30% of the total workforce and with that affecting 75% of all families, the number of people exclusively engaged in the Second Economy rose from 3.8% in 1981 to only 4.3% in 1986 (Bodnár 2001: 123; Portes and Böröcz 1988: 18). Hungarian workers largely

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welcomed the re-evaluation of economic policies and with it the new dynamics in earning possibilities. Whereas for some it provided an opportunity to compensate for regular hikes in consumer prices and retain a once obtained living standard, others achieved further sophistication of their lifestyle patterns (Gagyiova 2020: 134–152). The increase of economic activities resembling the ones pursued in market economies challenged the nomenklatura of the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party on the question of how to integrate the new trajectories into the ideological outlook on society. Already at the beginning of the 1980s, around one million Hungarians lived considerably better than the remaining majority of nine million inhabitants. A report dating from 1980 issued by the minister of finances, Lajos Faluvégi, expresses an apparent concern about growing social differences, being understood as a potential threat to inner social peace. In his report, he says that “luxury villas are being built on weekend house plots in notable numbers, whereas in some cases even significant monetary income is being moved within the domestic ‘gold fever’ while the ‘selling’ of valuable foreign travels are not a concern, etc. From all this it can be concluded – in quantities and circles that cannot be precisely defined – that the money spent and mobilized exceeds the generated verifiable income.” Official statistics could not translate the income of these strata into reliable figures, as much of the income earned in the Second Economy was undeclared. Therefore, available data could show only inadequately growing differences between the different income groups. Conspicuous consumption practices of an affluent class appeared unrelated to statistical knowledge. Thus, for the population and state officials like Faluvégi, the visibility of material wealth above average levels was an indicator of notable differences among different social strata. Surprisingly though, the policy paper recommended as a potential solution not more state but more market since the party understood a policy of differentiated income and the extension of the Second Economy as guarantors of economic growth. The report also expressed reluctance toward the fight against unusually high incomes as it was believed that bureaucratic measures should not disturb the already accomplished supply of goods and services (MOL 288/ff 15./393, 5). Here, the state party distances itself from the original understanding of the standard-of-living policy according to which a slow but steady salary growth should increase consumption within the Hungarian population. Instead, the quality of the living standard came to be defined by the (dis-)equilibrium of supply and demand—one of the Achilles heels

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of the command economy, as János Kornai has described it in his influential book “Economics of Shortage,” published in 1980 (Kornai 1980). Although the standard-of-living policy remained a central notion in the official paper, its ascribed meaning changed dramatically. In fact, with the formation of a new economic elite, the concept of class quietly returned. Almost never was socialism further away from its final abolition in imagined communism than in 1980s Hungary. The social disruptions at the societal level were echoed in conspicuous luxurious materialities. Just as the country’s finance minister drew his conclusions from the visible consumption practices of a small stratum, the population formed their own opinion. Many Hungarians made the experience they were no longer in the economic position to participate in leisure activities—once thought to be accessible to everyone. The phenomenon of social exclusion was addressed in a cartoon published in the satirical magazine Ludas Matyi where a wealthy couple relaxing in Budapest’s posh Gellért thermal spa enjoys the increasing exclusivity of the place. Thus, the wife says to her husband: “Good that prices have finally swept out the many workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia.” The socialist state’s achievement of making certain leisure and recreational activities accessible to the broader population was slowly overshadowed by a newly emerging social antagonism (Ludas Matyi 1988) (Fig. 1). How partially massive income differences became accepted by the ruling party was reflected in a change of discourse on wealthy people.2 In state-run media, the category of millionaires appeared first at the beginning of the 1980s and became increasingly negotiated in public. To be a millionaire was gradually accepted as a sign of a valuable contribution to a struggling domestic economy. Although Forint-Millionaires were of modest wealth compared to their Western hard-currency pendants, they were perceived affluent in Hungary—where the average income was around 5,000 Forint at the time. However, Hungarians thought it probable that millionaires were concealing their actual wealth as tax evasion was generally considered a peccadillo. The class of Hungarian millionaires was a heterogeneous one, and the sources of their wealth differed significantly. Some were heirs to a fortune, others, such as doctors and lawyers in particular, based their wealth on accepting gratitudes, and others became rich by making an invention. Some journalists, engineers, and entertainers were lucky enough to be employed abroad in the West for hard currency. Some ambitious maszek took advantage of the new legislation to run their private companies on a larger scale. There were also less honorable

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Fig. 1 Here and now: “Good that prices have finally swept out the many workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia,” in: Ludas Matyi, 18 May 1988

activities, such as those of speculators who exploited a shortage of spare car parts, or intermediaries in the fruit and vegetable trade who raised consumer prices without adding further value to the economy (Graham 1985; Bourne 1984). After the party introduced a series of market mechanisms and substantial material incentives to increase the economy’s productivity, it accepted that people should earn equivalent to their economic output. In other words: As long as the wealthy in society made their money through

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honorable work, the party accepted them. Thus, at the end of the 1960s, General Secretary János Kádár pointed out the following: We approve if someone saves money earned through honest labor and then uses it to travel, build a home, or buy himself a television, refrigerator, motorcycle, car, or anything else for that matter. But we don’t approve of anyone’s views becoming so distorted that the drive to acquire and gather and collect things like a hamster replaces life’s meaning as the human joy of putting in an honest day’s work and enjoying the respect that follows. (cited after Valuch 2021: 113)

In fact, the majority of the population found the new formula of “equality of opportunity” challenging to comprehend as it was common knowledge that it was not only hard work, the courage to take risks, and an apt business idea but also connections to responsible party officials and the possibility to accumulate sufficient startup capital. As film director and businessman István Bacskai Lauro admitted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “socialism is the most corrupt system. The secret is to know how to manipulate it and who to bribe…you have to use connections and money” (Hamilton 1989), and by saying so, confirming the notion of increasing inequality. In a society where wealth could quickly become disreputable, millionaires preferred to remain incognito and keep their wealth to themselves as much as possible. In fact, all the people who owned a three-room flat were already millionaires, which is how much such a flat cost in the early 1980s. In the general public’s imagination, however, being a millionaire was associated with a correspondingly extravagant lifestyle and savings that allowed for luxurious ease in the posh Budapest hills. The fact that Ern˝ o Rubik, inventor of the internationally popular Rubik’s cube, did not even find a place among the hundred richest Hungarians in the mid-1980s— as the deputy minister of finance personally informed him according to an article in the regional newspaper Hajdu Bihari Napló—can already be seen as an indication of by socialist standards exorbitant wealth of a very small group of people (Hajdu Bihari Napló 1985). Sociologists Ivan Szelenyi and Robert Manchin estimated in their essay on social inequality in Eastern Europe that by the end of the 1980s, dozens of entrepreneurial families with an invested capital of tens to hundreds of millions of forints could be possibly found in Hungary (Szelenyi and Manchin 1987: 118). But even throughout academic

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discourse, numbers were rough estimates as there were no reliable figures for the exact income generated by the Second Economy. Among other things, this was due to the distinctive practices of the population to pay as little tax as possible on their income (Valuch 2013: 46). Thus, the elite no longer fed exclusively from the party hierarchy, but increasingly from a layer of entrepreneurs that emerged from the new market opportunities (ibid.: 120). In public discourse, on the other hand, authors initially tried to present most so-called millionaires as hard-working and modest citizens. An article in the illustrated weekly magazine Ország-Világ on “Millionaires Incognito” discussed less extravagant lifestyles but introduced persons who became rich by lucky coincidence, using the new wealth to modestly improve their lifestyle while following socialist ideals by developing their personality through education and culture. One of the millionaires described told the magazine the following: I would be a tram engineer, but I have worked in the computer field for almost 18 years. Even today, my salary is below that of a better-skilled worker. But I managed one or two inventions and developments, and suddenly this million came over us. Since our family of three has been living in a room at my mother’s house, we first bought a flat. Now we also have a car and a weekend house. Since then, our life has not changed much. We work, study, go to the theatre, and travel as we did before. (Milliomosok 1983)

Among the noticeable representations on the phenomenon of Hungarian millionaires the documentary movie “Kószó bácsi milliói” (“The millions of Uncle Kószó”) from 1984 needs mentioning (Kószó bácsi milliói 1984). It depicts a classical rage-to-riches storyline of the disabled Uncle Kószó who accumulated a fortune of between ten and fifteen million Forints through recycling used and often discarded spare parts. He creatively utilised the command economy’s deficiencies which, even in Hungary, created notorious shortages of spare parts. While doing so, he contributed positively to the performance of the Hungarian economy and improved the supply of goods in everyday life (Földi paradicsom 1983). A reviewer wrote about the documentary that “Uncle Kószó’s path of life is pointing at the value creating power of drive and volition” (Kószó bácsi milliói. Új dokumentumfilmek 1984). The portrait of the

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likeable personality proved to be suitable to encourage Hungarians to become entrepreneurial—all they needed was a felicitous idea and the knowledge of how to place themselves within the system. At the same time, uncle Kószó’s down-to-earth personality and disability gave the viewer the possibility to sympathize. This is one reason why the documentary successfully communicatied positive connotations with the socially marginalized group of millionaires. After the state party had shaped the notion of Hungarian citizens enjoying “equality of opportunities,” it was individual initiative the future of the socialist society was supposed to rely on. While a small stratum of entrepreneurs became integrated into the socialist framework, a growing group of citizens was not able to make ends meet. The contemporary sociologist Rudolf Andorka described for the 1980s how economic difficulties created “societal tension” and a “deterioration of societal wellbeing.” Under these conditions, people whose standard of living was in decline bemoaned increasingly often and unusually open growing social inequality (Andorka 1988: 289–290). In the second half of the 1980s, the situation became more dramatic and the introduction of the Value Added Tax in 1988—the first of its kind within the socialist bloc—made life for Hungarians with low incomes even more challenging. At this time, approximately one million Hungarians, or 10% of the population, lived below the poverty line, and the income of 2.1 million Hungarians was below or just about at the social minimum (Kamm 1989). Sociologist Zsuzsa Ferge drew already then attention to a dysfunctional social welfare system that did not adapt to new developments, entitling citizens independently of their income levels (Ferge 1985). State media outlets often reported on declining living standards and economically challenged citizens. In 1987, when it became known to the population that the government was planning to introduce value-added and income tax for the forthcoming year, the mood fell to a new low. Hungary was the first socialist country to introduce a progressive income tax ranging from 20 to 60%. However, state incomes were less affected by the tax reform: Incomes below 5,000 forints were not taxed at all, and wage increases largely offset the tax burden on companies above that level. In return, the state waived the payroll tax previously collected, which the company paid directly to the state. This was intended to unify the labor costs in state, cooperative and private sectors and strengthen the importance of labor in the state sector (Situation Report 1987). With the tax reform,

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on the other hand, the state party primarily wanted to get hold of the income generated in the second economy, which had previously been taxed inconsistently, and to restrain the third, illegal economy (Lichtl 1988). Estimates pointed to a turnover of an impressive amount of 60,000–80,000 million forint. VAT on goods was applied with different keys of 25% and 15%, while basic food, newspapers, books, heating fuel, drinking water, medicines and transport were tax exempt (Ékes 1998). With an inflation rate of 18% in 1988 alone, the living standards of a broad part of the population was compromised. A further price liberalization of around 300,000 products in 1988 hit pensioners and families with many children particularly hard, affecting those strata for which it had been already previously difficult. A piece of cheese cost 40% more, dairy products 27%, the price of bread doubled compared to 1980. Although the state increased child benefits by 400– 500 forints, this sum was far from compensating for the risen expenses on children. Children shoes, nappies, and baby articles now cost about twice their original price, and school articles even 90% more. Almost everything needed for the growing generation became substantially more expensive. The reason for this was not only the introduction of VAT but also the abrupt removal of subsidies for these products (Situation Report June 1988). As one observer put it: Although the public was repeatedly prepared for the price boost during 1987, which resulted in a buying spree in the last quarter of the year, the scope and size of the increases still came as a shock. […] The 1988 price hikes will be the largest since 1951 and will undoubtedly unsettle even the Hungarian consumers, who are accustomed to constantly rising prices. (Situation Report February 1988)

A mother of two children, who, together with her husband, has a joint income of 12,940 forints at her disposal, reported in a letter to the editor of the women’s magazine N˝ok Lapja: We are now looking for a second job with my husband, and we are not angry that a large part of it goes to the state via taxes because all that matters is that we regularly earn 1,000 to 2,000 forints more per month. Unfortunately, we have reached the point where we would no longer be able to cope with a new price increase. Because we already cannot lower the portion of lard sandwiches any further. And it is no consolation at all

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that most of our acquaintances experience similar circumstances. (Letter to the editor 1988)

Not only families but also pensioners suffered from the sharp increase in food prices—especially when they were single. The inflation rate in 1988 was 16.5 percentage points higher than in the previous year. A pensioner working for the state railway company for almost thirty years had a monthly pension of 3,995 forints at her disposal. She reported in an interview conducted by Radio Budapest: According to the woman, the running costs amount to 2,000 forints per month which includes housing, heating, insurance, telephone, and gas. The 1,995 forints left must be enough for life, but it happens, unfortunately, that household items need to be repaired. She also said that her husband died years ago, and living on one pension alone was hard. She stated that her financial reserves were probably sufficient for this month, but it would be tight in February when she finally hopes to find a job. (Radio Budapest 1988)

After especially Hungarians in the lower wage sector or pensioners were forced to generate income from the Second Economy in the face of dramatically rising living costs, high earners felt that their involvement in the Second Economy was not lucrative enough. Béla Névy, a manager in a state-owned chemical company with an annual salary of 300,000 forints, thought about giving up his Second Economy job. In his apartment in Buda’s posh, lavishly green hills, he told the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, while surrounded by palm trees, a leather couch, a wall unit, a video recorder and a hi-fi tower: “If the tax eats everything up, it’s no longer worth it. Then, I will maybe sleep more or play tennis” (Lichtl 1988). The Second Economy became increasingly unattractive with the introduction of new taxes, especially for those who were not (necessarily) dependent on additional income. The introduction of VAT and the elimination of a large part of subsidies had to be borne by all members of society, whereby the burden of taxes for citizens of lower income brackets was relatively higher than for high earners. While no one could escape paying VAT, income tax mainly targeted incomes earned within the Second Economy, thereby strengthening the state income sector. The already dominant practice within the population of hiding income from the state increased in importance with the introduction of the new tax system. What this could mean for the everyday life

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of Hungarians is shown in a cartoon published in Ludas Matyi (Ludas Matyi 1988). There, a terrified couple finds themselves in their bathroom after the plumber miraculously disappears into thin air. He escaped after refusing to issue an invoice for his work, which would have meant taxable income by implication (Fig. 2). Therefore, it seems unsurprising that the visible luxury consumption of a small wealthy stratum provoked those parts of society who could no longer picture a promising future within Hungarian “Goulash communism.” Conspicuous consumption of Western luxury goods of a new economic elite became a signifier of how the state party allowed society to distract from intrinsically socialist values of equality and social security. Entrepreneurs did own not only sophisticated real estate, but also jewelry, art, and antique furniture. They also consumed Western-branded goods

Fig. 2 Miracle: “The master vanished within a second after he realized we wanted an invoice,” in: Ludas Matyi, 18 May 1988

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(Babus 1986). The general manager of the Pierre Cardin Boutique in Budapest shared his experiences: We believed that this shop would not survive. But then we realized that many things are very different in Hungary from how we perceived them. I thought it inconceivable that ties for 900 and 1.200 Forint could sell. But they buy them like sugar in the supermarket. I also did not believe that shirts for over 1.000 Forint would meet demand, but what happened? They buy them as if we could not produce enough of them. We also do not have a single 12.000 Forint leather jacket left. (Gy˝ orffy 1984)

Oral history research by Lena Pellandini-Simanyi and Tamas Dombos supports the notion of—how the official socialist narrative would call it— “irrational” consumption practices in Hungarian entrepreneurs. As one of their interviewees, an owner of a private textile company, recalled, “the new entrepreneurs were highly competitive in their consumption, and success was measured by possessions” (Dombos and Pellandini-Simanyi 2012: 345). The authors further explained that “in his account, it was not a reaction to the shortage economy, but rather a way of asserting his status and gaining access to informal channels that allowed his business to thrive” (ibid.). Therefore, citizens recognized luxurious consumption as a reliable factor in identifying and distinguishing economically influential actors within the socialist framework. 1979 marked the golden hour for an increased influx of Western goods into socialist Hungary. With the bilateral agreement between Austria and Hungary allowing for Visa-free travel between the two states, Hungarians now entered easily and, therefore, more often capitalist territory up to once a year. Citizens used especially public holidays for crossing the border with the aim of indulgent shopping sprees in nearby Vienna. The interest in purchasing Western goods was so profound that Viennese citizens renamed one of the main shopping streets, Mariahilferstraße, into “Magyarenhilferstraße,” pointing at the masses of Hungarian tourists strolling through centrally located shops in Vienna (Gagyiova 2022). Consequently, domestic hard-currency stores experienced a cut in earnings since Hungarians were allowed to travel freely to neighboring Austria, which they also used for spending their hard-currency savings. Since these stores, like Intertourist, were officially only accessible to a small circle of Hungarians, in 1983, the management of Konsumex decided to open them to everyone who had hard currency to spend. The

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direct access to Western goods revealed the increased social and economic differences among the Hungarian population, which accelerated during the 1980s mainly due to the growing Second Economy. Luxury products—especially those of Western origin—symbolized the dissolution of a socialist society only a few were profiting from, whereas a considerable part of society was financially struggling. The political scientist László Boros expressed his concern in 1988 that the decline of the living standard had weakened the foundation of the compromise between the Kádár-Regime and the population after 1956 (Situation Report August 1988). Conspicuous consumption of Western goods, including costly Western cars, became symbolic of a society that had distanced itself from its utopia of an equal and just society.

Societal Tensions As the Hungarian state moved further away from a livable version of socialism to rehabilitate the economy, the wealth revealed through the consumption practices of a small stratum became increasingly visible. The stratum possessing substantial wealth grew to about 100,000 people in the mid-1980s (Szikra Falusné 1987: 27). The standard of living of most Hungarians, on the other hand, was falling, in some cases dramatically. In official discourse, resulting social tensions were increasingly recognized. It was now openly talked about that public opinion expressed its irritation over the existence and lifestyle of the affluent (Babus 1986). One respondent to a 1987 survey of current price increases, who perceived the new burdens to be severe, made the following comment outside the given questions: “There are such rows of mansions rising that there ought to be a good little nationalization again. This is a robbed country” (MOL XXVI-A-37/1865). At the same time, wealthy citizens encountered only limited investmeant possibilities for their capital. Apart from owning a home and a weekend house, only expensive Western cars, travel, jewelry, and art objects remained. This limitation meant that one’s wealth was highly visible to everyone else. The houses and weekend homes turned out to be much larger and more luxurious than it would have been necessary for one’s own needs. Reform economist Katalin Szikra Falusné, on the other hand, would have thought it more sensible to allow investment in real estate for rent, thus creating a private rental market for housing when it was scarce and out of reach—especially for younger people without equity.

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“For society, this investment would obviously be much more beneficial than the income from investments in precious metals and jewelry, plus it would increase the supply of dwellings, which would alleviate rents in the open housing market” (Babus 1986). Moreover, the small-scale industrial sector urgently needed investment that would benefit the overall economic performance. Indeed, the state had become aware that the consumption practices of a small class contained social explosives. At the same time, it realized that the available capital could be invested much more advantageously for the economy. Particularly great attention was paid to so-called invisible incomes, i.e., unregistered incomes assigned to the “third economy.” These included bribes, tips, and gratitude payments for various transactions and services. One observer said about the relationship between invisible income and consumption: Ironically, the invisible income often results in very visible personal assets. Over the past decade or more, invisible income has been responsible for an accumulation of wealth among those engaging in private economic activities, and this disparity in wealth is now beginning to lead to social cleavages. [...] Conspicuous wealth, widely thought to be derived mainly from illegal income, has increased public awareness of social inequalities and has fostered envy and mistrust. (Situation Report August 1987)

With the introduction of income tax and VAT, the state party also tried to curb the phenomenon of visibly flaunting wealth. They developed a stock market and opportunities to invest in small businesses. Despite new restrictions and investment opportunities, the state failed to put the ostentatiously displayed wealth in its place. As Denise Hamilton described in her article for the Los Angeles Times: “Hungarian yuppies zip down the grand, leafy boulevard of Népköztársaság utca (People’s Republic Street) in new BMWs” (Hamilton 1989). This meant that luxury consumption in central areas of Budapest was to be seen and increasingly heard, adding to the noticeable presence of opulent consumption. At the same time, the problem of poverty became even in Budapest so prominent, that the state party officially had to acknowledge the crisis in 1988. This was preceded by increasing coverage of beggars and homeless people in the official media. Additionally, hundreds of families with children came to the capital to find work and simply occupied empty flats.

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According to the then latest calculations of the Central Bureau of Statistics, 1.5–3 million inhabitants of Hungary fell into the category of the poor. These included the unemployed, the homeless, and people with low incomes. Between 40 and 50% of pensioners, about half of all families with two children and 70–90% of all families with three or more children ranked in the low-income category. On the other hand, the two sociologists, Zsuzsa Ferge and Ágnes Bokor assumed that there were many more poor people than covered by official calculations. Bokor also pointed out that about another two million were just above the poverty line and in danger of falling below it if the economic trend continued. The social system was neither institutionally nor financially prepared for the new developments. The problems were so burning that the state party itself called on private initiatives and even the church for help (Situation Report August 1988). In Budapest alone, every week 150 flats had their electricity cut off because bills remained uncovered (Reuters 1989). Besides, 25,000 families in Budapest were in rent arrears (Kamm 1989). An author reported in the weekly literature magazine Élet és Irodalom about her previous year’s supermarket experience when prices were slightly lower than in 1989. There she observed a pensioner who asked for a hundred grams of meat sausage at the counter and ate it stealthily on her way to the checkout. The wrapping paper had to vanish from sight, and the author placed herself so discreetly in front of the pensioner that the latter disappeared from the cashier’s field of vision. Since then, she has never been able to get this experience out of her mind. The reason for the author’s consternation was her witnessing how disgraceful older people’s lives had become in a socialist system (Pope-Fischer 2016). Yet, it was, above all, socialism that was supposed to restore people’s dignity by providing living standards that would ensure the welfare of all members of society. After the tax reform and galloping consumer prices partly caused by decreasing subsidies for everyday products, there was not much of a socialist utopia left. Instead, many citizens lacked viable prospects within their own country. There is much to be said for not seeing the party’s loss of legitimacy exclusively in the ever-widening social gap. Probably, there would have been sufficient tolerance toward a small layer of the rich if such a large part of the population had not been affected by poverty or burdensome economic conditions. If wealth had been more equally distributed, the

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party’s retreat from the equality postulate would have shaken the population less. In this sense, the argumentation of Katalin Szikra Falusné is noteworthy: In conclusion, it appears that it is not exclusively the income and wealth disparities or their increasing tendency that create the tensions. The real problem is that they are forced to live in the most challenging material circumstances on incomes around the subsistence level and can only obtain minimal necessary assets (housing, household appliances, etc.) at the cost of long years and much effort. (Szikra Falusné 1987: 29)

It seems unsurprising, then, that the visible luxury consumption of a small stratum was the outlet for the hopelessness of a frighteningly large part of the population. The Los Angeles Times reported on the founder of Ofotert as follows: “‘They hate my car,’ said Gábor Varszegi, staring gloomiingly at an ugly gash inflicted by vandals on his sleek, black Mercedes 560 SL” (Hamilton 1989). Luxury products increasingly symbolized the dissolution of a society of socialist order from which only a few profited while the majority struggled for daily survival. Political scientist László Boros commented that the decline in living standards was weakening the foundations of the compromise between the János Kádár regime and the population since 1956 and was therefore becoming a legitimacy problem for the leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party (Situation Report August 1988). According to the Marxist conception of history, Hungary—instead of moving steadily toward communism—moved undeniably backward in history (Bluhm 2010). A circulating joke about the not yet resigned General Secretary, János Kádár, expresses this backward leading path particularly well: “Why doesn’t Kádár abdicate? - He wants to hand over the country as he found it.” György Aczél, chief ideologist and confidant of Kádár, found the following self-critical words: The great masses feel that ... they have lost their chance to advance. The poor feel that they have lost their chance to move up again. Those who own something feel that they might lose it. People generally cannot live without prospects; this is especially the case under socialism because in people’s minds this society was associated with progress. (Situation Report August 1988)

Or as N.M. wrote in a letter to the editor in Nök Lapja in 1988:

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The Erzsikes at that time had a good general well-being despite difficult living conditions because their perspective looked to the future and they believed that only better things would follow. Today, at the age of 26, I have neither: perspective nor faith. Of course, one can believe in many things but that I can purchase a flat from a state salary, with a [...] loan, without a boy who suits me, which would cause serious distortions physically and psychologically...is unrealistic. [...] As for my general wellbeing, I’m fine, thank you, because I don’t expect anything from society, as my great-grandmother did a hundred years ago, and so there cannot be any great disappointment: the safest thing is for people to rely only on themselves, on their own strength. (N.M. 1988)

What was once thematized in the official discourse as the phenomenon of Gulyás communism (Goulash communism) and later Fridzsider socialism (Fridge socialism) was, for most Hungarians, no longer recognizable under the burden of taxes, falling real incomes, and runaway prices. Utopia became a negative utopia in which society moved backward from what had already been achieved. An entire generation of young people no longer saw their place in society at the time, were without perspective, without faith, in short: faced a vacuum. The former fears, that steadily increasing consumption would lead to unrestrained materialism, had vanished by the end of the 1980s. What remained current was that members of society had to be more concerned with how to make ends meet for themselves and, if necessary, their own families. The preoccupation with consumption, with one’s standard of living, filled an ever-larger part of free time. Worries about their everyday existence also meant that Hungarians had less time and means for furthering their personal development as was once imagined by socialism. Indeed, when it became clear that the socialist state could no longer offer at least a decent living standard to all members of society or relative social equality the loss of legitimacy became overwhelming. It resulted in the dissolution of the socialist state, and it was not by chance that Hungary was the first Warsaw Pact country to open its border to the West.

Conclusion During the economic crisis at the beginning of the 1980s, the Westernorientated technocratic elite within the state party came to dominate the discourse in Hungary (Wilkin 2016: 31). More market, decentralization and individual economic initiative were supposed to rejuvenate the ailing

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economy. The Second Economy and entrepreneurship, which became substantially extended within the framework of economic reform in 1982, created social differences which stood in stark opposition to the egalitarian values of socialist societies. It became evident that the state party found itself in a dilemma of either furthering market reforms to attain fiscal equilibrium or alleviating social tensions within the population. The cultural conflict between market and socialism was, therefore, not only negotiated within the state party but even more so on the Everyday level. Consumption practices of the well-off became contested by those parts of the population whose socialist good life deteriorated. The socialist framework alone could no longer provide the living standard which has been continuously promoted since 1956, the suppression of the Hungarian uprising. Many who earned through the possibilities of the Second Economy could engage in conspicuous and often Western consumption, partly fueled by new shopping opportunities in nearby Vienna. This specific kind of consumption marked growing social inequalities, which created tensions among Hungarian citizens in Everyday life. While the loss of the socialist utopia became visible through the consumption practices of ordinary people, it also serves as an example of how solutions for (economic) problems created challenges on other levels the state party found increasingly difficult to navigate. Ultimately, in the 1980s, cultural conflict arose over two entirely different economic systems and among the population on the question of how much social inequality is acceptable within the boundaries of an imagined socialist society of equals. This—together with the above—led to a considerable loss of legitimacy for the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party and contributed to the dissolution of the communist system in 1989.

Notes 1. Maszek is an abbreviation of magánszektor (private sector), which in the 1950s, comedian Dezs˝ o Kellér turned into a popular bonmot. Based on primarily positive consumer experiences in the private sector, it also gained the meaning of something extraordinary or first class. 2. Estimates are talking of 50–60,000 Hungarians who had accumulated substantial wealth at the beginning of the 1980s.

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Bren, Paulina, and Mary Neuburger. 2012. Communism Unwrapped. Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press. Crowley, David, and Susan Reid. 2002. Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc. Oxford: Berg. Crowley, David, and Susan Reid. 2010. Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press. Dombos, Tamás, and Léna Pellandini-Simanyi. 2012. Kids, Cars, or Cashews? Debating and Remembering Consumption in Socialist Hungary. In Communism Unwrapped, 325–350. New York: Oxford University Press. Ékes, Ildikó. 1998. Lakossági jövedelemeloszlás és jövedelemegyenl˝ otlenség az átalakulás id˝ oszakában. Society and Economy in Central and Eastern Europe 4: 204–229. Fehérváry, Krisztina. 2013. Politics in Color and Concrete: Socialist Materialities and the Middle-Class in Hungary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Gagyi, Ágnes. 2016. Coloniality of Power’ in East Central Europe: External Penetration as Internal Force in Post-Socialist Hungarian Politics. Journal of World-Systems Research 2: 349–372. Gagyiova, Annina. 2020. Vom Gulasch zum Kühlschrank. Privater Konsum zwischen Eigensinn und Herrschaftssicherung. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Gagyiova, Annina. 2022. Vízum nélkül lehet utazni Ausztriába. Bevásárlóturizmus a Vasfüggönyön keresztül. In Magyarország Globális Története 1869–2022, ed. Ferenc Laczó and Bálint Varga, 361–365. Budapest: Corvina. Germuska, Pál. 2008. De hát eszerint a szocializmus bedobhatja a törülköz˝ ot? Második gazdaság a Kádár-korszakban. In Évkönyv XV , ed. Pál Germuska and Rainer M. János, 66–84. Budapest: 1956-os Intézet. Ger˝ ocs, Tamás, and András Pinkasz. 2017. Debt-Ridden Development on Europe’s Eastern Periphery. In Global Inequalities in World-Systems Perspective. Theoretical Debates and Methodological Innovations, ed. Manuela Boatca, Andrea Komlosy, and Hans-Heinrich Nolte, 131–153. New York, NY: Routledge. Hessler, Julie. 1996. Culture of Shortages. A Social History of Soviet Trade, 1917–1953. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Jastrzab, Mariusz. 2004. Empty Shelves: The Problem in the Provision of Everyday Goods in Poland, 1949–1956. Warsaw: Trio. Landsman, Mark. 2005. Dictatorship and Demand. The Politics of Consumerism in East Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Merkel, Ina. 1999. Utopie und Bedürfnis. Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR. Köln: Böhlau Verlag. Nyyssönen, Heino. 2006. Salami Reconstructed: ‘Goulash Communism’ and Political Culture in Hungary. Cahiers du monde russe 1–2: 153–172. Patterson, Patrick H. 2011. Bought and Sold. Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Phillips, Richard, Jeffrey Henderson, László Andor, and David Hulme. 2006. Usurping Social Policy: Neoliberalism and Economic Governance in Hungary. Journal of Social Policy 4: 585–606. Pope-Fischer, Lisa. 2016. Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-socialist Hungary. Experiences of a Generation that Lived During the Socialist Era. Leiden: Brill. Reid, Susan, and David Crowley. 2000. Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe. Oxford: Berg. Scarboro, Cristofer, Diana Mincyte, and Zsuzsa Gille. 2020. The Socialist Good Life: Desire, Development, and Standards of Living in Eastern Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sík, Endre. 1992. From Second Economy to Informal Economy. Journal of Public Policy 12: 153–175. Swain, Geoff, and Nigel Swain. 1993. Eastern Europe Since 1945. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Szelenyi, Ivan, and Robert Manchin. 1987. Social Policy Under State Socialism: Market, Redistribution, and Social Inequalities in East European Socialist Societies. In Stagnation and Renewal in Social Policy. The Rise and Fall of Policy Regimes, ed. Martin Rein, Gosta Esping-Andersen, and Lee Rainwater, 102–139. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Tomka, Béla. 2020. Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in East Central Europe Since 1945. New York: Central European University Press. Valuch, Tibor. 2005. Magyarország társadalomtörténete a XX. század második felében. Budapest: Osiris kiadó. Valuch, Tibor. 2013. Magyar hétköznapok. Fejezetek a mindennapi élet történetéb˝ol a második világháborútól az ezredfordulóig. Budapest: Napvilág kiadó. Valuch, Tibor. 2021. Everyday Life Under Communism and After: Lifestyle and Consumption in Hungary, 1945–2000. Budapest: Central European University Press. Veblen, Thorstein. 2009. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press (first published 1899). Wilkin, Peter. 2016. Hungary’s Crisis of Democracy. The Road to Serfdom. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Eesti Reklaamfilm as a Jack-of-All-Trades: On the Untold Opportunities of a Late Soviet Advertising Bureau Airi Uuna

Any organisation needs to use advertising to market itself and its production or services. However, in the Soviet Union, a bureaucratically planned economy had substituted the market together with the free flow of consumer items. This eliminated the need for the Soviet companies to compete with each other, neither over market shares, nor potential revenue (Verdery 1996: 20–22). Moreover, in the context of the Cold War, heavy industry was prioritised. Light industry assumed a seemingly secondary role inside the state’s structure, often struggling to receive production materials to deliver output, or investments to implement innovation. Consequently, the availability and choice of consumer items could be at times quite limited (Chernyshova 2013: 20–22, 29–31, 33). The quality and reputation of the Soviet consumption sector, thus, suffered from an inferior standing compared to the output of their Western counterparts (Tranaviˇci¯ ute˙ 2017: 182). It seems that, in a command economy, advertising was stripped of its significance as an economic tool. This

A. Uuna (B) Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_9

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might give the impression that such promotional activities must have been extremely limited. That said, how is it then possible that proper advertising companies, such as the Soviet-Estonian Eesti Reklaamfilm, existed at all? Remarkably, the Soviet advertising system has its origins already in the wake of the October Revolution. It has been pointed out in Soviet literature on commercial advertising that among the first communist regulations adopted was the “Decree on the Introduction of a State Monopoly on Announcements [ob“iavleniia]” in 1917 (e.g. Karu 1969: 19–20; Kanevskii 1980: 11–12) signed by Lenin himself. With that, state monopoly was imposed over advertisements. Officially, it was argued that this move ensured the transparency and reliability of information amidst the ongoing fight against speculation and fraud (Karu 1969: 19–20; Degtiarev and Kornilov 1969: 13). In reality, it reinforced nationalisation of the economy. Despite all systemic difficulties in the supply of consumer items, the Soviet Union managed to build up a fairly complex system of commercial advertising, both institutionally and in terms of media mix.1 Then again, throughout the Soviet period, the organisation and financing of commercial advertising, or torgovaia reklama, remained under the control of an authoritarian state. This circumstance does prompt questions about the meaning and function of commercial advertising which was supposed to communicate economic information to a wide audience. Was advertising produced merely for the sake of propaganda, or as a purely economic undertaking? Whether or not Soviet advertisements were supposed to deliver anything from a political or economic point of view is of course contingent upon the kind of mandate a Soviet advertising company possessed. Until now, most of the historical analyses which have been done on Soviet advertising have primarily concentrated on the visuality of the final product, rather than on the industry’s structural framework (e.g. Cox 2003; Tolstikova 2009; Siegelbaum 2012; Hetherington 2015; Paulus 2018; Tranaviˇci¯ute˙ 2017, 2018). The few works which have attempted to tackle the systemic level are rather historical overviews which do not enter into an in-depth analysis of the framework (e.g. Uchenova 2004; Fox et al 2005; Peacock 2016). In other instances, such introductory works originate from other disciplines, such as political science or economics, oftentimes written during the Cold War, which makes them into veritable sources from the perspective of the twenty-first century (e.g. Goldman

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1960; Markham 1964; Hanson 1974).2 So far, no dedicated academic works have been published that focus on a single Soviet case study, such as Eesti Reklaamfilm, with the aim to scrutinise how the system of advertising actually worked in the conditions of late socialism.3 Questions regarding this business’s intrinsic logic of production, its functional networks within and without the structures of state and party as well as the employees’ motivation to work in this economic sector need to be raised before any issues of creative freedom can be adequately examined. In this chapter, structural aspects of the business are addressed in order to assess why advertising became an attractive industry not only for the employees, but also for the clients who used the services of Eesti Reklaamfilm. In order to gain insight into this seemingly un-socialist industry, a business of competition, creativity, and innovation, a fairly small republic-level Soviet-Estonian advertising enterprise has been examined. In Estonian, this company was called Eesti Reklaamfilm (abbr. ERF, ˙ 1967–1991), in Russian Estonskii Reklamfil ' m, and in English—Estonian Commercial Film Producers. Despite its comparatively small size, the activity of ERF was by no means limited to the Estonian SSR. While situated in the smallest union republic, population-wise, ERF was among the key players in advertising on an All-Union level. Being a high-flier among its kind means that ERF offers an opportunity to see how a welloiled Soviet advertising company worked. It presents the possibility to explore how an individual enterprise fit into the larger Soviet advertising structure; identify the driving forces of particular advertising projects; and examine the motivation for individuals to become advertising specialists in a planned economy. In many respects, it offers an insight as to why a Soviet advertising company could be described as a Jack-of-All-Trades.

Research Methodology The general accessibility of archival sources documenting the bureau’s everyday workflows4 coupled with oral history interviews with former employees make ERF an interesting case study to investigate the Soviet advertising industry.5 The information derived from these conversations helps to fill in some of the gaps in the, at times, comparatively sketchy collection of archival information. After all, a large part of business activities—no matter whether in communist or capitalist societies—consists of extending and maintaining cooperation networks with partners and clients. The precise activities and the temporary prioritisation of one or

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the other cooperation partner are knowledge which goes beyond bureaucratic documentation, following rather the dynamics of internal tacit agreements and personal contacts (Kragh 2013: 364–366; Uuna 2020: 186). The analytical concept of organisational memory contains corporate knowledge, intellectual know-how, shared values, and everyday routines (or practices) of both the management and staff making up the corporate culture. Organisational memory is a business asset which is preserved inside the social space of an enterprise and handed down orally (Perks 2010: 40, 44–45). Thus, oral history presents multiple perspectives that enhance our understandings of the past, especially in a field, such as advertising, where artefacts remain the dominant form of evidence (Crawford and Bailey 2018: 109–110). In order to study the organisational memory, semi-structured oral history interviews have been conducted with 31 former ERF employees and business partners in 2020. In this chapter, after outlining the evolutionary milestones of the Soviet advertising structure, the placement of ERF in this framework together with its portfolio will be discussed. The interviews shed light on how the people working in the industry interpret their former tasks from today’s perspective. The memories of the informants provide valuable contextual information which gives the organisational bureaucratic paperwork a human dimension in delivering background information either on the decision-making or on the execution procedure of individual advertising projects. In the following section, the example of car races will shed light on the tense relationship between self-promotion and political propaganda as well as mark out the factors of the relative success of Soviet advertising in this closed system.

ˆ The Raison D'etre of Advertising in the Soviet Union Reading the available Soviet professional literature on advertising, it appears that there was an attempt to strive towards values such as ‘truth’, ‘clarity’ and ‘ideology’ (e.g. Karu 1969: 13).6 However, closer examination reveals relatively quickly that many of the actual ideas and best practices introduced and advocated by Soviet specialists are actually derived from Western authors. Oftentimes, in an attempt to decrease ideological contradiction, ideas from which the command economy could

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profit are contextualised with the proper ideological pretext by Soviet specialists.7 From the mid-1960s, the Soviet advertising industry started to develop more intensely. By then, the once dominant seller’s market had started to transform into a buyer’s market. Once the markets had recovered from post-war scarcity, customers started becoming more selective. Storage rooms began to fill up with so-called slow-selling or even dead articles which, in turn, caused distortion in the turnover of consumer goods. Consequently, less money was in circulation, causing difficulties for the national economy. This post-war phenomenon was not localised to the Soviet (or, socialist) context; Western European countries, such as the Federal Republic of Germany, encountered similar issues (Berghoff 2016: 327). At about the same time—that is, during the 1960s—the concept of ‘marketing’ emerged first in the West and with a bit of a delay (and in a more subtle manner) also on the east-side of the Iron Curtain. This umbrella term originated in the United States and became an integral part of company management (ibidem). Thereby, advertising represents only one aspect of a comprehensive business plan. Russian translations of Western publications on (facets of) marketing were occasionally published in the Soviet Union as well. Admittedly, the print numbers were not necessarily large, and translations often came with a delay of several years (Reklama 1976 (3): 24).8 For example, Rosser Reeves’ lauded Reality in Advertising (1961) was translated into Russian in 1969, while Philip Kotler’s renowned Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control (1967) was published in the USSR only in 1980. However, the term ‘marketing’ was introduced prior to the translation of Kotler’s book. In 1969, A. Samsin published a piece in the Soviet professional trade journal Sovetskaia torgovlia (Samsin 1969: 48–49).9 Essentially, it was a book review, titled “A New Book on Advertising”. Besides introducing the book—which was published a year earlier in the USSR—the article endeavoured to explain the concept of marketing.10 Following the publication of Samsin’s article, there was talk about the advantages of Western-type marketing in the Soviet context on several occasions.11 Even so, it is difficult to assess the understanding of this concept as well as how common its use was among contemporaries. There may also be a noteworthy difference between professionals working in foreign and domestic trade (Fox et al. 2005). At least in Reklama and Sovetskaia torgovlia, the topical discussions often tended to remain rather superficial (e.g. Reklama

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1976 (3): 24): “Since marketing itself has borrowed a lot from planned economy, it might as well be used as a complex approach for organising the market in the conditions of the socialist economic system.”12 The ‘revival’ of the Soviet advertising industry was closely connected with the reform programme of Alexei Kosygin (1904–1980), at that time the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The economic reforms he initiated fed on Western-type marketing ideas. They foresaw that the performance of companies would not be measured only according to their planned output, but also by their sales numbers (Uuna 2020: 175–176). These principles were supposed to offer a comprehensive approach in managing the market, thus ensuring the steady movement of consumer items, in a planned economy. As such, sales numbers became a significant criterion. In achieving a higher turnover, commercial advertising became a relevant tool (Hanson 1974: 18–19; Feodorov 1964: 54–58; Sovetskaia torgovlia 1965 (11): 1–3; Argunov 1966: 47–48; Sorokina 1969: 54–57; Basovskaia 1972: 37–42). In an attempt to promote the development of commercial advertising, it was now (in a relative sense) more actively written about in Sovetskaia torgovlia. After the journal for Soviet advertising professionals Reklama was founded in 1971, the bulk of advertising-related articles were published there. Events and professional literature, at both local and international levels, facilitated the transfer of best practices in design, theory, and methods.13 In an article published in 1982, Iu. Sergeev, basing his arguments on Kotler’s Marketing Management, points out that the goal of marketing is to establish a link between consumer needs, production, and sales. Ultimately, advertising is one of the main instruments helping companies convey information, and convince potential clients in a targeted way to obtain a particular consumer item, or take advantage of a specific service (Sergeev 1982: 20–21). From the mid-1960s, at an institutional level, the advertising structure expanded. Ministries and big companies created advertising departments, all to which were allotted a corresponding budget. Even dedicated companies were established (Uchenova 2004: 207). In this vein, the Ministry of Food Industry of the Estonian SSR established a subdivision in 1966 called the Technical Design Bureau’s Advertising Laboratory (Est. Konstrueerimise ja Tehnoloogia Büroo Reklaamilaboratoorium) (Ugand 1972: 4–5). These new administrative units were obliged to use up all allocated funds as it was not possible to transfer the leftover sum to the subsequent year (Uchenova 2004: 207). An interview with a team

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member of ERF confirmed this practice: “The worst time was the end of the year – then we [ERF] had an awful lot of that money! In command economy all enterprises had to use up their advertising money by the end of the year. There were planned amounts. […] Each year we had this end-of-the-year chaos!”(Director 1 at ERF).14 Companies stormed ERF annually in order to get rid of their allocated advertising budgets before the calendar year changes. It is a completely separate issue, how much or if any real thought was put into planning such rushed undertakings. Some of the former employees at ERF have expressed doubts whether even all the advertisements they produced were ever actually used. Although there seems to have been a preoccupation with money, undertones of regret that their work may have been a futile effort at times echoed through: “Once, I happened to be in the cellar of Soiuztorgreklama which was filled from top to bottom with rusty film boxes. Then I looked who had produced them – Eesti Reklaamfilm! But they [Soiuztorgreklama] had done their work, paid the money and accepted it [the film]. So, everything was alright. But we started to think that oh my god – did we work for nothing?! But then again, they did pay the money!” (Director 1 at ERF).15

ERF in the Framework of the Soviet Advertising Structure The founding of ERF coincides with the reforms described above. The founder, Peedu Ojamaa (1933–2014), having worked for a decade at the Soviet-Estonian film studio Tallinnfilm, and being in close contact with both the Estonian state television and radio, had managed to obtain sufficient knowledge and connections in the filmmaking industry (Ruus 2014: 22). He reasoned that at one point he wanted to become his own boss. Recognising that commercial advertising had become a necessity, though there was a lack of producers, Ojamaa established ERF in 1967: “Novelties had become some kind of indicators for fulfilling the plan. Considering the situation, we decided that now would be the right time to maybe make a run for film production” (Radsin 2001). A former cameraman who had worked with Ojamaa at Tallinnfilm reminisced in an interview that Peedu Ojamaa had once laughed while telling him the story of establishing ERF. Ojamaa claimed that from the moment he had the idea to open his own advertising bureau until

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the day he received the permission took only about two months (Cinematographer at Tallinnfilm). Admittedly, this statement sounds somewhat anecdotal because it seems too short a period for the necessary preparations. However, other interview partners have confirmed that the preparatory period had to have been relatively short, lasting perhaps about half a year. That any enterprise, especially one which is directly involved in handling information and public relations, was launched in a centralised system by the initiative of a single person (who was not a high-standing party functionary) is in itself noteworthy.16 Ojamaa was a member of the Communist Party, as were most other Soviet enterprise executives and, to an extent, also staff members. Allegedly, ten ministers were acting as bondsmen (Est. soovitajad) for this enterprise.17 In an interview, a former employee of ERF recalled that among those Soviet-Estonian ministers were people such as Albert Norak (Minister of Finance); Gustav Tõnspoeg (Minister of Meat and Dairy Production); Kuno Todeson (Minister of Trade); as well as Feliks Liivik, then the Chairman of the Estonian State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino) (Manager at ERF).18 By holding the position of Editor-in-Chief, essentially acting as Executive Manager of ERF (ERA, R-2299/1/38: 18–19) for the pursuant twenty years, Ojamaa indeed achieved his goal of becoming his own boss. At the same time, the state (institutions) undertook a dual role: in the form of supervisory bodies and as various types of clients. The statute of ERF states that it was founded explicitly as an advertising bureau (Est. reklaambüroo). As a self-managing legal person, it had its own assets, independent balance sheets, and a designated stamp. Relatively speaking, this suggests that the enterprise was as detached from (or, as tied to) the logic of the command economy and Party politics as any other business unit in this system. The bureau’s work was guided by its own statute, the legal framework of the Soviet Union, and that of the Estonian SSR, as well as by the instructions of the State Committee for Cinematography of the USSR (Goskino). At a structural level, ERF was subordinated to and formally controlled by the Estonian branch of Goskino. The task of the bureau was to produce commercial films and programmes for Estonian Television according to the orders received (ERA, R-2299/1/38: 18–19). To put things into context, ERF was not the only company producing advertising content for television, radio, and cinema. By 1982, inside the All-Union system of Goskino about 20 million rubles worth of advertising

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films were produced annually. This apparently made up one-third of the whole cinematographic production (Troitskii 1982: 10). Reportedly, in the whole Soviet Union, about 500 advertising films were made annually by the studios belonging to the Goskino-system. These were film studios, like Gruziiafilm, Mosfilm, Lennauchfilm, and ERF. In addition, about 200 films were made by agencies and advertising combines (Nersesianom and Zubkovoi 1984: 5) which could be part of enterprise associations, such as the Russian Rostorgreklama, the Ukrainian Ukrtorgreklama, or the Latvian Latvtorgreklama. Then, there were also the studios belonging to the All-Union system of Gosteleradio, like Central Television and various types of local television studios.19 Reklama contained regular profiles of advertising companies and reports of their in-house work processes. Over the years, there were a few occasions when the work of ERF was featured. However, it does not appear to have been explicitly mentioned that ERF, in principle, acted as an All-Union company. There was only talk about serving republiclevel clients (Ojamaa 1983: 21).20 But, after its foundation, ERF started taking up projects on an All-Union level relatively quickly. The financial audit for the year 1968 contains a comment on the future perspectives of the bureau’s work. ERF had a vision to become a studio that would already “in the next year or the year after that” serve orders commissioned from outside the Estonian SSR. This statement gives the impression that this was already a done deal with Goskino of the USSR (ERA, R2299/1/13a: 15). It appears that ERF had hit it off with the Soviet export advertising company known as Vneshtorgreklama, even before putting together this report, as it is claimed that these two enterprises had managed already to “establish friendly relations” (ERA, R-2299/1/13a: 15).21 Among ERF’s later regular clients were various types of organisations that were involved in trade, technological, as well as economic relations with foreign states, like exporters of vehicles and industrial technology, such as Avtoeksport and Tekhnopromeksport. Other re-occurring prominent companies ordering services form ERF were, for example, advertising combines, such as the All-Union Soiuztorgreklama, the Russian Rostorgreklama, and Glavkooptorgreklama; 22 the Soviet record ˙ company Melodiia; the wholesaler of electronics Elektronika; the AllUnion travel company Inturist; and the Soviet airline Aeroflot ˙ (Kanevskii 1980: 133–134; Osolin 2020: 265–266). To illustrate ERF’s production levels, according to its annual reports, 367 short commercial films

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(incl. videos, excluding audio-visual programmes, meaning slideshows) were produced in 1983 (ERA, R-1946/1/3104: 86); 332 in 1984 (ERA, R-1946/1/3198: 92); and 314 in 1985 (ERA, R-1946/1/3304: 90). Out of these films, about one-third was ordered by clients located in the Estonian SSR and the rest came from clients scattered all over the Soviet Union. It is difficult to say how many other companies existed in the USSR which worked in a similar way to ERF. Reklama does report on a few instances on the advantages of having an advertising organisation which functions as an agency. In such cases, the Russian business organisation Volna, which was acting as a self-managing and self-financing business, was named as a positive example. In contrast to ERF, this agency, founded in 1973, was a subsidiary of Rostorgreklama. It was located in Samara, at that time named Kuibyshev, a region known for its many industrial factories (Reklama 1976 (1): 4). Ten years after its foundation, its director L. Grimberg proudly reported in Reklama that Volna, in addition to the headquarters in Kuibyshev, now had six branch offices in the neighbouring cities: Toliatti, Syzran, Ulianovsk, Orenburg, Saratov, and Saransk (Grimberg 1983: 3). For example, Toliatti was the home of the Soviet automobile producer AvtoVAZ which is most famous for their iconic Lada-brand. Volna was not the only company with transregional branch offices. Besides the main office in Tallinn, ERF had representation units and production capacities in three further cities: Riga, Moscow, and Leningrad. While the units in Riga and Moscow were established already in the early 1970s, the one in Leningrad followed a bit later (Osolin 2020: 276). The agencies ERF and Volna present seemingly a similar developmental pattern. A sustainable expansion of business presupposes both the adaption to the clients’ needs and the creation of new ones, with the advertising bureaus constantly expanding their service portfolio. In that way, regular clients keep employing the agencies’ services because they see an upgrade in the innovation for themselves. At the same time, distinguished long-term clients potentially attract new ones.

The Service Portfolio of ERF The initial employees of ERF already had the experience of making (short) films. For example, Ojamaa had been Editor-in-Chief at the Tallinnfilm department specialised in the documentary chronicles ‘Review’ (Est.

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Ringvaade). Others included former employees from Estonian Television. Thus, these people brought with them both the necessary technical knowhow and their professional networks (Cinematographer at Tallinnfilm). Tallinn’s geographical proximity to Helsinki became an important factor for staying up-to-date with Western (advertising) trends which essentially turned into a valuable business asset. Finnish media coverage extended over the Gulf of Finland into the Soviet space. Particularly, the residents in the capital of Tallinn had (covert) access to it and were using this opportunity eagerly (Mikkonen 2010; Miil 2012). Part of it was simple curiosity to know what was happening outside the Soviet world. Often, Finnish television programmes were more entertaining for SovietEstonian viewers compared to what was available in their own country. As the Estonian and Finnish languages are closely related, a language barrier did not pose a serious obstacle for the majority of the Estonian-speaking audience. The inspiration for how an advertising spot should look was derived by the staff of ERF primarily from Finnish television (Berko and Eenmaa 2004: 29; Pagel 2014). Moreover, the company’s employees regularly copied and distributed Finnish television programmes among themselves: “Everybody got one to bring home! In this way you didn’t have to passively wait for some programme, but you could plan your life around it […]” (Editor 5 at ERF). The ability to see on Finnish television how Western commercial advertising looked and to understand—at least to an extent—how it functioned gave Ojamaa’s team an advantage compared to their industry counterparts. To top things off, starting from the mid-1960s, with the establishment of the regular ferry line between Tallinn and Helsinki, there was more frequent bilateral tourism across the Gulf of Finland. Personal and professional contacts between the two countries began to increase. Now, colleagues of Estonian Television and ERF could communicate with their Finnish counterparts more actively (Pagel 2014) and bring to life a number of televised cooperation projects, such as the bilingual quiz show organised by the Soviet-Estonian Eesti Televisioon and the Finnish privately owned Mainos-TV entitled Competition Between Friends (Naapurivisa, 1966–1970). Thus, there was a fair amount of knowledge exchange occurring across borders (Manager at ERF). Although the company statute of ERF stated that this bureau is authorised to produce advertising spots as well as full-fledged television programmes for Estonian needs (ERA, R-2299/1/38: 18–19), its

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actual service portfolio was significantly more varied, especially inside the Estonian SSR. A member of the editorial board of Reklama, Evgenii Markovich Kanevskii writes that ERF was a unique organisation in the system of Goskino, describing it as having a mixed structure (sinteticheskoi). It is at once a bureau and a studio (Kanevskii 1980: 133). A former editor at ERF drew attention to the same unique characteristic: “No one had it like this. Usually you had a client; an agency who figured it out, wrote the script and made an order to a production company who then made the film” (Editor 1 at ERF). Besides the activities already mentioned, ERF was also involved in the organisation of events, such as (international) fashion and flower shows, as well as lotteries, and also various sports contests, like regattas, and car races. In the Soviet context, such events may not have been classified as straightforward advertising. The motivation for Soviet-type marketing strategies and advertising methods, applied in a subtle manner within the framework of these events, can be illustrated with an example from sports.

Between Commercial Promotion and Propaganda: The Example of Car Races Motorsports offered a platform for advertising activities. In many ways, this did not differ from what was happening in Western countries. In 1973, an article titled “Factory and Advertising” by M. Leonov was published in Reklama. It discussed topics which could today be categorised as sponsorship, product placement, or advertorials—a combination of advertising and editorial (Leonov 1973: 2–3; Uuna 2020: 172). Races, such as car or bike rallies, were already being used by Soviet companies as a way to channel sponsorship. In such events, companies could act as (co-)organisers and also set up their own teams. An impressive example of how classic product advertising and political propaganda could go hand in hand was a 5,000-km-long rally from the western Ukrainian city of L' viv to the Russian city Ulianovsk on the Volga. In 1970, the motorcycle factory in L' viv used the 100th year anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) to organise the race. Almost a dozen newspapers across the Soviet Union reported on it regularly, making the factory’s production known across the Union. Interestingly, this form of ‘propaganda’ was recommended by the Soviet Ministry of Automobiles to all car and motorbike manufacturers. In autumn of the same year, a trade fair was held in Moscow. Leonov reports that thanks

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to the so-called Lenin-race earlier that year, the motorbikes and mopeds from L' viv sold significantly better (Leonov 1973: 2–3; see also Uuna 2020: 176). ERF was no stranger to motorsports either. For example, ERF and Estonian Radio had a long-term agreement according to which all sports programmes should contain advertising (ERA, R-2299–1-41: 23).23 ERF was engaged in producing content for rallies both on Estonian Television and on Estonian Radio from the 1970s. In addition to that, ERF also produced a programme on traffic news (Ringliiklus, 1973–1995) as well as on cars and races (Mootorite maailmas ) for Estonian Television. Similarly designated programmes were aired on Estonian Radio, such as Traffic News (Est. Liiklussaade), a programme about road safety (Berko and Eenmaa 2004: 50). Even if only indirectly, such programmes promoted domestic (i.e. Soviet) motor vehicle production as they were the only ones visible. By the beginning of the 1980s, the Formula One series was planning to expand and looking around for new, interesting places to hold a Grand Prix. The Formula One Constructor’s Association (FOCA) and the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) turned to the corresponding Soviet organisations, proposing to hold one of these prominent international car races on Soviet soil (Ojamaa 1983: 21). Having hosted the Olympic Games in 1980, the Soviet Union had the potential to organise another such prominent event. After Moscow and Leningrad were dismissed due to the lack of interest from city officials, Tallinn became the next potential host for this venture (Simm 2019). Ojamaa and his team became part of the organisation committee involved in persuading decision-makers that this race should take place in Tallinn. It was envisioned that the competition would become something like that held at the glamorous Circuit de Monaco, where the race takes place on the streets of the city by the Mediterranean Sea. The ERF team had some experience in lobbying for similar international events. A few years earlier, they delivered a pitch to convince decision-makers that the Olympic regatta should be held in Tallinn. In 1976, ERF had founded a dedicated department called ‘Spinnaker’ (ERA, R-1946/1/2457: 183) for carrying out promotional work (or, to quote precisely: “to organise propaganda and advertising work”) in the field of sports and culture. Initially, this promotional work was foremostly dedicated to the popularisation of the Olympic Regatta in Tallinn (ERA-R.2299/1/39: 1).

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So, in three days, ERF prepared a special audio-visual programme pitch (in essence a slideshow) for the candidacy of Tallinn to become a potential location for a Formula One circuit.24 Pirita, a prominent seaside area which housed the Olympic regatta-harbour, already had a race track which could be reconstructed and expanded according to the needs of Formula One race cars (Ojamaa 1983: 21). By that time, Tallinn had also become one of the outstanding Soviet production sites for go-carts and formula-type cars, which were made by the Tallinn Experimental Car Repair Factory (Tallinna Autode Remondi Katsetehas, TARK). Although this factory did not have the capability to produce proper Formula One cars, it did produce lower-category ones for the Soviet market. There were also a number of successful Soviet formula-series drivers from the Estonian SSR. For example, Henry Saarm (b. 1932), Madis Laiv (b. 1937), Lembit Teesalu (1945–2021), Toivo Asmer (b. 1947), and Toomas Napa (b. 1953) had all taken part in the All-Union and the socialist Formula Easter races, in Russian known as Formula Vostok. Thus, there was local knowledge and know-how in the Estonian SSR that made the prospect of holding such an event attractive. Equally important was that Tallinn had the experience of hosting a world-famous international sports event in the form of the Olympic regatta. The audio-visual programme presented relevant aspects of the city’s potential to host the race to the organisers: conditions for safety, communications, guests’ facilities, etc. (Ojamaa 1983: 21). Accommodating such a prestigious annual event as a Formula One Grand Prix would have been a significant international public relations stunt for the Soviet Union. It would have helped in improving its reputation, depicting it as a modern, dynamic, and approachable state. Of course, the prospect of gaining highly desired hard currency, and perhaps even some form of foreign investments or cooperation for projects, was no less important. Prominent Soviet (export) companies would have probably been able to exhibit their logos side by side as equal to major Western companies as sponsors at the race track. Foreign camera teams responsible for broadcasting this event would have transmitted these images to an international audience. Moreover, with all the pre- and follow-up events, this would have offered the perfect opportunity to profit from good publicity and to network among distinguished international guests. Tallinn city would have profited again from investments in infrastructure, similarly to those of the preparatory period of the Olympic Games (Makkaeev 2000; Simm 2019).

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However, the idea to introduce Formula One in the USSR did not emerge only in the 1980s. The Soviets had toyed with this idea already decades ago. In 1958, a report by a Soviet delegation visiting the Silverstone Formula One circuit in England was published in the Soviet automotive journal Za rulem. The author of this report was Leonid Leonidovich Afanas´ev (1912–1982), a representative of the Automobile Section of the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Navy (Dobrovol´noe Obshshchestvo Sodeistviia Armii, Aviatsii i Flotu, DOSAAF), a Union-wide paramilitary sport organisation. He reported in detail how this sports competition was organised and what type of cars were being used. He points out that this is a typical example for a race organised by FISA and that similar events take place in almost all (Western) European countries. In the USSR, a potential site for similar competitions would have been the airport area in Tushino, close to Moscow. Afanas' ev was confident that such a race would appeal to both the drivers and the audience, forecasting that the first of such races could, in principle, take place already in a year (1958: 18–19). In the end, these expectations turned out to be too optimistic. The specific reasons why these plans were halted are unclear. At least to an extent, deficiencies in technology and supply (e.g. which would have enabled the construction of F1-type cars of Soviet origin) and considerations regarding state security in monitoring interactions with foreign guests must have been among the significant factors. Of course, the general economic situation of the USSR at that time cannot be underestimated. Fast-forwarding to the 1980s, the project did gain momentum. By then, this race series had become even more prestigious and technologically advanced than it had been during the 1950s. Bernie Ecclestone (b. 1930), at that time the CEO of FOCA, with his team, represented by Mario Galanti, visited the Estonian SSR on more than one occasion. Test drives were done, and plans for reconstructing the aforementioned race track in Pirita were drawn up. According to one version, the finished plan fell short only of Brezhnev’s signature due to his sudden death (Osolin 2020: 333–334).25 The new Grand Prix track ultimately ended up in socialist Hungary a few years later, where it has taken place ever since (Simm 2019). However, in the post-Soviet space, there are today two Formula One tracks similar to the once envisioned ‘Soviet-Monaco’. The Russian Grand Prix in Sochi Olympic Park, situated by the Black Sea, was established only in 2013.

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This was followed three years later by the city circuit of Baku, Azerbaijan, by the Caspian Sea. Had the project been realised in Tallinn in due course the business volume of ERF may well have increased. Since the mid-1980s, ERF started to organise international car rallies. One of them was the 1986 Lada Rally—a sequel of the All-Union Soiuz Rally. In addition to Soviet racing teams, this event brought Western teams from Finland, Austria, and Norway to the Estonian SSR for the first time. The two main sponsors of the event were the Soviet car factory AvtoVAZ and the car export company Avtoeksport, which is why all the Soviet teams drove Ladas (Osolin 2020: 335–336). At this event, Soviet companies, such as All-Union businesses Avtoeksport, Aeroflot, ˙ and Traktoreksport, and local enterprises, such as the North-Estonian construction cooperative Harju KEK, were able to display their banners along the race track.26 While broadcasting the race itself, cameras of foreign broadcasting teams also transmitted images of these Soviet logos. Besides being one of the organisers of the rally ERF was also one of its participants. Former employee Olav Osolin writes in his memoires that, similar to some other companies, ERF had its own race team called ERFMobile (ibidem: 334–335). By that time, ERF had been in contact with AvtoVAZ and Avtoeksport for about 15 years, as both companies had ordered advertising films from ERF.27 ERF’s own advertising brochure from 1988 briefly mentions that they have their own rally club named Pamper, although there is little information available about their activities (see organigram in Vulp et al.). Nevertheless, the sponsoring of a rally club helped ERF gain more visibility, advertise their service portfolio, and expand their client base.

A Matter of Perspective? Both the service portfolio and the reach of ERF’s client base were quite remarkable even by today’s standards. In addition to having the captive market in the Estonian SSR, about two-thirds of their client base were transnational, coming from either other SSRs or All-Union enterprises. The large client base would suggest that there was a purpose to their activities. As to whether commercial advertising really had a function, or rather, what exactly its objectives were in the Soviet context, the opinions of the stakeholders are somewhat differing. In the professional literature published during the Soviet period, advertising was sometimes depicted as a fairly contradictory topic. It was indeed

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something foreign, rather typical for a competitive economic model such as capitalism. In the pursuit of ‘domesticating’ commercial advertising, the specialists writing about the topic, for instance in Reklama, primed it with the typical Soviet jargon, often calling it alternately ‘commercial advertising’ and ‘propaganda’, at times, applying both in a single sentence. Occasionally, its alienness was harshly criticised in newspapers. An article titled “Quo-vadis, eeeeee-ärrrrrr-effffff? [Quo-vadis, ERF?]” by the Estonian cultural figures Jaak Allik, Kalju Komissarov, and Peeter Tooma, published in the local Soviet newspaper Sirp ja vasar [Sickle and Hammer] in 1975, posed one such example (Pohla 2016: 145– 155). Nonetheless, advertising was officially permitted, even encouraged, which raises the question whether there would have been any ideological considerations to allow that. When asked whether advertising contained an ideological component, many of the interviewees, being former ERF employees, were somewhat perplexed. Some answered with a definite ‘no’, while others appeared hesitant (e.g. Director 1 at ERF). It seemed that there was a lack of a common understanding of what commercial advertising was supposed to deliver even on the top level: “These Party leaders who received a very good schooling at the Leningrad Higher Party School […] There were big philosophers and historians […] they weren’t educated in that [sociology] and they did not understand that! […] nowadays everybody knows that you can steer everything […]” (Editor 3 at ERF). The same Editor commented thereafter in a surprisingly blunt manner: “No, advertising was related to economics and economics is political. Purely! How to put it […] it was ideological. Politics is too strong a word for that, but it definitely was ideological. […] the question is about the ‘dosage’ and how it’s comprehended. There was no label on it, but it was” (Editor 3 at ERF). The politicisation of economic activity in totalitarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union, is a common phenomenon (Kragh 2016: 173; Uuna 2020: 172). This description of the categorisation of commercial advertising seems to come closer to the definition of ‘soft power’ which uses mechanisms to convey its particular message in an attractive (e.g. fashionable), entertaining, and engaging way, in order to appeal to its target audience. At the same time, the straightforward political agenda which it also contains is imposed in a less intelligible manner (e.g. see Nye and Joseph 2011: 81–109). Even if advertising did contain an ambiguous element of ideology, the former advertisers, in principle, agree that there were no really strict

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requirements on how advertising should look, as long as the client was happy with the outcome (e.g. Osolin 2020: 270). So, they designed it as they pleased, often following Western (i.e. Finnish) advertising styles. The former employee and later advertising businessman Olav Osolin went even further, commenting once in a newspaper: “In retrospect it seems, of course, astonishing that nobody [at ERF] had a clue about target groups, GPRs,28 and about marketing in general. Often the client just handed over the consumer item and the money asking us to make a nice advertising out of it. ‘Nice’ usually meant that it would be fast-paced and fun” (Osolin 2008). This comment is puzzling. On the one hand, ERF’s business expansion was seemingly sustainable. On the other hand, this comment seemingly dilutes the professionality and suggests progressing by a system of trial and error. It seems that even the people who were working at ERF for years lack a common understanding of what the purpose of advertising was during the Soviet period. Then again, perhaps they did not cast doubt on the relevance of its existence because they were simply enjoying what they were doing. As previously mentioned, the diverse types of projects taken up by the ERF team were interesting, sometimes even glamorous. The undertakings themselves were mostly devoid of a clear classification. Nevertheless, everything ERF produced, created, or organised underwent rigorous checks, unsurprising considering the specific political environment. The watchful eyes monitoring the correctness of procedure included the client (i.e. the organisation ordering the advertisement). Glavlit29 and, depending on the type of the project, either the local branch of Goskino or Gosteleradio could comment on it. And, of course, Ojamaa himself as well as other relevant authorities had a word to say, too (e.g. Editor 5 at ERF). However, the right balance between political framework and personal satisfaction expressed in the outcome of a rewarding advertising project is just one aspect to the remarkable accomplishments of ERF.

Small ERF in Big Business A mixture of factors led to ERF’s success story. The personality of the long-time company leader Peedu Ojamaa was definitely one of them. His former employees often gush when speaking about him. They describe Ojamaa as an inventive person. He was very eager to accomplish new ideas, but at the same time he treated his employees very well. His

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charismatic personality—yet at the same time stubbornly goal-oriented ways—led to the accomplishment of numerous interesting and innovative projects in the Soviet context (Aarma and Volmer 2013). In the case of larger undertakings, such as the Formula One race track, he argued that ERF helped to promote ideas from which the Soviet economy could profit. Longer or shorter promotional films offer tactical support in meeting relevant state economic strategies, such as enabling the development of economic initiatives (Ojamaa 1983: 21). Another factor that benefited ERF was the small size of the Estonian SSR and the logic of the centralised Soviet state. During the 1970s and 1980s, Estonia had approximately 1.4–1.5 million people. For a state advertising bureau, being one of a kind in such a small country, it was bound to attract clients who needed to order (television) advertising. Of course, it is more comfortable to raise an order in an enterprise which basically acts as a one-stop shop. Usually, the clients were various state enterprises, institutions, or ministries. In a small state, such as the Estonian SSR, the business community is very small. The people who founded ERF already had a professional network upon which they could build. Once you become a household name, establishing business contacts becomes easier over time. American economist Joseph S. Berliner (1921–2001), who did research on Soviet entrepreneurship, observed that political leaders were dependent upon persons with a monopoly on professional expertise. Their specific know-how equipped specialists with a certain form of power or agency. Experts possess a specific agenda, differing from those of nonprofessionals. This agenda, or professional interests, may be transferred into certain institutional arrangements creating a special form of social system (Berliner 1983: 195), such as a Soviet advertising bureau. If a company can identify a market need early on, it might profit from the so-called first-mover advantage. Although this phenomenon leans on a competitive market, to an extent it describes the success of Ojamaa’s bureau. Then again, it remains opaque whether ERF’s clients could freely choose this company to be their service provider, or they were somehow referred to it. Neither the oral history accounts nor the archival sources deliver a clear answer to that question. The interviewees could only confirm that the bureau never really had to search for its clients: “No, we had the thing that there were too many of them [clients], this is why we weren’t able to produce so much in Tallinn as we couldn’t find enough filmmakers. Then we gave a part to Riga […]” (Director 1 at ERF).

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As mentioned earlier, ERF established branch offices in Riga, Leningrad, and Moscow relatively early (see organigram in Vulp et al. 1988). The ability to expand into these cities was not a given thing. However, once this happened, ERF’s reputation could only profit from it. Among other advantages were an increased production volume, including cooperation with Riga Film Studio (R¯ıgas Kinostudija) and other big film studios (ERA, R-1946/11807: 125). It also created possibilities for easier access to insider information on interesting projects. For example, from the mid-1980s, one of the Moscow-based employees was Tatiana Bekleshova whose husband had worked in Switzerland as a Soviet diplomat. As her husband was a known personality in Moscow’s economic circles, Bekleshova occasionally forwarded interesting insider information to Ojamaa, such as the idea of planning a Formula One track in Tallinn (Osolin 2020: 333). To engage with the Estonian clients, the company founded the Advertising Club (Reklaamiklubi) at the beginning of the 1970s. In a way, this was a Soviet business club which assured its members an annual appearance on the homonymous television programme by the same name. This was a win–win situation. The news of the members catered for content creation and the programme itself was (at least partly) financed by the membership fees. A high-positioned company representative, such as a director, could profit from effects of public relations and advertising— providing interesting updates about the enterprise they were managing or introducing novelties (Lauri 2016). A former editor commented in an interview on why companies wanted to work with ERF: “Many came because of the prestige, because of the name. So that people would work for me [for the advertised company] or things like that. The fact that advertising wasn’t a necessity […] Everybody needed fame! You come and you talk about your stuff. It’s such an absurd idea that you didn’t need advertising!” (Editor 3 at ERF). Advertising was something prestigious during the Soviet period. At the same time, it gave its audience the hope of perhaps being able to obtain something that was being advertised, even if at times their chances might have been very slim (ibidem). Reaching out to new clients outside the small Estonian SSR, such as ‘next-door’ in the Russian SFSR or the Latvian SSR, was not that difficult, especially if personal connections and professional recommendations already existed.30 As ERF fulfilled assignments for All-Union and Soviet export companies, the team also had the opportunity to travel occasionally for business, not only to socialist countries in Eastern Europe, but also

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capitalist ones such as West Germany, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, and even Japan. Regular contacts existed also with partners in neighbouring Finland. Because of these travel opportunities and the ability to see what was happening in their professional field abroad, ERF oriented itself more towards Western-type advertising. Moreover, many of ERF’s employees were multilingual. The cross-border working language in the Soviet Union was, of course, Russian. Among the Estonian colleagues almost everybody was a native Estonian speaker. In the Estonian unit, most were proficient in Finnish. Furthermore, a number of colleagues also spoke English. Others knew German as it often was taught as a third language at school. There was also at least one person who was a French philologist. Naturally, in the Latvian unit people spoke Latvian, some even Estonian, and due to the school system, also German. Unfortunately, detailed information on additional language skills among the Russian colleagues is not currently known, but it seems likely that also they had some multilingual individuals among them. Besides the physical accessibility of know-how, the suave expression of Western influences in their work was also enhanced by the reputation of the company’s headquarters’ location. Estonia, together with the other two neighbouring Baltic SSRs, was in the Soviet context acknowledged as the so-called inner abroad (vnutrennee zarubezh ' e or blizhnee zarubezh ' e) (Gorusch 2011: 3). Although Soviet homogenisation was evident in the everyday life of the Estonian SSR as well, it was set apart by its previous historical inclusion to Western Europe which remained to a large extent visible in material culture, but was also expressed in the behaviour or mind-set of a large part of the local population. Historian Anne E. Gorusch highlights the contemporary Estonian “European” style that was marketed for domestic All-Union tourists and proper foreigners alike as a form of regional difference (ibidem: 49–50). In a semi-public manner, this found its expression also in the Estonians yearning for Western information and trends which affected directly the orientation of ERF’s activities, as described above. Thus, the bureau’s staff fulfilled a number of favourable preconditions to benefit from international professional practices. This, in turn, enabled them to design their services in a manner that was en vogue, even though this visual appeal did not necessarily translate into sales for the company ordering the advertisement. Altogether, this may have given ERF’s productions a somewhat exotic flair in the Soviet context and the

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resulting halo effect from self-promotion might have been attractive for their clients. Besides from the appeal to clients, many of the former employees and cooperation partners have stressed that ERF was a popular employer. According to Kanevskii, of all advertising films produced annually by all studios in the country, ERF accounts for about a fifth. At the same time, compared to other enterprises fulfilling similar tasks, ERF was significantly cheaper and quicker in its work (Kanevskii 1980: 133, 136). Ojamaa has pointed out that their team was not as big as in other Goskino studios, and the work processes were organised differently and in an efficient way.31 He was a proponent of minimal staff to keep the organisation structure lean. Less people mean less bureaucracy and quicker work flows. Additional specialists, such as cameramen or film directors, were hired on a project-by-project basis, from places such as Tallinnfilm, a local film studio called Telefilm, or from outside the Estonian SSR (see, for example, in ERA, R-2299/1/38: 18). Ojamaa emphasised in an article in Reklama that: “In creative work one has to follow a simple but necessary rule – to entrust a person that he would be able to do his best and with pleasure” (Ojamaa 1983: 21). His employees received, in Soviet terms, a generous salary (Editor 9 at ERF). They received other bonuses, too, one of which was the business trips themselves (Director 1 at ERF).32 Film makers who usually made full-fledged motion pictures or documentaries also cooperated between their actual film projects with ERF in order to supplement their salaries. This was pointed out by a camera operator who was formerly employed by Tallinnfilm and did smaller projects for ERF (Cinematographer at Tallinnfilm). This practice of filmmakers who are otherwise specialised in motion pictures and documentaries doing occasionally advertising films is not unusual, even today. As he wanted to keep staff numbers to a minimum, Ojamaa demanded a lot from the individual employee. They had to be able to multitask, be creative, flexible, prompt, open to new ideas, and be good communicators. In essence, he employed project managers with slightly varying profiles depending on the specifics of their future tasks (see more details in Ojamaa 1983: 21).33 Interviews with former employees confirmed that the description in the article fits the profile of those people. Most of them had to know at least the basics of film making which included things like knowing how to use lighting and sound equipment, how films are cut, as well as be able to drive a car.34 Depending on the specific position,

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they also had to prepare contracts (which included knowing the basics of bookkeeping in order to make quotes), work with consultants,35 edit scripts, hand over finished films, and coordinate activities with Goskino of the USSR. Different from the practice of other studios, in ERF a person working with films worked parallel on 10–12 films (Ojamaa 1983: 21). Thus, workflows in ERF were optimised to a maximum. Such a high production rate and the constant expansion of their service portfolio and client base differentiated them from many other Soviet business structures. The way in which ERF employees actively developed their business model was more reminiscent of a business in a free-market economy as they attempted to gain the biggest possible market share.

Conclusion ERF was formally not acting solely as a film studio, but as an advertising bureau serving a diverse client base of local Estonian enterprises, companies from other Soviet republics, and All-Union organisations. That advertising was not framed, at least in the memory of ERF’s former employees, as being a strictly propagandistic or ideological undertaking suggests that it rather operated in a grey area, exercising something elusive, its final product being closer to what is nowadays known as soft power. The perceptions of some of the cooperation partners, or even employees, describe ERF as something distant from politics, leaning towards being a source for light entertainment. This lack of a definite label enabled ERF to sustainably expand its professional network and execute diverse types of projects, which perhaps would not have been possible under other institutional constellations with stricter ideological control. Many contemporaries who had a professional relationship to ERF convey the impression that the most important aspect of advertising was not necessarily creating the final visual product. Instead working at such a privileged institution in the Soviet ‘inner abroad’ with a faint trendy Western flair attracted both employees and clients to the company. The question of how big the actual economic effect of Soviet commercial advertising was remains unclear. This probably needs to be evaluated individually depending on the specific case. Advertising was not completely devoid of economic value, sometimes even bearing real and considerable monetary significance, or at least it had the potential of doing so. This, for example, was the case of the Formula One track which was supposed to be established in the Estonian SSR during the

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early 1980s. The latter notwithstanding, in numerous instances, advertising was seemingly carried out just to keep the bookkeeping in balance because state-allotted annual budgets for a company’s advertising needed to be used up for this designated purpose. Despite being among the key players in the Soviet advertising industry, ERF was special as it had a unique profile among similar enterprises. In spite of, or perhaps exactly because of the smallness of its captive market of Estonia, the bureau managed to expand its client base all over the Soviet Union. The sustainable success was partially owed to the staff’s relatively regular interactions with Western countries, especially with colleagues from neighbouring Finland. However, the profiles of advertising businesses in the USSR were manifold. ERF may well have been unique in its form. Other businesses acting in the advertising industry, depending on their client base, production outlook, and the individual structural needs, may vary in their set-up. This might make ERF’s case study applicable for a comparison only to an extent. More research needs to be done on similar cases. This would enable a better overview of the Soviet advertising producers and also present the possibility to draw comparisons, or at least assess to what extent this would even be possible. Acknowledgments This chapter has been prepared in the course of my doctoral research. It was supported by the Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Intercultural Studies (financed by the European Regional Development Fund— Tallinn University’s ASTRA project) and the Research Fund of Tallinn University (project: Everyday Life in the Late Socialist ESSR: School, Work, Leisure and Identities). It has also benefited from the Kristjan Jaak programme funded by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, and the European Regional Development Fund through the Dora Plus programme. The author expresses her gratitude to Prof. Karsten Brüggemann and to the editors of this volume, especially to Dr. Heidi Hein-Kircher, for their constructive comments, and to James Montgomery Baxenfield who not only proof-read this article but also made some valuable comments on the text. Special thanks go to all the people who participated in the oral history interviews enabling the detailed exploration of this research topic.

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Notes 1. Media mix is an established concept in the field of advertising meaning a customised combination of media channels used for mediating a campaign. Bachmann, Talis. Reklaamipsühholoogia [Advertising Psychology]. Tallinn: Ilo 2009: 277. 2. In recent years, some relatively popular publications (Osolin 2020) and films (e.g. Aarma and Volmer 2013; Kersna 2021) have emerged which examine the phenomenon of Soviet advertising, showcasing it along with ERF. However interesting these works might be, they are not academic analyses and rather represent sources. 3. Different aspects of advertising in former Soviet satellite states have been analysed too. Most of the case studies appear to have focused on visual issues. However, one of the rare analysis done based on a single advertising company was published in 2004 by German cultural researcher Simone Tippach-Schneider “Tausend Tele-Tipps. Das Werbefernsehen in der DDR 1959 bis 1976” [A Thousand Recommendations from Television. The Television Advertising in the German Democratic Republic from 1959 to 1976]. For a more detailed overview of the relevant historiographical trends regarding Soviet, or socialist, commercial advertising, see Airi Uuna (2020: 171–183). 4. Most of the archival sources related to ERF are preserved in the Estonian National Archives. The collection stretches from the foundation of the Soviet company until its afterlife in the re-established Republic of Estonia. However, the archival material is relatively dense until the mid1970s, after which it progressively becomes more patchy. The collection can roughly be divided into two parts. The first is made up mostly of everyday bureaucracy related to the fulfilment of orders and annual financial reviews. Although ERF worked generally bilingually, most of the sources left in Estonia are in Estonian with a minor part being in Russian. The second batch has more to do with the visual outcome of ERF’s work. These are scripts of individual advertising films and television programmes. Compared to the actually preserved film or television material, which is, unfortunately, very little, these screenplays at least give some information about the visual expression of the lost films. As ERF had branches also in Riga (Latvia), today’s St. Petersburg and Moscow, it is very likely that additional archival sources could be found also there. Moreover, sources related to film production could probably be found also in a number of archives of the former SSRs where ERF fulfilled orders. In my own research, I have, at least for now, only concentrated on the sources available in Estonia.

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5. In this article, some of these interviews are referenced, though individual identities are pseudonymised, referred to only by their general occupation and the interview date. The number after the occupation shows the sequence according to which they are organised in my own collection. 6. At the First International Conference for Advertising Specialists which took place during 9–12 December 1957 in the Czechoslovakian capital Prague, three basic principles were coined which were supposed to offer conceptual orientation for socialist advertising professionals. The principle of truth (Rus. pravdivost ' , Est. tõepärasus ) stated that socialist advertising should be neither misleading nor exaggerated, and all claims made on item quality should be professionally validated. According to the rule of clarity (Ger. Anschaulichkeit ) or concreteness (Rus. konkretnost ' , Est. konkreetsus ), commercial advertising had to address the consumer with a clear, compelling, and convincing language which would be comprehensible to everyone. The idea of ideology (Rus. ideinost ' , Ger. Ideeninhalt, Est. ideelisus ) had to ensure that commercial advertising would convey socialist ethics and moral as it had a cultural and educational task to fulfill. As industry in general was managed by the state, this implicitly served as a demonstration of state care for its citizens. Kurnin, D. 1958. Iz opyta sovetskoi torgovoi reklamy [On the Experience of Soviet Commercial Advertising]. Sovetskaia torgovlia [Soviet Trade] (2): 46; Kurnin, D. 1958. K itogam konferentsii [About the Results of the Conference]. Sovetskaia torgovlia (3): 36; Ein großer Schritt nach vorn [A Big Step Forward]. Neue Werbung (1) 1958: 7; Karu, Vladimir. 1969. Reklaamitöö kogemusi [Experiences in Advertising Work]. Valgus: Tallinn: 13; Degtiarev, Iurii Alekseevich; Kornilov, Leonid Viktorovich. 1969. Torgovaia reklama: ekonomika, iskusstvo [Commercial Advertising: Economics, Art]. Ekonomika: Moskva: 19. 7. For example, Iu. Sergeev wrote an article in 1982 where he discusses the place of advertising in a company’s marketing concept. What he was actually introducing was Philip Kotler’s book Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control (1967) which was recently translated into Russian. In order to guide the reader through the material, Sergeev highlights particular points which the reader should be aware of, such as “It is obvious that the author is a bourgeois economist who looks at the concept of marketing management as something which operates according to a capitalist system of production […]” (see more in: Sergeev 1982: 20). 8. The edition numbers for the domestic advertising journal Reklama remained surprisingly low. For example, the first issue in 1972 had a print run of 13,000; the second issue of 1979 numbered 30,000, while the first issue of 1988 totalled 70,000. Although the circulation was steadily

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growing, in the Soviet context, such low print numbers were like a drop in the ocean. The names of personalities are written in full, where possible. Unfortunately, full names are not available in all instances. It was a common problem with Soviet texts, especially published in periodicals, that the first names were abbreviated. Sometimes pseudonyms or even just the initials of the first and last name were used. Samsin. A. 1969. Novaia kniga o reklame [A New Book on Advertising]. Sovetskaia torgovlia (3): 48–49. The book that A. Samsin reviewed was: Reklama v torgovle [Advertising in Trade]. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1968 (163 pp.) by Dmitrii Vasil' evich Bekleshov. See, for example, Marketing. Moscow: Progress, 1974; Problemy sovremennogo marketinga [Problems in Modern Marketing]. Reklama. Teoriia. Metodika. Praktika. 1976 (3): 24; Abramashvili, G. G., Voina, V. A., Trusov, Iu. F. 1976. Operatsiia ‘marketing’ [Operation ‘Marketing’]. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia; Sergeev, Iu. 1976. Interesnoe issledovanie. Reklama. Teoriia. Metodika. Praktika. (6): 22–23; Upakovka i marketing (PNR) [Package and Marketing (Polish People’s Republic)]. Tekhnicheskaia e˙ stetika, 1977 (4–5): 60; Marketing promyshlennykh tovarov [Marketing of Industrially Produced Consumer Items]. Moscow: Progress 1978; Madzharo, S. 1977. Mezhdunarodnyi marketing [International Marketing]; Medvedev, S.; Sergeev, Iu. A. 1985. Mezhdunarodnyi marketing amerikanskoi tekhnologii [International Marketing of American Technology]. Moscow: Nauka; Rozhkov, I. 1987. Reklama v marketinge [The Place of Advertising in Marketing] Reklama. Teoriia. Praktika (2): 21; Zav“ialov, L. S. and V. E. Demidov. 1988. Formula uspekha: marketing [The Formula for Success: Marketing]. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia. The original quote: Poskol ' ku sam marketing mnogoe zaimstvoval ot planovoi e˙ konomiki, on mozhet byt ' ispol ' zovan pri organizatsii kompleksnogo podkhoda k upravleniiu rynkom v usloviiakh sotaialisticheskoi sistemy khoziaistva. In addition, see: Problemy sovremennogo marketinga [Problems in Modern Marketing]. Reklama. Teoriia. Metodika. Praktika. 1976 (3): 24. In addition, see, e.g.: Vasina, I. O. 1971. O postanovke reklamnogo dela v VNR I ChSSR [About the Position of Advertising in the Hungarian People’s Republic and in Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]. Sovetskaia torgovlia (10): 55–58; Feofanov, O. 1974. SShA: reklama i obshchestvo [The USA: Advertising and Society]. Moscow: Mysl' ; Samsin, A. 1975. Kniga ob Amerikanskoi reklame. Rets. na kniga Feofanova, O. A. SShA: Reklama i obshchestvo. M. Mysl' . [A Book on American Advertising. A review on the Book by Feofanov O. A. The USA: Advertising and Society. M.: Mysl' ]. Sovetskaia torgovlia (10): 52–53; Kobyletskii, A.

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14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

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and Rebitskii, V. 1978. Proizvodstvennye ob“edinenie [Production Association]. Reklama. Teoriia. Metodika. Praktika. (5): 8–9; Sorokinia, R. I. ' torgovoi reklamy [How to Plan Effec1972. Planirovanie i effektivnost ˙ ˙ tive Commercial Advertising]. Moscow: Ekonomika; Demidov, Viacheslav Evgen' evich and Ivan Pavlovich Kardashidi. 1983. Reklama v torgovle: teoriia i praktika [Advertising in Trade: Theory and Practice]. Moscow: ˙ Ekonomika. Each socialist state had its own advertising journal which, to an extent, was mutually circulated. In my research, I have found at least in one Estonian library the East German journal Neue Werbung [New Advertising]. In the Soviet Union, either regular or occasional reports on some aspects of commercial advertising were published in the following journals: Reklama [Advertising], Dekorativnoe isskustvo [Decorative Arts], Sovetskaia torgovlia [Soviet Trade], Knizhnaia torgovlia [Book Trade], Tekhnicheskaia e˙ stetika [Technical Aesthetics] or Torgovlia za rubezhom [Foreign Trade]. ‘Director’ is the literal translation from the Estonian term ’direktor’. It should not be confused with film director. This position would today be probably comparable with a film producer, a term which was not used in the USSR. Soiuztorgreklama, or Vsesoiuznoe ob“edinenie po torgovoi reklame (AllUnion Association of Commercial Advertising). It is likely there were more people than Ojamaa preparing for the establishment of ERF. Realistically, there must have been a small core team who afterwards became (at least partly) the first employees of the company. However, in the popular narrative accompanying the ‘legend’ of ERF, only Ojamaa is pointed out as the main driving force behind the idea (e.g. Aarma and Volmer 2013). Regarding Party membership, then there were quotas concerning the number and type of employees for a company who should be party members (e.g. Editor 9 at ERF). Many of the company’s former employees have pointed to the existence of such a paper. Unfortunately, the Estonian State Archive does not have a full collection of ERF-related documents. It needs to be verified if such a document exists in another archive inside or outside Estonia. Goskino, Gosudarstvennyi komitet po kinematografii SSSR (USSR State Committee for Cinematography). Gosteleradio, Gosudarstvennyi komitet SSSR po televideniiu i radioveshchaniiu (USSR State Committee for Television and Radio). In this text, the surnames “Ojamaa” and “Oiamaa” are used, both referring to the same person—Peedu Ojamaa. “Ojamaa” is the way the name is written in Estonian, thus the original version. “Oiamaa” is the Russian transcription. This version is used when referring to original Russian-language texts.

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21. Just to illustrate this statement: in 1968 and 1969 ERF produced multiple film projects aimed at foreign audiences. For example, a Finnish-language 45-minute-long magazine-type entertainment programme, which was a mixture of Soviet-Estonian popular music and commercial advertising (see: I saade Soomele. Lenfintorg No.1 (saated Soomele) in ERA, R2299/2/167). Or, a commercial Vpered, Volga! that was actually made out of three shorter films on the upsides of owning and driving the Volga GAZ-24, at that time a fashionable and desirable car (but also a deficit consumer item among Soviet citizens). This advertising project was ordered by Vneshtorgreklama which supported the export activities of the Soviet company Avtoeksport. In the annotation of the order, it is stated that the advertising film was supposed to be dubbed into four languages—Russian, English, French, and German (see Program 112 in ERA, R-299/2/56: 115). 22. Glavkooptorgreklama, Glavnoe upravlenie torgovoi reklamy Tsentrossoiuz (Central Department of Trade Advertising of Tsentrosoiuz). Tsentrosoiuz, Tsentralnyi soiuz potrebitel ' skikh obshchestv Rossiiskoi SFSR (Central Union of Consumer Societies of the Russian SFSR). 23. What this agreement entailed in detail remains unclear. The archival source contains only a brief comment. 24. An audio-visual programme was essentially a colourful slideshow which could also include sound effects such as music or a voiceover. They began to appear in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The idea probably came from Finland. The former ERF employees who were working with these slideshows explained that to even use such audio-visual programmes, the client company needed to have special (Western) equipment (Kodak Carousel). Thus, due to technical deficiencies not everybody was able to order audio-visual programmes. However, back in the day, these slideshows could be quite effective as they often had better quality than films. Usually big and internationally active companies, like Inturist, ordered them (Osolin 2020: 263). 25. So far, this topic has not been thoroughly researched and several related aspects remain obscure. For example, it is unclear whether the plans of having a F1-circuit in the USSR really ever reached Brezhnev, or did the bureaucratic process get stuck. Another ambiguity is whether Moscow and Leningrad really passed on the opportunity to host this race over to Tallinn, or were all three sites on the table until the end. Read also: Makkaveev, Vladimir. 2000. Gran Pri Rossii: istoriia s prodolzheniem. Zhurnal formula 1: https://www.xn---1-6kcb1a5abhfnrf6ail.xn--p1ai/ publ/nomera_zhurnala/18_01_2000/gran_pri_rossii_istorija_s_prodolz heniem/47-1-0-452 (last visited: 13.03.2022). Then again, several Estonians involved in the organization committee do report that they did meet Mario Galanti’s team in Tallinn as described above.

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26. Harju KEK, Harju Kolhoosidevaheline Ehituskontor (Inter-kolkhoz construction office of the Harju raion, or region). 27. Here are a few examples of orders for advertising films meant for promoting Soviet cars in Finland made during 1972–1973: Programm nr. 426 VAZ-2102 in ERA, R-2299/2/355; Programm nr. 384 Sõiduauto Lada [The passenger car Lada] in ERA, R-2299/2/313; Programm no. 420 Konela Importkeskus [The import center Konela] in ERA, R-2299/2/349; Programm nr. 318 Konela juubel III [The jubilee of Konela] in ERA, R-2299/2/247. The company Konela AB belonged to the Soviet foreign trade association Avtoeksport which exported cars to Finland and Sweden and provided also maintenance services. 28. GPR is short for gross rating point which is a standardised measure for assessing advertising impact. 29. Glavlit, Glavnoe upravlenie po okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v pechati (Main Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR). 30. It is also not that difficult to reach those places in a geographical or logistical sense. Both Riga and St. Petersburg (Leningrad) are less than 400 kilometres away from Tallinn, and Moscow is about 1,000 kilometres. Helsinki is the nearest, laying 90 kilometres north from Tallinn. 31. It is not clear how Ojamaa counts employees. For example, Kanevskii mentions ‘about 30’ people (1980: 133). However, according to ERF’s annual business report, in 1979, there were 56 employees (ERA, R1946/1/2644: 61); in 1982, the number was 59 (although it was planned to have 60) (ERA, R-1946/1/2996: 4). It might also be that in this context only the people actually working in film production were counted. There were also administrative employees, such as accountants, and technical specialists responsible for equipment maintenance. 32. These business trips could sometimes be extended. Osolin gives a few examples of such trips in his memoir, like the time when a film crew spent a week in Crimea during the summer to make an advertising film assigned to them. The actual filming happened in the very end of the trip. In rushing to Crimea, the team even forgot the approved script in a drawer of the Tallinn office (Osolin 2020: 271–272). 33. In the Soviet time, the job title Project Manager did not exist. In the case of ERF, they employed titles such as Editor or Director (Est. direktor), the latter term being close to what today is known as a producer. 34. The rhythm of work in ERF was fairly quick-paced and involved a lot of travelling inside the Estonian SSR, as well as around the Soviet Union. Meeting deadlines, being on time to appointments and generally making a good impression to clients were important aspects of their work. ERF had a number of company cars that employees used to get from one place to another. If necessary, even long-distance drives were done with taxis,

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such as a 400 km ride from Tallinn to Leningrad (Cinematographer at Tallinnfilm). At other times, a taxi could serve as a kind of accommodation as mentioned by one person who arrived with a late-night flight to Khabarovsk, a city located in Russia’s far east, about 700 km from Vladivostok. They were supposed to take a plane to Vladivostok the next day to attend a meeting there. As it was not possible to book a room in a hotel, a taxi was paid to drive them around for the time being. So, the person cruised around the city and, among other things, even saw the Chinese border. Planes and trains belonged, of course, also to their typical means of transportation. For the attendants of the Tallinn-Moscow train, or the drivers of the Tallinn-Riga bus, the ERF team were familiar faces, greeted with a smile (Director 1 at ERF). 35. Consultants (Est. konsultant ) were people appointed inside the company ordering the advertising for a consumer item, service, etc. These consultants were not necessarily themselves advertising specialists. Often, they were actually designers or engineers who simply knew the product (see, for example, ERA, R-2299/2/163: 8).

References Archival Sources (Estonian National Archives) ERA, R-299/2/56: Program 112. Volga I, II, III. In: Programmid nr. 111–112. ERA, R-2299/2/107: Programm nr. 228: Noski sherstyanye s elastikom [Cotton elastic socks]. In: Programmid nr. 227–229. ERA, R-2299/2/197: Programmid nr. 253–255. ERA, R-2299/2/130: Programmid nr. 276–278. ERA, R-2299/2/136: Programmid nr. 290–291. ERA, R-2299/2/137: Programm nr. 293. 1. Almõki tehas, 2. Permski [Programme no. 293: 1. The factory in Olmaliq, 2. Permski]. ERA, R-2299/2/247: Programm nr. 318 Konela juubel III [The jubilee of Konela]. ERA, R-2299/2/313: Programm nr. 384 Sõiduauto Lada [The passenger car Lada]. ERA, R-2299/2/349: Programm nr. 420 Konela Importkeskus [The import centre of Konela]. ERA, R-2299/2/355: Programm nr. 426 VAZ-2102. ERA, R-2299/1/13a: Järeldused dokumentaal-revideerimise aktile 30. maist 1969. a. [Conclusions regarding the revision report issued on May 30, 1969 on the financial and economic activities in 1969]. In: Finants-majandusliku tegevuse dokumentaal-revideerimine akt lisadega 1969. a [Revision report with annexes on the financial and economic activities in 1969].

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ERA, R-2299/2/167: I saade Soomele. Lenfintorg No.1 (saated Soomele) [First programme for Finland. Lenfintorg no. 1 (programmes for Finland)]. ERA, R-1946/11807: Seletuskiri [Explanatory note]. In: Büroo „Eesti Reklaamfilm“ 1971. a. aastaaruanne [The financial report of the advertising bureau “Eesti Reklaamfilm” for the year 1971]. ERA, R-1946/1/2457: Reklaambüroo „Eesti Reklaamfilm“ 1976. a. koondaruanne [The summary report of the advertising bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm for the year 1976]. ERA, R-2299/1/38: Eesti NSV Ministrite Nõukogu Riikliku Kinematograafia Komitee reklaamibüroo Eesti Reklaamfilm põhikiri [Statute of the Advertising Bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm of the State Committee of Cinematographers at the Council of Ministers of the Estonian SSR]. In: 1976. a. koosseisude nimestikud, tööjõu- ja töötasufondi plaan, tootmisplaan ja tulude-klude bilanss [Lists of employees, work plan and remuneration fund, production plan, and income balance of the year 1976]. ERA, R-2299/1/39: Eesti Nõukogude Sotsialistliku Vabariigi Ministrite Nõukogu korraldus [An order by the CC of the Estonian SSR]. In: 1976. a. materjalid toimetus Spinnaker tegevuse kohta [Materials on the activities of the editorial Spinnaker in 1976]. ERA, R-2299/1/39: 1980. aasta Olümpia purjeregati vabariikliku organiseerimiskomitee presiidiumi otsus 23. detsembrist 1976. a. 1980. aasta Olümpia purjeregati pääsmete ja olümpiasuveniiride loosimise läbiviimise kohta [A decision from December 23, 1976 by the Presidium of the Republican Organizing Committee of the 1980 Olympic Sailing Regatta regarding the organisation of raffles for tickets and souvenirs related to the Olympic Regatta]. In: 1976. a. materjalid toimetus Spinnaker tegemise kohta [Documents on the activities of the editorial department Spinnaker from 1976]. ERA, R-2299/1/41: Finants-majandusliku tegevuse revideerimise akt lisadega 1976. a [Report with annexes on the revision of financial and economic activities of 1976]. ˙ ERA, R-1946/1/2512: Ob“iasnitel' naia zapiska reklamnogo biuro Estonskii reklamfil' m k otchete za 1977 god [Explanatory note by the advertising bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm for the financial report of 1977]. In: 1977. a. büroo Eesti Reklaamfilm aastaaruanne [The financial report of the advertising bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm for the year 1977]. ERA, R-1946/1/3198: 1984. a. reklaambüroo „Eesti Reklaamfilm“ raamatupidamise aastaaruanne [The financial report of the advertising bureau “Eesti Reklaamfilm” for the year 1984].

Oral History Interviews (ordered alphabetically) Cinematographer at Tallinnfilm: 13.10.2020.

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Director 1 at ERF: 30.06.2020. Editor 1 at ERF: 18.06.2020. Editor 3 at ERF: 15.07.2020. Editor 5 at ERF: 22.07.2020. Editor 9 at ERF: 22.09.2020. Manager at ERF: 29.09.2020. All oral history interviews are in the private collection of Airi Uuna.

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Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking in the USSR Tricia Starks

Historians of tobacco addiction use a western model dependent upon capitalist design, supply, and marketing to understand the rise of the cigarette. This chapter argues that the rise of mass tobacco use did not play out the same way in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as in the west because of different attitudes toward production, consumption, and marketing. Attention to consumer desire, aside from fulfilling a basic demand, did not enter calculations with the same intensity in the Soviet Union as in western markets. Concern over the taste of cigarettes or design of an advertising campaign did not overly occupy Soviet manufacturers, much as it did not overly concern other producers. For instance, in his work on the Soviet wine industry, Steven Bittner describes a market where taste was often not even a consideration, or at least not taste as defined by western connoisseurs (Bittner 2018, 2021). Elevated considerations of taste were not the only aspect of production disregarded. Often

T. Starks (B) University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_10

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supply was insufficient or products of such poor quality as to be unusable. In their work on communist consumption, Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger point out that communist products were “often associated with poor quality and scarcity” (Bren and Neuburger 2012). Although Soviet tobacco struggled with problems of scarcity and quality, it did not stop the Soviets from developing a mass tobacco problem (Bogdanov 2007; Sinelnikov 2017, 2020; Malinin 2003, 2006; Federenko 2002; Demin 1996, 2012). Despite the lack of conventional means of increasing tobacco use, the Soviets had a remarkably strong smoking culture. Surveys of the late 1920s found smoking rates among urban workers as high as 68% for males and 45% for females (Sholomoviˇc 1926). During the wars, smokers consumed all sorts of poorly cured, mixed, and packaged tobacco or smoked tobacco dust and residue mixed with leaves from trees just to approximate the tobacco experience (Malinin 2006; Salisbury, 1969). Despite the meager amounts of poster or magazine advertising after 1936, tobacco use did not wain. By 1968, reports recorded smoking by 70% of males and even 80% of females in some regions (Mikhailov 1975). Current research shows male tobacco use as high as 51.5 and 57% in Armenia and Georgia, hovering in the mid40 s for Belarus (46.6%) and Russia (45%) and lowest in Turkmenistan (15.5%). Overwhelmingly, tobacco is consumed in the form of cigarettes, though a substantial portion of Uzbeki (23.2%) and Kyrgyz (10.1%) men use smokeless tobacco (snus or nasvay) (World Health Organization 2018). Using archival documents, industry publications, marketing imagery, and Soviet package design, this chapter explores the peculiarities of the Soviet tobacco experience in three different areas—design, supply, and marketing—to unravel the ways in which the communist tobacco market contrasted with capitalist systems and explain how dependency grew in the USSR without, or with greatly weakened, conventional inducements to smoke.

Theories of Tobacco Dependency Historians Gary S. Cross and Robert N. Proctor argue that cigarettes are the quintessential capitalist “packaged pleasure” as they combine sensory appeals, packaging, and marketing to create seductive, addictive, commodified experiences (Cross and Proctor 2014). To hook smokers,

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manufacturers made tobacco more addictive with additives that heightened the amount of free nicotine, adding sugar to make the taste more tantalizing, presenting enticing and distracting marketing images, and designing packaging that excited sensory responses and cued use. Cross and Proctor argue that these external prompts and product manipulations were necessary to overcome the inherently unpleasant aspects of smoking—the chemical taste, the rank smell, and the disgusting aftereffects—that pushed first-time users away from repeated use. With each of these aspects—the sensory, packaging, and marketing—Cross and Proctor point to specific contexts of capitalist development as foundational to tobacco addiction. Market share competition spurs companies to battle each other for customers using images of how smoking Chesterfields or Marlboros will make life more leisurely, sexier, or better. The messages are tested to make sure that the appeals stay on target for men, or women, or children. Cross and Proctor emphasize that manipulation does not end with marketing. Tobacco manufacturers engineer products for maximum dependency and use sophisticated manipulations—vents, chemical mixtures, flavors—to keep consumers hooked. The effort surrounding the cigarette is massive, calculated to engineer addiction, and to create an ever-expanding and durable market demand (Proctor 2011). David T. Courtwright, one of the foremost historians of the global history of addictive substances, argues similarly for capitalism as the underpinning of “bad habits”—from alcohol abuse to chronic gambling. He refers to producers’ manipulation of biochemically addictive substances as a system of “limbic capitalism” (Courtwright 2019: 6–9). In limbic capitalism addictive products spread to mass use because of their easy accessibility, their cheap price points, aggressive marketing, the relative lack of shame, and the malaise of modern life. As he sums up, addiction springs from the “accessibility, affordability, advertising, anonymity, and anomie” provided by capitalism combined with the structural and chemical reinforcements of the brain’s limbic system to make certain products, like tobacco or alcohol, or commodified experiences, like gambling or amusement parks, habit forming (Courtwright 2019: 6–9). Sensory historians similarly connect capitalism and marketing to tobacco uptake. The interactive, multi-sensory appeal of products from designers and marketers is part of what sensory historian David Howes has termed the “sensual logic of late capitalism” (Howes 2005: 284–92). Manufacturers attend to all aspects of packaging and user experience to

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excite all the senses and further induce subliminal response. In cigarettes this meant more than simply attention to advertising copy or tobacco blend. Tobacco historians have detailed the many innovations in packaging that accompanied the development of the tobacco market beyond mechanization and vertical integration. Slick cellophane, which started being used in the west in the 1930s, protected the moisture content, burn, and subsequent mouth feel of smokes while also providing an exciting newness to every tobacco pack (Kluger 1996; Milov 2019; Pennock 2007; Brandt 2007; Burnham 1993). Foil inserts pleased the eye and flip top and hard boxes provided satisfying clicks, snaps, and feel to the ritual of smokers. Finally, the cigarette itself was manipulated with different blends of smoother and sweeter or stronger and harsher tobaccos. Adding ammonia, starting as early as the 1930s, increase nicotine bioavailability, intensifying the biochemical experience, and escalating the possibility of dependency (Goodman 1993). These different sensory appeals brought smokers to more intense dependency and encouraged deeper inhalation while saucing with sugars and aromatics activated different habit-forming responses. Tobacco dependency is not limited to western capitalism. In her book detailing the rise of smoking culture in China, Carol Benedict argues that cigarette uptake in pre-1949 China was aided by a strong tobacco culture that already existed in the nineteenth century, but the intensification from British-American Tobacco Company’s (BAT) industrially produced cigarette built on and greatly expanded use. As she argues, “With its enormous production capacity and marketing structures … BAT was unrivaled in its ability to sell cigarettes to Chinese consumers” (Benedict 2011). In her investigation of the growth of foreign cigarette giants in China during the same period, Nan Enstad focuses on the relationship between American and Chinese entrepreneurs and the ways that cigarette brands marketed to Chinese tastes, like the Ruby Queen brand, increased tobacco usage. In both cases, capitalist-style marketing still played an important role in tobacco uptake creating a base of consumers before the communists took over (Enstad 2018; Kohrman, et al. 2018). Historians examining the rise of smoking culture in the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), and China highlight the importance of capitalism and manipulative marketing to the spread of mass tobacco use. But if tobacco use is so connected to capitalist industrial design and advertising, how did smoking become ubiquitous in the USSR where

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marketing was considered anathema and industrial design far less sophisticated? What did Soviet tobacco production look like and how did it compare to that of the west? Why did Soviet smokers continue past the disgusting first drag without other inducements? What does this imply about analyses that tie smoking behavior to capitalist marketing and product manipulation?

Soviet Tobacco’s Product Design Tobacco products in the USSR, although often associated with “poor quality” like most Soviet goods, went through remarkable fluctuation. In times of distress—war, civil war, industrial development, or rebuilding—tobacco producers struggled. In the Soviet Union, most tobacco consumed came as either rough makhorka in loose form or papirosy. Makhorka (Nikotiana rustica) contains nearly twice the nicotine of the milder Nikotiana tabaka, is less amenable to saucing, and is easier to grow and process (Cholostov and Dikker 1967; Henningfield et al. 2009). Papirosy—the hollow-filtered, Russian smokes—developed in the nineteenth century and utilized largely oriental tobaccos. The preference of Russian Imperial and then soviet smokers was for oriental tobacco rather than the Virginia bright leaf (Starks 2018; Kogan 1930). Oriental tobacco is not as easily sauced as Virginia bright leaf and therefore not as easily modified with sugars and aromatics. When oriental leaf was unavailable in the Soviet market like in the early 1920s, late 1930s, and during the Second World War, makhorka, often home grown and roughly cured and chopped, was the preferred substitute (Kholostov and Dikker 1967). Despite their reputation and the many periods of supply problems, the Soviets studied quality and invested in it. The first tobacco-fermentation factory in the world was founded in Krasnodar in 1927. By 1930 there were eight fermentation factories in the USSR. By 1941, there were thirty-eight (Malinin 2006). The Soviets also established a research institute for tobacco chemistry and production. Aleksandr Aleksandroviˇc Šmuk (1886–1945) headed the All-Union Institute of Tobacco and Makhorka Production at its start and then directed its chemical sector in the 1930s. Šmuk investigated the chemistry of taste, methods for improving the flavor of low-grade tobaccos, and developing tobacco substitutes. His research was translated into English and studied by

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American tobacco manufacturers. Šmuk studied nicotine content differently than western manufacturers—instead of looking to increase nicotine content, he hoped to limit it. Burning nicotine smells and tastes of burning rubber. To remove nicotine would improve taste. Further, while not tying smoking to cancer, Soviet medical authorities believed that the poisonous nicotine in tobacco caused gradual build up of toxins in the system that could lead to nervous disorder. As Šmuk concluded, “The possibility of decreasing the content of nicotine in the smoke will thereby contribute to the preservation of the national health and therefore, the problem acquires great importance, far exceeding the scope of interests of the tobacco industry alone” (Šmuk 1953: 521). Šmuk was not the only Soviet pursuing health-related product improvements like lower nicotine or filter technologies (Kopeina and Taranova 1930). The Soviet health service followed an active anti-tobacco agenda throughout the 1920s and the interest of industry reflected the strength of this campaign (Starks 2017). Unlike western manufacturers interested in increasing the addictive potential of cigarettes, Soviet researchers looked to decrease nicotine content because they were concerned for poisonous effects. Soviet manufacturers attempted to increase output of lower nicotine smokes because they considered these more healthful. Still, while health was a consideration it was not a large enough issue to halt tobacco output. In the 1930s acreage sown and production facilities both were expanded as tobacco came to the center of the Stalinist industrialization drive as an essential product for incentivizing workers and a source of revenue for the state (Mikojan 1931). By the late 1930s, Commissar of Trade Anastas Ivanoviˇc Mikojan (1895–1978) was detailing the need for higher quality tobacco products, “because just as life has become more joyous, so we must smoke higher quality aromatic papirosy (laughter)” (Mikojan 1936). Higher quality tobacco was considered both healthier and evidence of more cultured attitudes (Gol’bert 1926). The post-war Soviet Union saw innovations in production to help bring in these higher quality smokes. Machines imported from abroad expanded filtered cigarette production and improved quality further. From 1947 to 1954, the number of filtered cigarettes produced nearly tripled (Dikker 1956). In 1965, the Java factory purchased British Molins machines and began producing Java (Java) filtered cigarettes (Sinelnikov 2017). These higher mark smokes became the choice of middle-income

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groups of the population (Romaniello and Starks 2009). But there were few places to get these desired smokes. Not only was the imported machinery expensive, many of the extras—cellulose, light papers, etc.— had to be imported as well. Even though planners pushed for quality, factory machinery and capabilities often fell flat. Papirosy came too tightly packed to burn or of improper moisture content so a smoke had to be constantly reignited. Complaints to newspapers in the 1930s lamented poor packing, bad tobacco, and general shoddiness. Boxes stayed on shelves as too poor to be consumed (Simonenkov 1934; Sokolov 1937).

Soviet Tobacco Supply Alongside problems with tobacco quality, Soviet smokers frequently experienced tobacco deficits. Supply issues for leaf, for paper, for packaging, plagued the tobacco industry. Immediately after the revolution, because of the devastation of factories, broken machinery, and decreased harvests, the tobacco industry was nationalized and production streamlined (Kifurjak 1978). Most processing was centered in Moscow and Leningrad but tobacco cultivation took place across the territories of first the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. Peasants cultivated their own rough makhorka for personal use, but the best leaf came from areas of Ukraine and the territories around the Black Sea. Machinery was consolidated and agriculture supported, but production only returned to pre-war levels by 1926/27 (Novikova and Šˇcemelev 1968; Stal’skii 1938). Stalin pushed for expansion of tobacco agriculture and manufacturing as part of the Five Year Plans, but the increase did not hit until the latter half of the decade and complaints over shoddy workmanship revealed that some of this increased production was unsmokeable (Ido-1937). The destruction of industry during the Second World War hit tobacco hard, and tobacco hunger increased due to production deficits and the growth in the number of smokers by those hooked during the war even as dissatisfaction continued over quality (Beljaev 1948). In 1949 Soviet tobacco production reached its pre-war levels, and from there it quickly expanded. By 1958, production was nearly two and a half times that of 1940 (Kholostov and Dikker 1967). Yet manufacturers still could not fill demand, and to fill the gap, the Soviets imported from their partners in the bloc (Demin 2012). Bulgaria became the world’s largest exporter of cigarettes by 1966 and retained this title until 1988 because of their provision of tobacco to the Soviets (Neuburger 2013). A full ninety percent of

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their tobacco exports went to the USSR. Although Bulgarian cigarettes and filtered cigarettes produced on imported machines began to introduce the population to western-style engineered smokes, for the most part these retained only a minority of sales. While it cannot be said that the Soviets were inattentive to design, they did not pump the energy into production of more addictive smokes as western manufacturers did. Design of the papirosy itself did not seem to drive demand. Indeed, in the 1970s when Philip Morris executives toured Soviet plants, they found no factories up to the standards of western production according to industry insiders (Buzzi 1974). Supply was still low and tobacco shortages forced importation of new cigarette machinery in the late 1970s (Sinelnikov 2017). Yet decline continued. Trying to increase user numbers would have been ridiculous when anger over low supply led to unrest from consumers. When pressed in the late 1970s and early 1980s to reduce production and restrict points of sale as part of a new anti-smoking initiative from the state, state planning and industry representatives pushed back that it would be folly to anger smokers by decreasing supply if demand was not decreased first (GARF f. R-5446 op. 136 d. 1129 l 31, 39–40, 45, 53). Cigarette riots in 1991 showed the prescience of manufacturers as mobs blocked Mikhail Sergeeviˇc Gorbaˇcev’s (1931–2022) route to the Kremlin demanding tobacco and rioted over inadequate supplies (Sinel’nikov 2017). Tobacco production in the Soviet Union reveals crucial differences with the western market in terms of supply and product quality. Soviet manufacturers did not actively work to hook smokers with more addictive tobacco or delivery methods for nicotine. Instead, when pressed to meet health goals and reduce production, they resisted because they worried of angry consumers. Their concerns were over not creating more demand but the backlash if they did not meet existing demand (GARF F R-5446 op 136 d 1129 l 31, 39–40, 45, 53).

Soviet Tobacco Marketing Despite the seeming incompatibility between marketing’s product fetishization and communism, the USSR was not devoid of advertising and product branding. Tobacco advertisements, as posters or in newspapers, were highly visible at certain points during the Soviet period. When Vladimir Il’iˇc Lenin (1870–1924) approved advertising space in Pravda (Truth) at the 1922 eleventh party congress, he provided an opening

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for advertising during the era of the New Economic Policy (Cox 1999). Advertising firms quickly set up. Advertisements appeared in newspapers and on posters and alongside the propaganda and various announcements of events and decrees. They made a city that spoke from almost every wall and street corner of how to be Soviet, urban, and belong. NEP’s mix of capitalism and communism made for confusing behavioral signals. Some of the advertising in the period looked like that of the past with scenes evoking bourgeois luxury and posh settings. Other advertising appeals took on the sheen of revolutionary activism with red color schemes or messages glorifying producers and revolutionary ideas (Cox 2006). Some revolutionary artists saw advertising as just a variation of propaganda with the potential for political enlightenment. The constructivist artist Aleksandr Michajloviˇc Rodˇcenko (1891–1951) teamed up with the Futurist poet Vladimir Vladimiroviˇc Majakovskij (1893–1930) to design appeals that utilized new techniques like photomontage and catchy slogans to try and break into the popular consciousness with their private firm “Agit-Reklama” (Snopkov et al. 2007). Majakovskij and Rodchenko turned toward smokers with simple, graphic posters for papirosy from Mosselprom. Other firms went further in melding revolutionary activity and smoking showing red-shirted workers or hammer-wielding blacksmiths happily puffing away. Posters were by far the most detailed in such depictions, but tobacco poster advertising largely phased out in the 1930s into more bare-bones display of products properly used (Hilton 2020). After the Second World War, a new relationship grew up around advertising and marketing. The Russian State Library held no poster advertisements for domestic tobacco products after 1950. The head of Java tobacco factory said that he remembered no tobacco advertising from the factory in his time there from the 1960s onwards. He recalled that there was no need since products disappeared the moment they hit the shelves (Sinel’nikov 2017). A 1971 article in the popular Soviet magazine Literaturnaia gazeta (Literary magazine) noted the superiority of the Soviet system because, while in the west they had “cigar ‘kings’ or ‘pipe’ princes” in the Soviet Union we hear of the machinations of a tobacco monopoly only in the newspaper” (Šokin 1971). Posters and print advertising were not, however, the only type of marketing available for tobacco. More ubiquitous than posters or newspaper advertisements were the label designs that adorned tobacco packs. Brand identification was achieved through proprietary blends, processes, and pack designs. This style of product marketing existed throughout

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the Soviet period. No plain packaging tempered the relationship between buyer and product. Not only were these more plentiful, they also had a wider range of viewers. Packs accompanied smokers from stores and kiosks through their day. At night, packs entered homes alongside smokers, visible not just to the smoker but onlookers as well. Spent packs gathered in gutters and in trash cans. Smokers could flash a pack as an invitation to indulge that also included reflections of status and taste. The labels displayed invention and diversity. They often employed color. Packs were not as elaborate as posters, but they had a much longer life and visibility. Pack labels, like those for matchbooks, could be collected and enjoyed. Nostalgic art even depicts the labels as a type of toy. The scenario of a 2002 short film includes a young boy cutting out the rider on horseback on packs of Kazbek and then turning these cut outs into an entire toy cavalry (Akulov, Miaso). Soviet tobacco packs, however, did have a much rougher style than that of western manufacturers. Paper was not slick and shiny but usually rough, soft, and of uneven quality. No foil or cellophane kept Soviet tobacco moist or hygienic. Hard packs or flip tops were not used. Instead, packs had to be ripped open on one end and papirosy shaken or fished out. At times packs became much rarer as manufactured tobacco itself became in short supply and producers instead put out loose tobacco. The quality of packs changed over time depending on paper availability. Themes in tobacco packs also fluctuated. After the revolution, as the state solidified power and small-scale capitalism endured, tobacco reflected the loose political landscape. As the state developed, tobacco packs embraced new themes and their production improved until after the Second World War when Soviet tobacco began to ape western styles. Soviet tobacco packs of the 1920s and 1930s betrayed the difficult material circumstances of the period along with the political transition. For instance, the pack for Prijatnye (Pretty) showed a woman in red, patterned headscarf smoking and provocatively eyeing the viewer (see Fig. 1). Her lips curled in a smile, she is actively smoking with the papirosa clenched in her mouth not draped from a hand or smoked by a companion. While Chesterfield advertisements of the period had women only asking that their smoking male friends “Blow some my way!” here a woman is in full enjoyment of tobacco on her own. It is not, perhaps, a vision for women’s, empowered smoking and instead a use of female figures to sell male consumption. The nature of the woman, sexualized and with kerchief tied under chin in the old style rather in the emancipatory Soviet way behind the neck, separated her from the style of the

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Fig. 1 Pack of Priiatnye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www. productivearts.com

new, Soviet woman evoked in other propaganda. Further, the use of a female smoker with dark hair and provocative look evokes the Turkic women of late imperial advertising or the odalisque of orientalist art (Starks 2018; Davidson 2004). The use of women in pack and poster advertisements in the 1920s was relatively rare among the Soviets as an active anti-smoking campaign that targeted women as future mothers who should not endanger their reproductive function left little room for positive visions of female smoking. Most appeals focused on male smokers although women did smoke in significant numbers in some professions and regions according to surveys. Male smokers—as soldiers, sailors, or laborers—were far more numerous in pack imagery. For instance, the brand Krestjanskie (Peasants) showed two smokers in a pastoral scene (see Fig. 2). An older male and a boy beside him both enjoy papirosy walking about in the

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countryside. The wagon piled high with straw behind them indicates this is the relaxing end to a productive day. Whereas western advertising utilized scenes of leisure—at sport, on boats, or in natural settings—Soviet tobacco brands often showcased labor scenes. This fit with the general attempts to make advertising a type of agitational work. The Krestjanskie pack combined labor with hints at revolutionary political affiliations for the peasant smokers using the red shirt of the youth and the red lettering of the brand font. The use of red also brought life and interest to the pack and would have made it stand out in a street-seller’s display case. Other tobacco appeals were less oblique in their references to politics and showed smokers in revolutionary settings, doing politically active things, or in the act of production. The beautiful box for Trudovye (Labor) papirosy could have stood in for a propaganda poster (see Fig. 3). On its front a shirtless man with muscled arms rests his hands upon a blacksmith’s hammer while looking to the horizon. He gazes past a large well built factory with multiple belching smokestacks indicating productivity. His eyes look further on to a magnificent, radiant sun as symbol of the glorious socialist future. The label played upon many established tropes of Soviet visual propaganda—the blacksmith as symbol of the proletariat, the rising sun as the communist future, and billowing smoke as stand in for the industrial state (Bonnell 1997). The double-sided pack for Smychka (Worker-peasant alliance) showed the alliance of worker and peasant as told through papirosy—with a blacksmith on the one side and a farm laborer on the other. The quality of each of these packs is clearly rough not just from age but from original production. None of them are dated, but the imagery, irregular sizes, and style indicate likely production during the 1920s or 1930s. Packs of this same period from the west employed materials that elevated the sensory experience of smoking. Whereas western cigarettes were presented in smooth surfaced paperboard, the rough cardboard of these packs is evident in the patchy print jobs and frayed edges. Paper shortages in the 1920s and 1930s meant difficulties not just in production of papirosy packs but even in the rolling papers for use with loose-leaf makhorka. Lenin reportedly timed the issue of decrees so as to avoid having the propaganda too quickly lost to cigarette rolling papers (Figes 1999; Lenin 1921; repr. 1954). The ragged Soviet papirosy packs differed markedly from western tobacco production of the period. Pack imagery continued as important throughout the Soviet period, but poor paper quality also endured. Indeed, quality concerns for both the tobacco inside

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Fig. 2 Pack of Krestianskie. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www. productivearts.com

and the look of the exterior packaging appeared often in the press (Levin 1934). Although packaging improved in the 1930s, deficit issues and poor paper quality continued and the Soviets lagged behind other global tobacco markets in excellence and extras such as foil inserts and cellophane wrappers. The war years saw renewed disruption as paper even to wrap papirosy disappeared, factory machinery was destroyed, and most tobacco became either loose or hand rolled. After the war, Soviet industry struggled to meet the demand of new smokers, rebuild destroyed industries, and rise to new standards for products. An exception to the generally low quality of Soviet papirosy packs came in the form of special holiday or gift sets. These employed stiffer cardboard that also had smoother, sturdier outer surfaces which allowed ink to adhere better. Embossed surfaces and even metallic ink printing made for sumptuous packaging. The stunning 1946 packaging for Oktiabr’ (October) from the Klara Tsetkin factory indicates the

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Fig. 3 Pack of Trudovye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www. productivearts.com

heights of this type of production (see Fig. 4). A commemoration of the twenty-ninth anniversary of the revolution, the pack also celebrated the Soviet victory in the Second World War and the technological and military might of the state. The pack presents a view sliced from the annual parade celebrating the October 1917 revolution. Formations of

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flyers parade across the sky above the walls of the Kremlin. The iconic red stars and clock atop the green-tipped towers are given pride of place. The box itself is printed in multiple colors with a bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds, the familiar brick red of the walls, and green of the towers. The borders are flashy with gilt lettering and accents over a brilliant red trompl’oeil of a revolutionary banner. This celebration in a box held twenty-five papirosy of the “highest sort” and the printing quality followed to the inside as did the tobacco quality. After slicing through a glued seal on the side of the box and smoking through the contents, the base of the pack interior held a message of congratulations to the smoker on the anniversary of the revolution. The same combination of political message and smoking enjoyment in print and pack advertising of the 1920s and 1930s carried on in these higher quality smokes of the post-war world. A similar high standard could be seen in the 1948/9 packaging for the brand Krasnaja strela (Red Arrow) out of Leningrad Tobacco Factory No. 1. (see Fig. 5) Here the Kremlin is used as one point on the journey

Fig. 4 Pack of Oktiabria. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www. productivearts.com

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of the esteemed train, which began luxury travel between Moscow and Leningrad in the 1930s. The tower of Leningrad’s admiralty appears as the other terminus. The train is presented in a stunning blue with red highlights while accents of metallic silver grace the embossed logo. Here the interior print appears on the upper lid and shows a fine line drawing of the train with outlines of speed implying its swift, smooth travel. Like earlier brands Metro (Metro) from 1940 and Aéroport (Airport) from 1939, Krasnaja strela allowed smokers to feel connected to Soviet achievements in technology. Soviet transportation triumphs of a different style also got their special packs and celebratory brands. As part of the general explosion in space kitsch in the 1950s and 1960s, there were also many space cigarettes. The brand Sputnik, named for the 1957 satellite launch, had packs for export and domestic consumption. Laika brand followed from the space dog’s journey of the same year to be a different type of companion. Kosmos moved this same obsession into the 1970s (Andrews 2011; Lewis 2011;

Fig. 5 Pack of Krasnaja strela. Undated. Courtesy of Productive Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications, graphics—1920s–1950s. www. productivearts.com

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Cornish 2019; Nelson 2011). The Apollo-Soiuz brand produced with the Americans in 1975 followed the same model of promotion celebrating the joint space mission of the same year. Joint partnerships, imports, and machinery purchases introduced the western style of cigarette to the Soviet market in greater numbers. Soviet tobacco packaging began to reflect international styles. Partially this was a result of imported cigarettes from Bulgaria where western manufacturers were making inroads in terms of leaf blends and packaging styles. Partially this came from new partnerships. Java factory in Moscow introduced a cigarette co-designed with the Finns with filters, nice packaging, and a clean design (Kochetkova 2018). During the same period Java factory pursued a partnership with Philip Morris to produce another filtered cigarette with a western-style leaf blend and packaging—the 1975 Apollo-Soiuz. The cigarette was made with tobacco imported directly from Richmond, Virginia with the tell-tale blend of American leaf but with spicy notes to appeal to Soviet smokers (Sinel’nikov 2017 ). Philip Morris also helped with importation of the other materials and trained Soviet technicians. The partnership paved the way for the licensing for production of Marlboro in 1976. For Souiz-Apollo and the soviet-made Marlboro, packaging was sleek and up-to-date with fine cardboard packs, foil inserts, and cellophane wrappers. These additions helped to keep the tobacco inside in a more balanced status of moisture and dryness, which would give a better burn quality. Good burn is important to mouthfeel and taste in smoking. The leaf inside was of more consistent quality than that of most Soviet smokes. While an advertising blitz accompanied the sale of these cigarettes in the US, no sales help was needed in the USSR. Instead, they were introduced at extreme deficit and scarcity created its own allure and mystique (Sinel’nikov 2017).

Conclusion Marketing in the Soviet Union might not have reached the level of western styles, but it was not completely nonexistent. Pack labels employed imagery and ideas to make smoking desirable and interesting. Messages connected to the radical politics of the period and employed almost exclusively male figures or envisaged male users. Beneath the labels, the products were nowhere near as enticing as packs in the west. The sensory effects of cellophane and foil were not part of Soviet tobacco

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marketing until into the 1970s and these were mitigated by production problems (loose tobacco, poor quality cellulose and paper, etc.) Hard packs, flip tops, and slick color treatments were not the norm. Not just different on the outside, Soviet tobacco packs enclosed very different products. Instead of engineered to create desire, Soviet tobacco products often barely met consumer demand. Instead of ubiquitous advertising, there was little conventional marketing. Rather than products engineered to create habits, poor packaging and manufacturing, could elicit sensory disgust. Yet this did not destroy smoking culture in the USSR. Soviets smoked in increasing numbers over time, when they could get hold of tobacco products. If product manipulation and marketing are not huge factors in smoking behavior among Soviets, this makes other issues—social, cultural, and behavioral—more important to uptake and the continued tobacco problem in countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). For global cessation efforts, it is important to remember that other things can influence habit formation. Disruption of marketing, plain packaging, and low nicotine products are routinely touted as important because of an established narrative of what induces smoking in capitalist markets. The development of a mass tobacco habit without the influence of product design and a relatively benign marketing presence suggests that cessation programs today must consider a more broadly designed approach. Finally, understanding Soviet marketing and product manipulation makes us reconsider major transition events like the collapse of the state in 1991. The differences in marketing and product design are significant for understanding the rapid rise in smoking rates, especially among women, that occurred in the 1990s. Inhaled, bright-leaf tobacco as incorporated in western-style cigarettes is milder, sweeter, and considered more appealing for women and children (Twigg 2009). This underscores the point that 1991 created a significant break in smoking styles when the influx of new western-style cigarettes significantly changed the tobacco habit.

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Concluding Comment

Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe: Concluding Commentary and Research Perspectives Kirsten Bönker

Transformations of Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe---A Short Outline The volume paints a complementary picture of the emergence of consumerism and the developments of consumer cultures by highlighting a variety of different aspects, i.e. (female) entrepreneurship, advertising, the interconnections of urban (elitist) consumerism and rural production, the impact of social and ethnic heterogeneity, the relation between emancipatory ideas and the consumption of specific commodities like luxury goods, the nationalization of consumption, perceptions of “modernity” shaped by the particularities of the different consumer cultures or their representations in advertising or Western tourism to socialist states. This list of topics this volume addresses could be continued, so rich in topics are the present contributions. Another strength of the

K. Bönker (B) Institute for Eastern European History, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_11

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volume is the geographical diversity as the chapters cover Eastern and Central European countries. Examining Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire (Corinne Geering, Lilija Wedel), the Czech Republic (Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger), Germany (Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and the early GDR, Timm Schönfelder), the Soviet Union (Tricia Starks), the Soviet Ukraine (Iryna Skubii), the Soviet republic of Estonia (Airi Uuna), Socialist Romania (Adelina Stefan) and Socialist Hungary (Annina Gagyiova), the volume features the specific potential of case studies for the history of consumption. Equally commendable is the long-term perspective the chapters raise from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Thus, they investigate not only political, socio-cultural and economic change and continuities since the era of Empires but also the changing relations between political systems on the one hand and consumer rights and cultures on the other. They explore regional, ethnic, gender and social particularities, as well as transnational interconnections, hierarchies and distinctions. The contributions trace many of these aspects across the turn of the century, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Tsarist Empire. They represent innovative case studies on imperial, republican, Soviet and socialist contexts that fundamentally contribute to the conceptualization of consumption in Eastern and Central Europe. Thus, they create the opportunity to compare and connect the history of Eastern and Central European consumption to Western and global consumer cultures. This volume, comprising three sections and a conclusion, explores the relations between consumer practices and advertising. It is striking to see how social, cultural, ethnic, political or economic factors impacted both consumer practices and advertising. Before World War I, the diversification of the public sphere and the press led multiple different commercial, non-state actors to increasingly engage in advertising. The protagonists of advertising discovered new target groups defined by gender, social, regional or ethnic characteristics. From the late nineteenth century onward, advertising became increasingly refined; the first section underlines that advertising aimed to represent certain lifestyles and to influence people’s choices by modern means of visualization in print media. Corinne Geering in her chapter focuses on the promotion of rural craftsmanship and handmade home industry products in the cities of late Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires as well as the impact of female entrepreneurship on consumer

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cultures in Eastern and Central Europe. Taking rural dress as an example, she demonstrates how competing notions of modern and traditional consumer goods enhanced the ambivalent modernization of consumer cultures and production regimes. This ambivalence derived from the deliberate distinction of dresses featuring folk elements from those with elegant and stylish French fashion elements. Geering convincingly interprets this as “ethical branding” or a kind of “fair trade” avant la lettre. It is based on a specific marketing concept, namely to understand “rural culture” as a commodity to be sold to urban consumers in the late AustroHungarian and Russian Empires. This chapter makes clear that we need to investigate the particularities of rural and urban consumer cultures and ask to what extent they might have converged or hybridized even across the change of political systems after the fall of the old Empires. Further, the first section’s focus on advertising and commercial actors in different political settings raises the issue of the consumer as a conscious actor. Obviously, habits, rights, needs, protection and interests became issues over which media, entrepreneurs, traders, state representatives and the consumers themselves negotiated. As these socio-cultural negotiations about supply regimes were not least represented in advertising, they can hardly be separated from the mediatized public sphere that has been emerging since the early modern period. The chapter of Lilija Wedel also underlines the aspect of medialization. Exploring the role of German and Russian-German advertising, their marketing strategies and communication networks, she shows the ethnic and regional diversity of advertising. Representing foreign commodities and living standards, advertising could become a medium of cross-border business and responded to the complex identities of the multi-ethnic people in the late Tsarist Empire. The volume illustrates how advertising contributed to the construction of the female and male consumer as actors; to the negotiations on needs and the boundaries of luxuries; and to commodities of daily use. In this sense, Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger exemplifies how the new woman became an object of advertisement and how a journal negotiated womanhood identities thus constructing the ideal–typical lifestyle of the Czechoslovak new woman. She should orientate herself internationally, behave like a cosmopolitan, and engage in Western consumer cultures while also, nevertheless, appreciating local traditions. This trend rooted in the rise of the late nineteenth-century feminist movement that increasingly challenged traditional gender roles and made the female consumers

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more visible so that they would be able to stand up for their own interests. The trend that both the female and male consumer became more confident—be it via medial representations or self-organization— was a common European phenomenon. In many European countries, consumers seeking more autonomy started to found leagues and cooperatives to ease social strains and to represent their interests and needs. The Bolshevik revolution, however, put consumers in the Russian Empire in a precarious position, as they lost any opportunity to represent their interests. In the early 1920s, the New Economic Policy (NEP) should have been the remedy for all the dramatic hardships that the Russian Revolution, Civil War and famine brought for the Soviet people. The new regime and implementation of the New Economic Policy imbued consumption with previously unknown ideological requirements such that the interwar period was characterized by ambivalent economic strategies. On the one hand, the regime forced the people to cut consumption. On the other hand, Lenin’s New Economic Policy allowed certain market incentives and rehabilitated private entrepreneurship. The chapters on Soviet and socialist consumption regimes highlight the new primacy of ideology and the “political” over the needs and demands of the consumers, as well as over economic considerations. Focusing on different commodities like furs, chocolate, tobacco or “authentic” food, these chapters illustrate how the meaning and use of these goods were re-interpreted and adapted to ideological needs. In this context, Iryna Skubii, for example, argues that the re-interpretations of “elite” goods and commodities represented the cultural and economic battles with the West that eventually aimed to legitimize the Bolshevik rule. From the beginning, the education of the New Soviet Man was entangled with the battle for new consumer habits and consumption regimes. Somewhat surprisingly given the state of dire need, the Bolshevik regime also reimplemented advertising. The regime considered advertising as propaganda that should educate the consumer and guide him to long for the “right” commodities. Thus, in 1921, in conjunction with the New Economic Policy, advertising on foodstuffs, drinks and tobacco was relaunched in Moscow. The colourful posters of the Mosselprom state trust created a unified style and invented the Soviet trademark “Nowhere else but at Mosselprom”. The ads of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Maiakovskii became famous all over the country. They showcased the new claim of choice and promised a rising living standard for the Soviet people. Tricia Starks challenges a too harmonious picture in her analysis of cigarette

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advertising. The quality of Soviet cigarettes was bad and could not meet the demand. Marketing for tobacco was by far not as aggressive and ubiquitous as in the West. Starks shows how Soviet manufacturers on sum neglected consumer demands for taste or design in advertising. Stalin’s explicit promise for a better future in the mid-1930s intended to use consumer privileges to integrate the new elites into his project of remodelling the Soviet society. Even though the promise of a better future, if everyone would just work hard enough, addressed the broader society, the daily reality of consumption for the ordinary people was characterized by shortages and ration coupons for food and goods. Nevertheless, new commodities, like canned food, champagne, perfumes, etc., that had formerly been criticized as decadent, now emerged as symbols of the better life. In a longer perspective, it becomes clear that advertising gained further significance; in her compelling case study on Estonia, Airi Uuna shows how the Soviet regime also deployed advertising to construct a Soviet style of consumption in the non-Russian peripheries. All chapters of this volume underline that a growing (consumer) audience participated in these negotiations. They demonstrate diversification in not only the range of consumer habits and cultures but also the communication media—such as travelogues, personal letters, letters to the authorities and mass media—in which people negotiated issues of consumption. Consumption became a topic of discussion in various subpublics (Teilöffentlichkeiten) and in private: various state and non-state actors, including experts, doctors, designers, journalists, industrialists, imperial elites, peasants, party politicians, representatives of cooperatives, private consumers, etc., engaged in these negotiations and made consumption a societal issue with a high political potential. This volume addresses the political implications of consumption. All chapters demonstrate that a modern history of consumption, of consumer practices and habits, and of production and advertising may provide insights into a wide variety of broader societal processes and structures, into negotiations about social equality, as well as into various aspects of everyday life. More particularly, the chapters strongly suggest that the history of consumption may conceptualize the interlinkages between different fields of societal action because they raise the question of the impact of the political framework on consumer habits and opportunities. In what way did consumption depend on the particular political system? To what extent might cultural traditions persist despite ideologically motivated interventions? These may sound like banal questions,

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but the regional and national perspectives the chapters offer, especially regarding Soviet and state socialist societies, point to differing scopes of action due to different traditions of consumer cultures. Thus, the socialist regimes’ claims to control their strict ideological framing of consumption in implementing new consumer habits nevertheless interacted with cultural traditions and economic conditions. Adelina Stefan’s case of tourism in Romania shows that the socialist regime did not hesitate to create Romanian “authentic” food as a brand. This invented culture of food aimed to sell a kind of “identity commodity” to Western tourists. Obviously, the Socialist ideology did not fundamentally challenge the “capitalist” idea of presenting foodstuffs as part of a lifestyle representing pleasure and leisure. Annina Gagyiova investigation of the late Soviet Advertising Bureau in Hungary charts the regime’s strategy to pave the way for a socialist good life after the 1956 uprising. This strategy was later somewhat contemptuously called “Goulash Communism” because it suggested that the regime bought people’s loyalty with better supply. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Hungarian consumption regime came closer to Western consumer cultures with regard to choice and quality. This was not least due to the “second economy” sustained by a new and growing group of private entrepreneurs that the regime explicitly accepted to improve the supply. However, the private entrepreneurship that increasingly grew after the economic reform in 1982 enhanced growing social inequalities and made poverty visible. Market reforms and private economic initiatives fundamentally challenged the socialist propaganda of social equality and fuelled not only rising inequalities but also societal discussions about socialist values and promises. Gagyiova argues that this social disintegration delegitimized the socialist regime and accelerated its dissolution in 1989. The chapters present many more arguments on the development of consumer habits and structures of consumption that are not elaborated here but suggest some broader research perspectives and illustrate the need for an analytical framework to help systematize and contextualize the findings therein. As mentioned above, the chapters at least implicitly address the politicization of consumption, the impact of the political system on consumption regimes and the consumer as political actor. As these issues call for a conceptual perspective on the history of consumption, the following section aims to elaborate it from the vantage point of socialist or Soviet consumption. How do the arguments presented here

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speak to a broader frame of the Soviet history of consumption? What could be specific research perspectives for the history of consumption?

Soviet Consumption, the “Political” and Media Coverage Building communism was propagated as the path to abundance. When Nikita S. Khrushchev publicly proclaimed in 1959 that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States in standard of living by 1970, the Soviet leader himself made consumption an international benchmark for comparing daily life in the East and the West. The rising living standard and winning the loyalty of the Soviet people thus became two sides of the same coin. Consumer policies during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras were part of a variety of political strategies that aimed to provide the Soviet system with new sources of legitimacy. The Communist Party tied the legitimacy of the socialist system even more strongly than ever before to the idea of material abundance for all (Crowley and Reid 2010; Merl 2010; Reid 2002). Consumption and supply became contested issues in the context of the Cold War and the ideological competition. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that many foreign observers were interested in the daily life of Soviet citizens. To give the West German audience a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, they depicted the food supply, shopping facilities and prices of consumer goods. Under glass on the white counter in the Frigidaire is also plenty of cheese, cottage cheese, cream, neatly packaged with parchment paper or in jars, in small ready standard quantities. Popular is the Finnish cheese, which is recently imported. […] However, the time when it was pure luck whether you could buy something or not is over for the Soviet citizen. […] Modern sales methods are also gradually taking root in the Soviet capital. The first self-service stores immediately became popular. At a reasonable price, the trade organizations put on the market foreign canned fruits and vegetables, juices, jams–many of Bulgarian origin–to which the Russian buyer is still little accustomed. In order to encourage the public, the prices for such canned goods were lowered even further at the time of introduction. Sellers also promoted diet products, sales of which increased by sixty percent in Moscow during the past year. However, the number of stores is still far too small. […] If you come to Moscow as a foreigner, you can only slowly understand this strange world with its intricate paths. Many things have become much easier than before (Pörzgen 1958, pp. 107– 09).

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Hermann Pörzgen, who reported from Moscow from 1956 until his death in 1976 for West German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), was one of the most competent, thorough and empathetic Western observers of the Soviet daily life. Pörzgen strolled through Moscow’s shops and across the markets just before Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev boldly challenged the United States in the peaceful Cold War competition. During the so-called kitchen debate on the occasion of the opening of an American trade exhibition in Moscow, Khrushchev engaged in a witty verbal exchange with US Vice President Richard Nixon about whose country was more successful in providing labour-saving and recreational devices for ordinary people. In front of TV cameras, he publicly declared the peaceful competition between the Cold War power blocs in the field of consumer goods and interiors for the first time. From now on, the whole world became the witness of the new promotion of consumption in the Soviet Union. Pörzgen was, however, not the first Western correspondent to report on consumption and leisure in order to give the domestic audience an idea about how “ordinary” people lived in the Soviet Union and about how their lifestyle resembled or differed from the Western one. While international ideological competition had been on the rise during the interwar period, Khrushchev’s gambit (ill-fated as it was) made consumer habits a central issue of foreign reporting about the Soviet Union. The Cold War competition for the better standard of living and the better supply of consumer goods just further intensified Western correspondents’ interest in the Soviet way of life. Stories that revealed how the people on the other side of the Iron Curtain lived sold especially well to Western audiences. Correspondents willingly picked up on any topic related to the living standard (Bönker 2021). The history of consumption has been a growing and interdisciplinary field of research since the late 1990s, quickly been taken up by historians of Eastern and Central Europe. The history of consumption in the GDR, in particular, paved the way for methodological approaches inspired by cultural studies. Thus, consumer practices and consumption have been increasingly researched for many East and Central European states of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Culturalist perspectives on consumption often focus on consumers as actors, their practices and the different consumer cultures that have emerged since the early modern period. Thereby, a comprehensive concept of consumption has gradually become established in recent research. It includes the consumption of food and goods of all kinds as well as leisure activities, the use of communal services

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such as housing, infrastructure and health or public transfer services. Thus, the quantity and quality of consumption offers as well as questions of scarcity and luxury become relative variables that are not fixed to “consumer societies” of modern Western provenance but need to be historicized and deconstructed. In this way, cultural appropriations, consumer habits and communicative processes of negotiation between various actors come into focus (Merkel 1999; Merl 2007; Crowley and Reid 2010; Bönker and Simon 2011). In particular, not only the history of consumption in the GDR but research on socialist consumer culture has generally benefited from both methodological extensions. For a long time, socialist consumer societies were described one-sidedly as societies characterized by the lack of choice, scarcity and deficient quality. Scholars like Ina Merkel for the GDR or Susan Reid for the Soviet Union fundamentally revised this picture based on a constructivist concept of culture (Merkel 1999; Reid 2002, 2009). Taking up this approach, several studies established the important function of consumption in legitimizing the socialist regimes. These studies raise the broader question of why the Soviet Union and the state socialist societies remained stable social systems until Perestroika. Therefore, recent research on the period of “developed socialism” focuses on consumerism, leisure-time activities, tourism and sports to analyse practices that might have contributed to the stability and legitimacy or might have challenged them. These studies bring to light complex relations and negotiations between state policies, activities of mass organizations, as well as individual and group practices (Boškovska et. 2016; Chernyshova 2013; Gatejel 2014; Gorsuch and Koenker 2013; Ivanova 2017; Patterson 2011; Luthar and Pušnik 2010; Veenis 2012). Recent studies like Natalya Chernyshova’s “Soviet Consumer Culture in the Brezhnev Era” highlight how the regime navigated between the ideological ideals in tension with each other posed by a forced consumption policy to satisfy people’s needs and to enrich their privileges. After all, the idea of increasing labour productivity through rising wages and material incentives contradicted the socialist claim of equality and the regime’s contempt for private property and bourgeois consumerism. The central question for the period of late socialism is to what extent these contradictions and the partly unfulfilled consumer desires destabilized the regime or, on the contrary, in what way could they be read as flexibilization and changing values contributing to its durability. Chernyshova answers this question by looking at the negotiations between the population and the

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party in the consumption environment. She deconstructs the picture of the Soviet consumer queuing up for scarce goods and being an exploited victim of the socialist economic system. On the contrary, she convincingly argues that the Brezhnev era brought about a new consumer culture with an active “modern” consumer who made his purchasing decisions much more autonomously, knowledgeably and self-confidently than it had been the case in the times of Stalin and Khrushchev (Chernyshova 2013). Alexey Golubev has further enhanced research by explicitly focusing on the material side of Soviet consumption—an aspect that had to date been widely neglected. Asking how it influenced habits, subjectivity and everyday life, Golubev shows how the material environment promoted the ubiquitous do-it-yourself culture that again occurred as “practices of selfhood” or “technologies of the self”. Materiality and objects influenced concepts of masculinity and femininity producing the “social” (Golubev 2020). Following up the culturalist approach to explore consumption, some studies illustrate the manifold medial dimension of consumption. Until 1905, the Tsarist Empire’s journalistic public was severely limited in terms of political reporting. Newspapers and journals were mainly published in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the capitals of the governorates. However, advertising journals that published advertisements and business news had been appearing even in smaller cities beyond the capitals since the 1880s. Advertisements quickly became a generally decisive mechanism for financing all kinds of newspapers and journals that increasingly published advertising from the late nineteenth century on. Many of them financed themselves through selling print pages thus becoming financially dependent on advertisements. Moreover, print media started to observe the society and to represent socio-cultural practices of celebrities, as well as those of everyday life, to the extent that state-imposed censorship allowed. With the diversification of media societies and the rise of audio-visual media in the twentieth century, mass media increasingly observed not only itself but also people’s daily life on both sides of the Iron Curtain after World War II. The opening of the Soviet Union for foreign correspondents like Hermann Pörzgen after Stalin’s death, the assignment of Soviet journalists to Western states and the rise of television changed the observation of the “Other” and the structures of media communication. Not only Pörzgen’s eyewitness report on consuming and “modern sales methods” in Moscow demonstrated that consumption became a central topic. Television and print media presented new images of consumption.

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People consuming commodities, mass media, leisure activities, etc., new consumer goods, different lifestyles, movies and advise programmes on housing on TV all illustrated consumption. The chapters of this volume’s first section (Geering, Wedel, Eriksroed-Burger) make clear that we need to take a longer perspective to analyse the medialization of consumption. Indeed, it becomes obvious that mass media, in connection with the growing advertising industry, made consumption an “object” in Niklas Luhmann’s sense since the late nineteenth century. This means that the topic of consumption became an anchor point of further communication without forcing people to accept any detail of it. Thinking of the socialist regimes’ attempts to win people’s loyalty, the impact of media and political communication on negotiations over consumption comes into question. Luhmann is sceptical about the relation between societal consent probably produced by mass media and the stability of a social order. He argues that it is not that any social consensus is keeping a political order stable but rather what he calls “objects” of media communication, i.e. issues generated by the mass media. In his view, these are topics that gain familiarity among the public via the mass media, so that the public is able to negotiate with them without necessarily agreeing with them (Luhmann 2009, 77, 112, 115, 121–122). Corresponding to the interesting findings of Magdalena EriksroedBurger’s chapter on the representations of Czechoslovak new woman as a consumer in the journal Eva, the highly popular Soviet magazine Ogonek had several illustrated editorials with pictorial motifs that concentrated on the theme of the paternalistic welfare state providing good vacation, cultural and educational facilities. From the late 1950s on, the journal increasingly depicted happy people pursuing leisure activities and accentuated the rising mass production of consumer goods. Ogonek also highlighted the “cultured” way of shopping with respectful saleswomen and without queues. In contrast to their East German colleagues, Ogonek’s journalists refrained from visually criticizing conditions for the consumer. Although they described certain grievances in written form, they only rarely used photographs or illustrations to criticize shortages. And if they did, they contrasted any negative examples with cases of excellent sales and service practices (Keghel 2011, 82–87). TV developed certain programmes on consumption aiming to be accepted by the audience as a competent adviser on lifestyle and consumption issues as early as in the mid-1950s. In doing so, it took up an established tradition of print media, and the Soviet regime generally

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promoted the genre of advice literature. During the Khrushchev period, this popular genre was further refined by science periodicals, housekeeping books and commodity dictionaries. These publications intended to educate “new” socialist consumers covering many fields of daily life such as hygiene, health, cooking and nutrition, child-rearing, public etiquette and furnishing. The advice publications instructed the consumer in how to use commodities and organize their life around them. While trying to engage the reader, they consolidated the illusion of an attainable perfect consumer world and visualized material abundance (Attwood 1999; Kelly 2001; Smoliak 2011). In this tradition, Central Television and local Leningrad Television launched the programme Dlia vas, zhenshchiny (For you, ladies), which covered questions TV editors assumed to be of interest to women: fashion, cosmetics, furnishing, raising children and housekeeping. Dlia doma, dlia sem’I (For the home, for the family) offered advice on how to arrange a new flat, how to choose the right materials, colours, furniture, and home appliances. There were many other advice programmes underlining that TV producers perceived women as responsible and autonomous consumers (Bönker 2020, 165– 167). Another popular strategy was to step into the discourse on consumption and everyday life by presenting viewer letters about consumption issues on screen. Also, new genres made consumer issues into an integral part of the programming sector that covered advice, information and education. The diversified screening of consumer topics also reflected the new self-representation of television as a journalistic authority: henceforth, television deliberately presented more critical materials and disclosed all kinds of flaws, shortcomings, mismanagement or bad organization of the production on screen. This new strategy also included advocating consumer interests, presenting new commodities and trends, as well as addressing product flaws (Bönker 2020, 175–187). Finally, films on TV were another means to convey official messages about the “right” consumer habits and lifestyles at least in the background of the story. Again, socialist media subliminally pictured the new socialist lifestyle, dress codes, behaviour but made these issues present without exposing its problems. Thus, television embedded consumer issues into the entertainment culture providing ground for affirmative emotional bonding. This was part of socialist TV’s success story as a pleasure-giving medium whose entertainment programmes were positively perceived by a

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majority of the people in the Soviet Union and the other state socialist countries (Bloch 2013; Bren 2010; Bönker 2020, 23–24; Meyen 2003). These media representations of the socialist way of life helped to frame people’s perceptions of their own lifestyle and domestic space. Thereby, they show how TV was involved in the vertical communication among the audience, the TV staff and the party. The production and consumption of TV programmes were negotiated among media producers, viewers, state and party institutions. These negotiations on the socialist way of life, on the promise of a better living standard, on norms and values of Soviet-socialist consumerism, etc., constituted a new field of communication between the people and the regime. Not least, TV consumption meshed strongly with material consumption as the first step in becoming a TV consumer was to buy a TV set and re-arrange the apartment in order to find a comfortable place to watch TV. Thus, media consumption was immediately involved in the renewal of popular culture and the visualization of new consumerist lifestyles with the effect that television facilitated the bridging of time zones and borderlines between urban and rural habits. TV amplified, simplified, and familiarized certain issues, ideas, values or feelings that viewers could relate to in their daily lives, including consumption. To address the audience by providing views defining the “normal” life was the main way for the regime and TV producers to convey messages, offer identification models and evoke commitment to the societal consensus (Meyen 2003; Bren 2010; Bloch 2013; Bönker 2020).

Research Perspectives for the History of Consumption in Eastern Europe The history of consumption in Eastern Europe is still a research field, which for early Soviet Russia lies largely fallow, especially for the period from the late nineteenth century up to the mid-1930s. Although several studies of everyday consumption under Stalinism since the mid-1930s (Gronow 2003; Osokina 2001; Osokina 2021) and for the post-Stalinist period have been published recently, there are only few studies for the 1920s (Hessler, 2004; Kiaer, 2005; Osokina 2001) and even fewer that examine consumption across the caesura of the 1917 revolution. Thereby, crossing the political break is a recent but necessary trend to assess continuities and change, expectations and emotions, regimes of knowledge and

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technologies related to supply issues that impacted on consumer cultures (Bittner 2021; Häfner 2022a, b; Romaniello and Starks 2016). In this sense, Pörzgen’s eyewitness report raises questions about the history of consumption in Eastern Europe in a broader time and geographical perspective. His observations gesture towards the transnational linkages of Soviet consumption. The milk products were stored in a “Frigidaire”, i.e. an American refrigerator produced by Adam Opel AG—a subsidiary company of General Motors—in West Germany. In the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union increasingly expanded the import of consumer goods, such as the mentioned “Finnish cheese”, that also found its place in the Frigidaire, and Bulgarian canned fruits, etc. On the one hand, the import of technical devices like a refrigerator and of foodstuffs hints at considerable shortages and the technological backwardness that characterized the Soviet consumption regime. On the other hand, this trade strategy reflected Khrushchev’s ideological pragmatism that allowed the importation of Western goods even for the ordinary consumer. Although the import of Bulgarian cans was part of the Soviet-dominated trade relations established through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON, Russian SEV), it also contributed to the cautious internationalization of Soviet consumption (Radisch 2022). American, Finnish, or West German goods in Soviet shops, however, marked only the beginning of an increasingly intensifying trade across the Iron Curtain including consumer goods and foodstuffs, as well as construction projects and energy supply (Rudolph 2004; SanchezSibony 2014). Mentioning self-service stores and diet products, Pörzgen conveyed to his Western readers an image of a modernizing consumption regime and of the emergence of a modern Soviet consumer. Nevertheless, Pörzgen did not fail to paint a picture of a certain “otherness” of the Soviet Union: the daily life of the Muscovites remained a riddle for any foreigner who attempted to decipher “this strange world”. Last but not least, it is important to stress that Pörzgen focused on Moscow and did not tell about the provincial capitals and about small towns and villages. Against the background of Pörzgen’s 1958 report and the findings the chapters of this volume present, several perspectives, issues and tasks for future research emerge. Further, the work here suggests that investigating relevant issues in a transnational and/or comparative perspective and across the political caesura of regime changes holds much potential. A cultural and transnational history of consumption shall focus on actors and practices, in particular, in order to shed light from different

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perspectives on processes of social dynamization and differentiation, of individualization, of urbanization and of social and ethnic belonging. Research should systematically address (1) national particularities and the regionality of consumer cultures and supply, (2) the transnational interconnectedness and demarcations of consumption and (3) the consumer as political actor and processes of (de)politicization of consumption. 1) Several papers of this volume identify national and regional traditions. Some of these traditions were newly constructed such as the ethnic branding of Russo-German advertising in the late Tsarist Russia, the invention of peasant handicraft products in Austro-Hungary or of Romanian authentical foodstuffs. Other traditions adapted Western-style consumerism in socialist Hungary or Soviet-style consumerism in the non-Russian peripheries like Estonia. Pörzgen mentioned that the “Russian buyer is still little accustomed” to jams, etc., of Bulgarian origin. These aspects show that national or regional characteristics are constructions. They do not have any essential, self-explanatory meanings. On the contrary, they can be appropriated and changed, for example, for political or economic purposes, wherefore they need to be contextualized regarding social, cultural, economic or gender-specific effects. Who were the actors and interest groups involved? What interests did they pursue and how did they try to reach them? To what extent did national or regional ascription change according to political and ideological frameworks? On questions of (de-)nationalization, authoritarian socialist regimes require a comparative approach, as they were all forced to adopt the Soviet promise of consumerism and a rising living standard. This promise of consumerism as well as the glimpses over the Iron Curtain to the West aroused feelings and feelings and fantasies among the citizens, which probably contributed one way or the other to the stabilization or destabilization of the Eastern bloc countries. With the arguments of Airi Uuna regarding Soviet Estonia and Annina Gagyiova regarding socialist Hungary in mind, we can suppose that a comparative perspective would highlight a variety of national differences between the Eastern bloc countries. Analysing the respective factors would lend insight into the regimes’ strategies of communication to frame consumption or into specific national economic mechanisms. In what ways did the strategies to win people’s loyalty probably differ according to national particularities despite the common socialist ideology? The question of national and regional consumer traditions also touches upon a history of emotions. It

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promises to answer questions concerning the extent to which the regimes did eventually succeed in winning people’s loyalty, in gaining legitimacy by increasing the general living standards and improving the service and the supply with commodities, food, apartments, etc. Based on Martha Nussbaum’s concept of political emotions, the argument is that political principles always need an emotional basis to maintain the society. According to Nussbaum, any society needs emotions like compassion and affection that may derive, for example, from ceremonies and rituals. They aim to support a public culture of emotions reinforcing people’s bonding to societal norms. Nussbaum calls the feelings people thus presumably develop “public emotions”. In her view, it makes a categorical difference regarding the stability of a society whether its political principles are secured via people’s active engagement or rather through passive approval. Nussbaum supposes that a society’s sustainability is much more lasting if people stand up for values and ideas and not only agree on a compromise for pragmatic reasons. Although this concept refers to liberal systems and leaves out force and repression exerted by authoritarian regimes, it makes sense to transfer this idea to them because socialist regimes also aim to trigger people’s emotional commitment to values, symbols or traditions, even if these explicitly relate to enemy images and thus do not adhere to morally “good” concepts. Such emotional links may strongly bond people to the respective political order (Nussbaum 2014, 13–25). Against this background, a cultural history of consumption would help to clarify the probably nationally-bounded perceptions of the often arduous everyday life of consumers and the relation between the astonishing stability of the regimes and satisfied consumers. To what extent did scarcities and product flaws challenge people’s emotional bonding to the regime? In what ways do we see in this respect national peculiarities? These are important questions as, after all, the prospect of abundance initially demanded sacrifices and renunciation from the people. Hence, the question of what was to be understood as luxurious consumption belonged to the most delicate issues of the socialist discourse on consumption, as the chapters by Iryna Skubii or Adelina Stefan elaborate. There were many other often nationally imbued consumer practices that were considered luxurious and generated pleasure. Despite the promise of a future communist abundance, they remained ideologically highly controversial for the time being. The questions of which consumption practices and goods attained a place in the communist utopia; which

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became ideologically contested; and which became the objects of negotiations between the citizens and the regimes depended on national peculiarities and are by no means reflected in a homogeneous conception of the “Eastern bloc” (Crowley and Reid 2010). Here, we can see the potential of a desirable comparative history of the Eastern bloc states and for transnational perspectives on East and West in the Cold War. Regardless of this plea for comparing socialist societies, comparative perspectives would also contribute to a European history of consumption in the long nineteenth century. Basically, these questions focusing on national aspects of consumption should assist transnational and global studies which are increasingly, if gradually, including Eastern countries. Nevertheless, studies raising a national or regional focus are still needed not only to prepare the groundwork for any transnational and global study but also to differentiate our knowledge about Eastern and East-Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 2) The history of consumption has many transnational and transcultural implications, as Pörzgen’s report revealed from the point of view of a contemporary observer. Transnational trade practices or transcultural imaginations of Eastern European consumers longing for Western commodities are worth exploration, as they constitute the counterpart of any nationalization or regional particularities. The relationship between these two sides of the same coin might have considerably changed over time depending on the political impact on consumption and consumer attitudes. How did Eastern and Western consumer cultures reflect each other? To what extent and at what point did they merge and modify the other? Future studies must examine the “global connections” in the exchange of goods, knowledge and actors (Bayly 2004). With regard to many global trajectories of commodities, etc., Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in general have been quite neglected. In this context, goods such as wine, furs, fashion, chocolate or oil can be used not only to tell a microhistory of globalization, but also to examine how Eastern European countries located themselves in global processes since the nineteenth century. The global-historical perspective means, on the one hand, to address discursive references and, on the other hand, scientific and personal interconnections, transfers and failed interactions. Timm Schönfelder’s excellent chapter highlights the discontinuities and changing practices that pelt commodification underwent with

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changing political frameworks and sovietization. In an analytical longtime and microhistorical perspective, the author traces a trajectory of isolation and demarcation. The German fur trade was part of an increasingly globalized market since the nineteenth century. Transnational trade relations, however, collapsed first due to economic depression during the 1920s, then due to expropriations and the persecution of leading actors during the Nazi regime and lastly due to the socialist consumption regime and the loss of local expertise on craftmanship, as many of those who survived Nazi rule left for the West. The impact of the political framework on centuries-old pelt commodification also clarifies the need for comparative studies on consumption in authoritative regimes with special attention to (dis)continuities. A comparison of Nazi and Soviet consumption politics and the way consumers adapted their practices accordingly would give interesting insights in communication strategies, the strategies of winning people’s loyalty or concepts of educating the people. Moreover, Pörzgen’s observations on Soviet consumption remind us to take the specific context of the Cold War competition and the changes the fall of the Soviet Union caused into account. The Cold War did not prevent consumption from becoming an increasingly transnational, interconnected phenomenon within the Eastern bloc and across the Iron Curtain. The ideological competition also fuelled the considerable political potential of consumption, supply and the living standard. In a longer analytical perspective from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, it becomes clear that not only authoritative regimes had the opportunity to (de-)politicize consumption but various actors did as well. In particular, consumers could mirror the transnationalization of the consumer world. How did consumer preferences change with the increasing transnational supply of commodities and challenge governmental consumption politics? 3) Analysis of the consumer as a political actor and exploration of the ways in which various actors had the opportunity to (de-)politicize consumption can lend new insights into the relations and conflicts between society and state that changed with the times and the different political regimes in Eastern Europe. It is important to examine when, how and under which circumstances interdependencies between “consumption” and “politics” occurred at all. When could we describe certain thematizations of consumption or consumption practices as political? It is necessary to ask which actors redefined the boundaries between consumption and politics, when and how. Further, when and how did consumption become (de-)politicized?

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Issues are considered political if the communication associated with them was broadly effective, sustained or binding, or was perceived as such. In addition, the communication must have supra-individual references and address power relations or rules of coexistence. “Politicization” refers to the strategies of the actors to formulate issues accordingly. Attempts at politicization need to by no means always be successful or purposeful. They can also fail or be suffered passively. Strategies that attempt to take the political explosiveness out of an issue or a debate are to be understood as “depoliticization”. At the same time, strategies that aim to taboo issues in order to depoliticize them can themselves have politicizing effects. They are successful, for example, when a topic loses broad appeal or is no longer related to debates about power relations (Bönker and Simon 2011). Consumption topics were often used to discuss problems of social order that claimed a certain broad impact and general applicability or touched on concrete socio-cultural power relations. In these cases, communication about and through consumption is to be understood as a negotiation process around political space itself, which can be studied in different contexts and actor constellations. This approach opens up three main advantages: First, the focus on political communication allows for a differentiated, non-normative view of politicized consumption. Second, it opens up new perspectives for historical comparison, and third, the actorcentred perspective puts consumers themselves at the centre of the analysis (Bönker and Simon 2011). Further, recent research has already demonstrated that consumer rights were a central topic of political communication in capitalist, as well as in socialist societies (Bönker 2016). At the same time, consumer interests were mostly ignored at many times in the history of consumption. This refers to the contamination of food in the nineteenth century that sometimes stimulated state initiatives to regulate the standards for “healthy” food and to improve consumer protection (Häfner 2018). Soviet trade and the socialist industry in general, however, did normally not improve the quality of consumer durables or diversify the choice. Thus, staging consumer interests on TV had the pragmatic dimension of instructing citizens how to claim warranty in cases of defective commodities or bad consumer services. The socialist governments developed a voluminous legal framework to regulate consumer protection. While this functioned essentially as a fig leaf, it did reflect the growing societal claims for consumer protection and for more and better goods. Newspapers and

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journals began to consistently cover consumer problems and the fight for consumer rights more emphatically. Both the formal enforcement of consumer rights and increasing media coverage made this period fundamentally different from Stalinist times (Keghel 2011; Bönker 2020). Again, future research should address questions of consumer protection and consumer rights in a long-time and comparative perspective. Last but not least, consumption issues like choice, prices and supply were—and are still today—closely connected to questions of social equality. Soviet propaganda emphasized social equality as main characteristic of a socialist society. Against this background, it painted a picture of the “humane” and “warm” socialist society based on social relations whereas the disdained stereotype of capitalism implied a society dominated by materialism, egoism and, of course, money. In contrast to such a “cold” and inhumane society, the Soviet regime propagated the image of an egalitarian society, in which money should not determine people’s social status. Accordingly, people should not strive for money for the sake of having a consumerist lifestyle. Interestingly, this latent disdain of money dates back a long way in Russian culture and was by no means a Soviet invention. The post-Soviet transformation fundamentally changed the significance and perception of money (Dinello 1998; Bönker 2017). Against this background, it is important to investigate negotiations, representations and scales of social (in)equalities in relation to consumer cultures from the nineteenth century. How were social (in)equalities that were based on consumption opportunities officially framed and negotiated? Who made the relation between consumption and social (in)equalities a subject of public discussion? How did marketing and advertising affect the construction of social (in)equality? These questions would benefit from a comparative and long-time perspective that would further refine our knowledge about Eastern European consumer cultures and their relation to the Western and global world.

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People Index

A Afanas´ev, Leonid L., 219 Alexandra, Queen, 41 Alex, Robert, 71 Allik, Jaak, 221 Appadurai, Arjun, 135, 136 Ariowitsch, Max, 123 Asmer, Toivo, 218

B Balzar, Jaroslav, 105 Beetham, Margaret, 85, 88 Bekleshova, Tatiana, 224 Benedict, Carol, 246 Berghoff, Hartmut, 12, 17, 209 Berliner, Joseph S., 223 Berta, Peter, 144 Bittner, Steven, 243, 280 Bogdanova, Elena, 14 Borman, Georges, 140 Boškovska, Nada, 14, 275 Bourdieu, Pierre, 9

Bracewell, Wendy, 156 Bren, Paulina, 14, 182, 244, 279 Brezhnev, Leonid I., 14, 219, 233, 273, 276 Bufkova-Wanklová, Karla, 45 Bulankin, Ivan, 143

C Catherine II, 55 Chernyshova, Natalya, 14, 205, 275, 276 Courtwright, David T., 245 Cross, Gary S., 244, 245

D David-Fox, Michael, 5, 6, 137 de Grazia, Victoria, 87 Drtikol, František, 105

E Ecclestone, Bernie, 219

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9

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292

PEOPLE INDEX

Eckert, Penelope, 144 Einem, Ferdinand Theodor von ˙ (Ejnem, Fedor Karloviˇc), 63 Eisenstadt, Shmul, 5 Eitingon, Chaim, 123, 128 Empress Elisabeth, 37, 38

Huxley, Aldous, 10

F Feinberg, Melissa, 89 Firu, Sorin, 158 Frederick, Christine, 104 Fryšová, Emilie, 40 Furlough, Ellen, 87

J Jílovská, Staša, 91

I Isabella von Croÿ, Archduchess, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47

G Gahren, Otto, 68 Galanti, Mario, 219, 233 Goldschweer, Ulrike, 11, 16, 87 Golubev, Alexey, 6, 16, 276 González de Fanning, Teresa, 44 Gorbaˇcev, Michail Sergeeviˇc, 250 Gorusch, Anne. E., 225 Gray, H.E., 159 Grimberg, L., 214 Gronow, Jukka, 11, 14, 15, 93, 96, 136, 137, 146, 147, 279 Gyarmathy, Zsigáné (née Etelka Hory), 37, 38

K Kanevskii, Evgenii, 206, 213, 216, 226, 234 Kavánová, Marie, 104 Keler, Roman R., 75 Kennan, George, 118 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 14, 159, 273, 274, 276, 278, 280 Kiaer, Christina, 16, 139, 140, 279 Kokovcev, Vladimir N., 66 Kolisek, Alois, 104 Komissarov, Kalju, 221 König, Wolfgang, 4, 8, 12, 104 Kosygin, Alexei, 210 Kotler, Philip, 209, 210, 230 Krafft-Ebing, Richard von, 113 Krestovnikov, Grigorij A., 66

H Haas-Teichen, Baroness von, 47 Harrison, Mark, 145 Heine, Otto Heine, 62 Hessler, Julie, 13, 136, 147, 148, 182, 279 Hollender, Paul, 125 Houze, Rebecca, 35, 37, 39, 45 Howes, David, 245 Huebner, Karla, 84, 87, 89, 90, 92, 96

L Laiv, Madis, 218 Leiske, Walter, 125 Lenin, Vladimir, 139, 206, 216, 250, 254, 270 Leonov, M., 216 Liivik, Felix, 212 Lissitsky, El, 145 Long, Lucy M., 164 Loo, Hans van der, 9 Luhmann, Niklas, 277

PEOPLE INDEX

M Majakovskij (Mayakovsky), Vladimir V., 251 Maria Josepha, Archduchess, 47 Maria Theresia, Archduchess, 44, 46 Marx, Karl, 10 Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue, 20, 89, 97 Mayakovsky, Vladimir V. See Majakovskij (Mayakovsky), Vladimir V. Mayerová-Fuchsová, Zdenˇ ka, 105 Meier, E. (shop), 71 Michal, Vojtˇech, 105 Mikojan (Mikoyan), Anastas Ivanoviˇc, 248 Mongu, Blanka, 88, 95 Montessori, Maria, 44 Moreau-Vauthier, Paul, 116 Muzika, František, 91 N Napa, Toomas, 218 Neuburger, Mary, 14, 156, 157, 182, 244, 249 Nicholas II, Russian Tsar, 119 Nightingale, Florence, 44 Nixon, Richard, 274 Norak, Albert, 212 Nováková, Jarmila, 92

293

Paquin, Jeanne, 116 Peter I. (the Great), 16 Petrov, Evgenii, 142, 144 Pidmohylnyi, Valerian, 144 Plaggenborg, Stefan, 5 Podolská, Hana, 91, 97 Pörzgen, Hermann, 273, 274, 276, 280, 281, 283, 284 Proctor, Robert N., 244, 245 Prokhasko, Olga, 4 R Randall, Amy, 13, 87, 105, 136 Reed, Lou, 113, 126 Reijen, Willem van, 9 ˇ Rezᡠcová, Ema, 101 Rodchenko, Aleksandr Michajlovich, 140, 251, 270 Rosenbaum, Oldˇrich, 97 Rosser, Reeves, 209 Roubíˇcková, Arnošta, 97 Ruane, Christine, 35, 43, 45

O Oiamaa, Peedu. See Ojamaa, Peedu Ojamaa, Peedu, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217, 222–224, 226, 232, 234 Osolin, Olav, 213, 214, 219, 220, 222, 224 Oushakine, Serguei, 16, 18, 136, 138

S Saarm, Henry, 218 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, 113–115, 126 Samsin, A., 209, 231 Schaffer, Talia, 43 Scheinpflugová, Olga, 91, 101 Sergeev, Iurij, 210, 230, 231 Šmuk, Aleksandr Aleksandroviˇc, 247, 248 Spiekermann, Uwe, 12, 17, 63, 126 Stach, Jokob, 73, 74 Stalin, Joseph V., 13, 137, 249, 271, 276

P Pachmanová, Martina, 88–90, 96, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105

T Tarasov-Rodionov, Aleksandr, 141 Teesalu, Lembit, 218

294

PEOPLE INDEX

Therborn, Göran, 5 Tichý, František, 91, 92 Tinkler, Penny, 88, 97 Todeson, Kuno, 212 Tõnspoeg, Gustav, 212 Tooma, Peeter, 221 Toyen, 91 U Ul’janova, Vladimir I. See Lenin, Vladimir V Vavreˇcková, Božena, 105

Veblen, Torstein, 144, 181 Verdery, Katherine, 16, 157, 205 Vihavainen, Timo, 14 Vlková, Hedvika, 105 Voinovich, Vladimir, 148

W Weise, K. See Wejze, K. Wejze, K., 71

Z Zhuravlev, Sergey, 15

Geographical Index

A Abbazia. See Opatija Atlantic, 35, 37, 48 Austria. See Austrian-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary. See Austrian-Hungarian Empire Austrian-Hungarian Empire, 33, 34, 46, 48, 49, 268 Austro-Hungarian monarchy. See Austrian-Hungarian Empire Azerbaijan, 220

B Baku, 70, 71, 76, 220 Baltic SSRs, 225 Black Sea, 166, 219, 249 Black Sea coast, 155, 157, 165–167, 169, 170 Bloc Eastern, 13–15, 17, 22, 281, 283, 284 Bohemia, 45, 46, 104

Bratislava, 41 Brighton, 165 British Empire, 35, 43 British Isles, 41 Brody, 115, 127 Brühl, 114, 117, 118, 121–125, 127 Bucharest, 158, 159, 167, 177 Budapest, 38, 48, 176, 186, 188, 194, 196, 197 Bukovina, 41, 46, 50 Bulgaria, 157, 161, 249, 259

C Caspian Sea, 220 Caucasia, 65, 74 Central Europe, 45, 183, 268, 269, 274 Cern˘aut, i. See Chernivtsi Chernivtsi, 41 China, 114, 246 Constanta, 166 Cotnari, 164

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9

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GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Crimea, 234 Czechoslovakia, 14, 15, 96, 99, 103, 104, 159, 160, 174 Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, 231 Czernowitz. See Chernivtsi

D Dalmatia, 47, 50

E Eforie Nord, 166 England, 219 Estonia, 22, 223, 225, 228, 229, 232, 268, 271, 281 Estonian SSR, Soviet-Estonia, 207, 210, 212–214, 216, 218–220, 223–227, 234

F Far North, 142 Federal Republic of Germany, West-Germany, 209, 225 Finland, 122, 220, 225, 228, 233, 234 First Czechoslovak Republic, 20, 84, 88, 89, 96, 102, 103, 105 France, 34, 89, 96, 103, 116, 122, 161, 165, 176

G German Democratic Republic (GDR), 14, 21, 126, 182, 229, 268, 274, 275 German Empire, 12, 17, 63, 128 Germany, 8, 66, 69, 89, 115, 119–122, 126, 268, 280 Gödöll˝ o, 37, 38 Gulf of Finland, 215

H Habsburg monarchy, 5, 8, 12, 17, 115 Helsinki, 215, 234 Hirschegg-Riezlern, 120 Hungary, 22, 33, 37, 46, 48, 160, 176, 181–183, 186, 188–190, 194, 197–199, 219, 268, 272, 281 Hutsulshchina, 46 I Inner abroad, 225, 227 Irbit, 114 Italy, 34, 41, 225 Italy, Kingdom of, 41 J Japan, 225 K Kalotaszeg, T, ara C˘alatei, 37, 38, 50 Khabarovsk, 235 Kharkiv, 140–143, 146 Krasnodar, 247 L Latvia, 229 Latvian SSR, 224 Leipzig, 20, 66, 113–128 Lemberg. See Lviv Leningrad, 122, 123, 126, 214, 217, 224, 233–235, 249, 258, 278 London, 19, 35, 41, 97, 114, 116, 121, 123 Lviv, 114 M Mamaia, 155, 166, 168–171

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Monaco, 217, 219 Moravia, 47, 103, 104 Moscow, 8, 11, 59, 63, 114, 116, 123, 140, 158, 160, 214, 216, 217, 219, 224, 229, 231–234, 249, 258, 259, 270, 273, 274, 276, 280 Murfatlar, 165, 170

N New York City, 97 Norway, 120, 220

O Odesa, 62, 66, 71, 76 Opatija, 46 Orenburg, 214

P Paris, 8, 19, 35, 96, 97, 105, 114, 116, 119, 123, 161 Peru, 44 Pirita, 218, 219 Plau am See, 120 Pozsony. See Bratislava Prague, 15, 91, 93, 97, 102, 230 Prahova Valley, 165, 166 Pressburg. See Bratislava

R Riga, 214, 223, 224, 229, 234, 235 Romania, Kingdom of, 41 Russia, 5, 7, 13–18, 57, 68–70, 74, 114, 117, 118, 138, 156, 235, 244, 279, 281, 283 Russian Empire, 4, 8, 12, 19, 35, 41, 55–57, 60–63, 66, 70, 75, 138, 140, 145, 249, 268–270 Russian SFSR, 224, 233

297

S Saransk, 214 Saratov, 61, 68, 72, 214 Silverstone, 219 Sochi Olympic Park, 219 Soviet bloc, 22, 182, 183 Soviet Union, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20–22, 87, 99, 103, 122, 124, 135–138, 156, 157, 160, 163, 164, 183, 205, 206, 209, 212–214, 216–218, 221, 225, 228, 232, 234, 243, 247–251, 259, 268, 273–276, 279, 280, 283, 284 Soviet Union, Former (FSU), 260 Stockholm, 97 St. Petersburg, 60, 75, 76, 229, 234, 276 Styria, 39, 46 Sweden, 234 Switzerland, 224 Syzran, 214

T Tallinn, 214, 215, 217, 218, 220, 223, 224, 229, 230, 233–235 Târnave, 165 Tiflis, 59–62, 65, 67, 70, 71, 75, 76 Toliatti, 214 Transcaucasia, 58, 65, 70, 72, 75 Transylvania, 37, 172 Tushino, 219

U UK. See United Kingdom (UK) Ukraine, 16, 114, 115, 136–138, 140, 145, 146, 249, 268 Ulianovsk, 214, 216 United Kingdom (UK), 89, 96, 103, 165, 225, 246

298

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX

United States (USA), 8, 117, 118, 122, 156, 158, 209, 246, 259, 273, 274 USSR. See Soviet Union V Virginia, 247, 259 Vladivostok, 235 Volga, 216, 233

Volga region, 72, 73, 138 W Western Europe, 6–8, 12, 35, 45, 57, 158, 160, 165, 225 Y Yugoslavia, 14, 156, 157

Subject Index

A Addiction, 243, 245 Apollo-Soiuz, 259 Aryanization, 123 Avtoeksport, 213, 220, 233, 234 B Beauty, 20, 62, 63, 65, 73, 89, 92, 99, 117, 140 Bioavailability, 246 Bolsheviks, 136, 138, 140, 142, 148 British-American Tobacco Company (BAT), 246 C Capitalism, 6, 8–11, 184, 221, 245, 246, 251, 252, 286 Car, 65, 71, 99, 101, 187–189, 208, 216, 217, 220, 226, 233 Chesterfields, 245 Chocolate, 21, 63, 73, 136, 137, 140–142, 144–148, 270, 283

Communication networks, 19, 69, 70, 269 Communism, 6, 186, 198, 199, 250, 251, 273 Communism, military, 138 Communist ideology, 137, 139, 140, 142 Confectionary industry, 147 Consumer policy, 56–58, 60, 67 Cosmopolitism, 70, 75 Crafts, rural, 38, 40, 43 Cultural “battle”, 21, 137 D Deutsche Kürschner-Schule (German Furriers School), 119 Distribution, 7, 36, 47, 48, 64, 70 E Eesti Reklaamfilm (ERF), 21, 206–208, 211–218, 220–229, 232–235

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9

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SUBJECT INDEX

Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, 22, 35, 36, 43, 44, 46, 49, 51, 57, 59, 62–64, 68–70, 72, 138–140, 142–144, 184, 189, 190, 193, 194, 246, 269, 272 Eva, 19, 83, 84, 88, 92–96, 98–104, 277

F Fashion, 3, 15, 20, 35, 37, 44–46, 48, 62, 64, 65, 70, 72, 74, 76, 89–93, 95–97, 105, 116–118, 122, 126, 216, 269, 278, 283 Feminism, 84, 102 Fetish, 115 First World War, 8, 18, 19, 56, 102, 116, 118, 138 Five-Year Plan, 138, 145, 162, 163 Folk art, 45, 47 Foods, 62, 71, 76, 139, 145, 157, 167, 168 Formula One, 217–219, 223, 224, 227 Formula Vostok, 218 Freedom, 87, 90, 95, 99, 101, 102, 114, 207 Fur farming, 119, 120 Furs, 20, 21, 113, 115, 118, 119, 121, 124, 126, 129, 136, 137, 140, 142–144, 146–149, 270, 283

G Gender, 6, 17, 35, 58, 60, 64, 65, 72, 75, 87, 89, 95, 102, 116, 117, 169, 268, 269, 281 German colonists, 56, 63, 72, 74 Goskino, 212, 213, 216, 222, 226, 227, 232 Gosteleradio, 213, 222, 232

H Habitus, 9, 10, 18, 23 Haute couture, 115, 116 Home industry, 19, 33–37, 40–50, 268 I Ideology, 10, 14–16, 21, 22, 87, 126, 136, 137, 139, 144, 147, 148, 157, 164, 208, 221, 230, 270, 272, 281 Industrialization, 4–9, 11, 20, 35, 50, 56–58, 63, 75, 115, 145, 248 Interwar period, 8, 18, 19, 85, 101, 102, 270, 274 J Java, 248, 251, 259 K Kazbek, 252 Kosmos, 258 Krasnaja strela, 257, 258 Kriegsfell AG (War Fur Co.), 118, 120 Kul’turnost’ , 87 L Laika, 258 Leningrad Tobacco Factory No. 1, 257 Lifestyle, 4, 9, 10, 12–15, 17–19, 21, 22, 40, 47, 48, 57, 62, 67, 72, 93, 97, 101, 103, 139, 144, 185, 188, 189, 195, 268, 269, 272, 274, 277–279, 286 Light industry, 166, 205 Literaturnaja Gazeta, 251 Luxury, 3, 16, 19, 20, 22, 34, 36, 41, 48, 49, 72, 74, 84, 96, 102,

SUBJECT INDEX

116, 136, 137, 139–141, 145, 148, 165, 182, 185, 193, 195, 196, 198, 251, 258, 267, 275

M Magazines, 9, 15, 42, 46, 48, 71, 73, 74, 85, 88, 91–97, 99, 101, 103–105, 146, 155–157, 164, 173, 186, 189, 197, 233, 244, 251, 277 Magazines, women, 19, 39, 45, 48, 84, 87, 88, 90–92, 94, 96, 97, 102–104, 191 Marketing strategies, 34, 35, 46, 48, 50, 60, 63, 69, 216, 269 Marlboros, 245 Mobility, 9, 20, 57, 89, 94, 99, 102 Modernities, multiple, 5 Modernity, 4–7, 9–11, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 84, 87, 90, 97, 102, 103, 105, 136, 137, 148, 155, 157, 164, 172, 173, 267 Modernization, 8, 9, 11, 18, 47, 56, 72, 75, 95, 155, 158, 163 Molins, 248

N Nature reserves, 119 New Economic Policy (NEP), 13, 138–140, 142, 148, 251, 270 New woman, 20, 83, 84, 87–90, 92, 94, 96, 99, 101–103, 105, 116, 269, 277

O Olympic Games, 217, 218

301

P Peasants, 34–36, 39, 44, 45, 48, 50, 56, 138, 139, 144–147, 186, 187, 249, 253, 271 Pelt road, 114, 115 Philip Morris, 250, 259 Pleasure, 11, 14, 21, 96, 99, 101, 102, 136, 141, 142, 148, 226, 244, 272, 278, 282 Practice, cultural, 4, 9, 11, 18, 21, 23, 35, 57, 68 Pravda, 250 Press, 13, 19, 35, 47, 50, 56, 57, 60, 62, 66–71, 73, 84, 90, 139, 146, 255, 268 Prijatnye, 252 Production, 8–11, 16, 19, 20, 35, 38, 51, 56, 64, 66, 72, 73, 75, 87, 115, 118, 120, 140, 146, 183, 205, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 216–218, 224, 225, 227–230, 234, 243, 246–250, 252, 254, 256, 259, 260, 267, 269, 271, 277–279 Production, mass, 7, 48, 115 Promyshlennik, 119 R Rally, 216, 220 Regatta, 217, 218 Reichsstelle für Rauchwaren (Reich Office for Fur Products), 124 Reichszentrale für Pelztier- und Rauchwarenforschung (Reich agency for the research of furry animals and fur products), 120 Reklaamiklubi, 224 Reklama, 57, 206, 209, 210, 213, 214, 216, 221, 226, 230–232 Ruby Queen, 246 Russenauktionen (Russian auctions), 118

302

SUBJECT INDEX

Russian-Germans, 61, 69, 75 S Second World War, 13, 15, 20, 143, 247, 249, 251, 252, 256 Self-perception, 9, 10, 23 Socialism, 11, 12, 14–16, 21, 127, 156, 157, 173, 184, 186, 188, 195, 197–200, 207, 275 Soft power, 22, 23, 221, 227 Soiuztorgreklama, 211, 213, 232 Sojuzpushnina, 122, 123, 126, 127 Sovietization, 127, 284 Spinnaker, 217 Sputnik, 258 T Tallinnfilm, 211, 212, 214, 215, 226, 235 Textiles, 19, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44–48, 50, 51, 71, 72, 74, 115, 123, 194

V Vneshtorgreklama, 213, 233

W Weltpelzkongress (World Fur Congress), 122 Western, Westernization, 4–6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20–23, 35, 45, 57, 75, 87, 89, 103, 115, 137, 149, 156–162, 164, 165, 168–174, 181–183, 186, 193–195, 199, 200, 205, 208–210, 215, 216, 218–220, 222, 225, 227, 228, 233, 243, 246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 259, 260, 267–269, 272, 274–276, 280, 281, 283, 286 Workshops, 18, 36–38, 42–44, 46, 48–50, 118, 121