When revolutions happen, they change the rules of everyday
life--both the codified rules concerning the social and legal
classifications of citizens and the unwritten rules about how
individuals present themselves to others. This occurred in Russia
after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which laid the foundations
of the Soviet state, and again in 1991, when that state collapsed.
"Tear Off the Masks " is about the remaking of identities in these
times of upheaval. Sheila Fitzpatrick here brings together in a
single volume years of distinguished work on how individuals
literally constructed their autobiographies, defended them under
challenge, attempted to edit the "file-selves" created by
bureaucratic identity documentation, and denounced others for
"masking" their true social identities.
Marxist class-identity labels--"worker," "peasant,"
"intelligentsia," "bourgeois"--were of crucial importance to the
Soviet state in the 1920s and 1930s, but it turned out that the
determination of a person's class was much more complicated than
anyone expected. This in turn left considerable scope for
individual creativity and manipulation. Outright imposters, both
criminal and political, also make their appearance in this book.
The final chapter describes how, after decades of struggle to
construct good Soviet socialist personae, Russians had to struggle
to make themselves fit for the new, post-Soviet world in the
1990s--by "de-Sovietizing" themselves.
Engaging in style and replete with colorful detail and
characters drawn from a wealth of sources, "Tear Off the Masks "
offers unique insight into the elusive forms of self-presentation,
masking, and unmasking that made up Soviet citizenship and continue
to resonate in the post-Soviet world.
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