Polina Gundarina
Promotionsabschlussstipendium
Forschungsprojekt
Palaces for Workers. The Long Transformation of Soviet Leisure and Houses of Culture, 1960–2000
This dissertation investigates the transformation of Soviet houses of culture as institutions of organised leisure for industrial workers from the late Soviet period into the early post-Soviet decades. Traditionally viewed as instruments of ideological control, these community centres were in fact more complex spaces of negotiation, where official cultural enlightenment intersected with local agency, artistic subversion, and social adaptation. Using the industrial city of Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) as a case study, the project examines how leisure infrastructure evolved spatially, institutionally, and socially between 1960 and
It challenges the standard 1991 rupture by tracing continuities of cultural governance and infrastructural resilience into the post-socialist era. By foregrounding class, institutional flexibility, and local practices within authoritarian systems, the dissertation contributes to the comparative study of dictatorships and transformation processes in the 20th century. It reveals how authoritarian regimes governed not only through repression but also through the management of everyday life – and how those structures, far from disappearing in 1991, continued to shape post-Soviet society.
Methodologically, the study combines discourse analysis of policy and expert knowledge, spatial and architectural analysis of cultural infrastructures, and oral histories with workers, artists, and club staff. It highlights the everyday experiences of blue-collar communities and contributes to broader debates on authoritarian governance, deindustrialisation, and socialist and post-socialist urbanism. Ultimately, the project shows how ordinary leisure institutions became sites of transformation – materially, socially, and symbolically – and offers a new lens through which to understand authoritarian legacies, deindustrialisation, and post-socialist social life.
