Irreconcilable differences: Divorce and conceptions of private life in the Khrushchev era

Russian Review

Volumn 57, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 599-613

  Field, Deborah A ^a  

^a EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 7044219871     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00047     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. A. Rodin, "Troe: Rasskaz neperzhitel'nogo cheloveka," Sem'ia i shkola, 1962, no. 6: 23
2. Peter H. Juviler, "Cell Mutation in Soviet Society," in Soviet Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Vera S. Dunham, ed. Terry L. Thompson and Richard Sheldon (Boulder, 1988), 42
3. A new scholarly interest in private life is now developing, as was evident at the 1996 Michigan conference. See also Svetlana Boym, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (Cambridge, MA, 1994)
4. Deborah Ann Field, "Communist Morality and Meanings of Private Life in Post-Stalinist Russia, 1953-1964" (Ph.D. diss, University of Michigan, 1996)
5. and Vladimir Shlapentokh, The Public and Private Life of The Soviet People (New York, 1989)
6. George W. Breslauer, "Khrushchev Reconsidered," in The Soviet Union Since Stalin, ed. Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Robert Sharlet (Bloomington, 1980), 51-52
7. Harold J. Berman, Justice in the USSR: An Interpretation of Soviet Law, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA, 1966), 81
8. Graeme Gill, "Khrushchev and Systemic Development,"
9. and Ronald J. Hill, "State and Ideology," both in Khrushchev and Khrushchevism, ed. Martin McCauley (London, 1987), 38 and 48-50, respectively
10. Martin McCauley, The Khrushchev Era, 1953-1964 (London, 1995), 91
11. For descriptions and analyses of such projects see Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture (Bloomington, 1985)
12. Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, ed. and trans. Alix Holt (New York, 1977)
13. and William G. Rosenberg, ed., Bolshevik Visions (Ann Arbor, 1984)
14. More recently, scholars have argued that this change in public values occurred earlier, during the 1930s. See, for example, Jerry Hough's introduction to Dunham's In Stalin's Time, xxviii
15. See also Wendy Z. Goldman, Women, The State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936 (Cambridge, England, 1993), chap. 8
16. For Western scholars' treatment of Communist morality see Richard T. De George, Soviet Ethics and Morality (Ann Arbor, 1969)
17. and Peter H. Juviler, "Communist Morality and Soviet Youth," Problems of Communism 10 (May-June 1961): 16-24
18. For contemporary works see, for example, Akademiia nauk SSSR, Nravstvennye printsipy stroitelia kommunizma (Moscow, 1965)
19. M. L. Chalin, Moral'stroitelia kommunizma (Moscow, 1963)
20. S. M. Kosolapov and O. N. Krutova, Voprosy vospitaniia trudiashchikhsia v dukhe kommunistichekoi nravstvennosti (Moscow, 1961)
21. and A. F. Shishkin, Osnovy kommunisticheskoi morali (Moscow, 1955)
22. For example, a designer explained that a well-decorated apartment interior must not only "meet everyday and esthetic demands - it also to a great extent must take into account the demands of the future, it must heighten the culture of the Soviet person [it must] take part in the upbringing of the constructors of Communist society." See I. A. Lupov, "Novym zdaniiam - novyi inter'er," in Iskusstvo i byt, ed. N. I. Matveeva (Moscow, 1963), 14
23. Quoted in Voprosy Marksistsko-Leninskoi etiki (Moscow, 1960), 5
24. Kosolapov and Krutova, Voprosy vospitaniia, 82
25. XXII s''ezd KPSS (Moscow, 1962), 3:317
26. In 1954 the catalogue listing all books published in the USSR included a new subject heading, "Family and everyday life." An increasing number of such books were published throughout the middle and late fifties, reaching a peak in 1961 after the issuance of the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism. In 1954 only 15 books about family and everyday life appeared, in 1958 this figure was 33, and in 1961, 73 such titles were put out. See Ezhegodnik knigi SSSR 1954 (Moscow, 1955), 1:249
27. 2:256
28. Ezhegodnik knigi SSSR 1958 (Moscow, 1960), 1:182-83
29. and Ezhegodnik knigi SSSR 1961 (Moscow, 1963), 1:243-45. A proposed curriculum was published in Vosprosy Marksistskoi-Leninskoi etiki
30. See, for example, P. E. Filonovich, O kommunisticheskoi morali - populiarnyi ocherk(Moscow, 1963), 225-33
31. and M. A. Sigov, Liubov', brak i sem'ia v sovetskom obshchestve: V pomoshch' lektory (Moscow, 1959), 4
32. For a discussion of welfare policies see Bernice Madison, Social Welfare in the Soviet Union (Stanford, 1968)
33. On house committees see Alfred John DiMaio, Jr., Soviet Urban Housing (New York, 1974)
34. and N. G. Dimitriev, V pomoshch' domovym komitetam (Moscow, 1963)
35. On comrade's courts see Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR (Princeton, 1979) 249-58
36. and K. S. Iudel'son, Polozhenie o tovarishcheskikh sudakh -prakticheskii komentarii (Moscow, 1962)
37. Sigov, Liubov', brak i sem'ia, 21
38. Chalin, Moral'stroitelia kommunizma, 54
39. Printsipy tvoei zhizni (Moscow, 1963), 49
40. Official discourse on marriage and divorce emphasized the plight of children, thus mostly ignoring the situation of childless couples
41. Filonovich, O kommunisticheskoi morali, 187
42. E. D. Sheshenin, Rol' obshchestvennosti i sudebnykh organov v ukreplenii semeinykh otnoshenii (Moscow, 1963), 26
43. O. Kuprin, Byt - ne chastnoe delo (Moscow, 1959), 32-33
44. T. S. Atarov, Voprosy polovogo vospitaniia (Moscow, 1959), 98
45. Despite the Khrushchev government's large-scale housing construction program, crowded living conditions persisted. In 1959 the average per-capita living space throughout the USSR was 4.97 square meters; in Moscow, where much of the new construction took place, this figure was 5.7. The minimum standard considered sanitary was 9 square meters per person. See Timothy Sosnovy, "The Soviet Housing Situation Today," Soviet Studies 11 (July 1959): 18
46. N. F. Makarova, Disputy molodozhenov o liubvi i brake (Moscow, 1962), 10-11
47. Peter Juviler, "Marriage and Divorce," Survey 48 (1963): 107. In 1961 the government revalued the internal value of the ruble by ten, so that one thousand old rubles became one hundred new rubles
48. See Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (London, 1982), 350
49. G. M. Sverdlov, Sovetskoe zakonodatel'stvo o brake i sem'e (Moscow, 1961), 38
50. G. M. Sverdlov, Sovetskoe semeinoe pravo (Moscow, 1958), 141-42
51. I. Neruchev, Bol'shoi vopros: Zapiski iurista (Leningrad, 1954), 13-19
52. Juviler, "Marriage and Divorce," 107
53. George Feifer, Justice in Moscow (New York, 1964), 165
54. Berman, Justice in the USSR, 79-80
55. Laurie Bernstein, "The Evolution of Soviet Adoption Law," Journal of Family History 22 (April 1997): 216
56. See Peter Juviler, "Family Reforms on the Road to Communism," in Soviet Policy-Making, ed. Peter H. Juviler and Henry W. Morton (New York, 1967)
57. Under the 1965 edict, plaintiffs no longer had to publish an advertisement of intent to divorce, and divorce hearings were held in one court only. The 1968 law allowed for divorce by registering in ZAGS, without a court hearing, in cases in which there were mutual consent and no minor children. See Juviler, "Women and Sex in Soviet Law," in Women in Russia, ed. Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, and Gail Warshofsky Lapidus (Stanford, 1977), 261
58. Juviler estimates that the courts were allowed to refuse fewer cases than previously, "perhaps only two or three percent now in such large cities as Moscow" ("Marriage and Divorce," 110)
59. These figures are derived from Tsentral'nyi munitsipal'nyi arkhiv Moskvy (TsMAM), f. 819, op. 1, d. 48, ll. 1-4
60. See Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Moskovskoi oblasti (TsGAMO), f. 7335, op. 4, d. 52, l. 232
61. TsGAMO, f. 7335, op. 4, d. 52, l. 238
62. V. Kiselev, "Sushchestvuet li liubov'?" Literaturnaia gazeta, 13 September 1956
63. quoted in Juviler, "Family Reforms," 36
64. TsMAM, f. 819, op. 3, d. 668, l. 10
65. and d. 2112, l. 3
66. and d. 1866, l. 2
67. In a tangential comment in an article on another topic, a psychiatrist from Moscow observed, "Toward the end of the fifties, it would not have been incongruous for a woman who had been abandoned by her husband to make an appeal for the help of the local party official to regain him." See Valery Maksimenko, "Le Pouvoir Psychologique dans la Famille Urbaine Russe," in L'Évolution des Modèles Familiaux dans les Pays de L'Est Européen et en URSS, ed. Basile Kerbley (Paris, 1988), 139
68. Igor S. Kon, The Sexual Revolution in Russia (New York, 1995), 83
69. Janet G. Chapman, "Equal Pay for Equal Work?" in Women in Russia, 225
70. The complete figures are in Warren W. Eason, "Demography," in Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data, ed. Ellen Mickiewicz (New York, 1973), 53
71. TsMAM, f. 819, op. 3, d. 2825, l. 54
72. These are reasons scholars have cited in explaining Khrushchev's difficulties in implementing policy and his ultimate political demise. See George W. Breslauer, Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics (London, 1982), 143
73. Carl A. Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, updated ed. (Baltimore, 1990), 207-8
74. McCauley, The Khrushchev Era, 92
75. and Roy A. Medvedev and Zhores A. Medvedev, Khrushchev: The Years in Power (London, 1978), 184