Dying Unneeded: The Cultural Context of the Russian Mortality Crisis
224
Dying Unneeded: The Cultural Context of the Russian Mortality Crisis
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Overview
Middle-aged Muscovites talk about being unneeded (ne nuzhny), or having little to give others. Considering this concept of "being unneeded" reveals how political economic transformation undermined the logic of social relations whereby individuals used their position within the Soviet state to give things to other people. Being unneeded is also gendered--while women are still needed by their families, men are often unneeded by state or family. Western literature on the mortality crisis focuses on a lack of social capital, often assuming that what individuals receive is most important, but being needed is more about what individuals give. Social connections--and their influence on health--are culturally specific.
In Soviet times, needed people helped friends and acquaintances push against the limits of the state, crafting a sense of space and freedom. When the state collapsed, this sense of bounded freedom was compromised, and another freedom became deadly.
This book is a recipient of the annual Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize for the best project in the area of medicine.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826503541 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Vanderbilt University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/30/2021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 519,808 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Michelle A. Parsons is a sociocultural anthropologist with a background in global health. She has lived in Latin America, Spain, Switzerland, Indonesia, and Russia, working for non-governmental organizations and the World Health Organization. She currently teaches at Northern Arizona University.
Read an Excerpt
Dying Unneeded
The Cultural Context of the Russian Mortality Crisis
By Michelle A. Parsons
Vanderbilt University Press
Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8265-1973-3
CHAPTER 1
Moscow
Moscow is a city of extreme contrasts. Initially I found it a very difficult place to do ethnography, but we made our peace. In this chapter I use a conversation about a Moscow city street to highlight the experience of space in Soviet Moscow and its transformation. Space, or prostor, is a highly significant concept in Russian. In the Soviet organization of the capital city, Muscovites found the space to spontaneously make things happen. The confluence of state and space helps explain why mortality in the early 1990s was especially severe in the capital city. When the state collapsed, so did bounded spaces of personal and collective expression.
MOSCOW TRANSFORMED
One evening while having tea with Tatiyana and Lidia, Margarita recounted a trip to Novyi Arbat street with Tatiyana. Both Tatiyana and Margarita worked on Novyi Arbat at the State Committee on Material and Technical Procurement (Gossnab) from 1965 through 1974. Novyi Arbat is a portion of one of the main radial streets that extends from the Kremlin westward toward the White House, former home of the Russian parliament and now a Russian government building. Originally named Kalinin Prospekt, Novyi Arbat is a broad street with a series of identical high-rise buildings shaped like open books lining both sides. Since Soviet times, it has changed dramatically, with casinos, department stores, shops, restaurants, cafés, and parking lots. The neon lights rival those of Las Vegas. Because of the parking lots, the street has narrowed somewhat. The broad sidewalks are also effectively narrowed by café seating.
In 2006 Margarita had not seen Novyi Arbat street for more than fifteen years and she was flustered. Krutitsia she said over and over, a word that literally means rotating or spinning. She was referring to the neon lights and electronic signs, which do indeed spin. Krutitsia, however, also refers to business activity, as noted by Pesmen, "Krutit'sia had long meant to engage in business ... from petty speculation to buying and selling large lots of goods and 'something serious in the shadow economy'"; it "is running around in control, hustling, or out of control, 'like a squirrel in a wheel' or 'like in a meat grinder'" (2000, 192-93). The bright blinking lights, the advertisements, the concentration of selling and buying struck Margarita as wild and frantic. To her it was disordered. "A horrible thing is happening," she said over and over. Lidia sympathized: "Nothing of Russia is left."
When I audio-recorded a later interview with Margarita (her friend Tatiyana and Tatiyana's daughter were also present), I asked her to tell me again about going back to Novyi Arbat. The excerpt below is lengthy, but it gives a sense of how this generation interprets change in Moscow and introduces the concept of space (prostor).
Margarita: Oh, that was terrible. I told you, Michelle, first of all, we worked there at Prospect Kalinin, right? I said, "Tan, let's drop by ... Novyi Arbat," I say. Oh, when I saw.... We worked there. Oh, horror, everything lit up, illumination, oh horror! All of it, oh horror! That was before the New Year, wasn't it Tanya? I don't remember.
Tatiyana: It is always like that there.
Margarita: Oh what a nightmare! I say, "Tan, I haven't been here for many, many years." We worked there at one time. Oh, no, but before it was good. And now I don't like it, absolutely, some kind of wildness....
Tatiyana: But there, there really, now there all those casinos, all those....
Margarita: A nightmare, a nightmare, some kind of horror.
Tatiyana: Yes and there are cafés, everything like that.
Margarita: A horror, horror!
At this point, Tatiyana's daughter interrupted to ask, "And what was there before?"
Tatiyana: Understand what it was like there, I. There was space [prostor]. There each one of those books [a reference to the high-rise apartment buildings, shaped like open books, which line the street] definitely had its own café. It did, sure. But it had them so that the ministry workers could eat there.
Margarita: Yes, we went to the cafeteria Angara.
Tatiyana: Yes, there was Angara, and Moskvichka. And above them a café. They were spacious [prostorniye], all of it. And between them there were railway and airline booking offices. And that was it. All the rest was simply space [prostor]. There was a store and above it two ministries on the right and left and a café. Another book, and likewise another, different ministry to the left. There was a café there too and there was vast space [prostor]. Well how to explain?
Margarita: There was a Synthetika store ... gifts ...
Tatiyana: Well, yes, yes, that is, all [the shops] were lower-end. A store or a café or a grocery or such a store ... I mean people walked by ...
Margarita: A delicatessen.
Tatiyana: Yes people walked by and, if they were going on or to work, they stopped in and bought everything they needed. And clothing. And it was affordable to each person, that is each one of those people, whether they worked there or....
Margarita: That's right.
Tatiyana: Or they had simply arrived from Georgia, from Armenia or from wherever, or they simply passed by and it was generally such a quiet atmosphere. Now, when you come out there on Prospekt Kalinin it is, of course, just, I don't know, terrible for those who worked there and saw something different.
Margarita: I was just in shock. Literally.
Tatiyana: Yes, in shock. Why? Because there are those spinning casino advertising signs, the touts. And what is more there is no more of that space [prostor]. Each door there, some shop appears. Some new doors which were not even there before. And all of those touts calling for you to come in. Of course it makes such an impression that you already understand that it is for a certain ... not for everyone but for a certain type of people. That's it. It wasn't like that before. Before everything was very simple and very easy. That is how we saw it.
SPACE ON THE STREET
Tatiyana's and Margarita's comments reveal how central city space in Moscow has been reordered. They concentrate on two aspects of the old Novyi Arbat—buildings that were sites of state functions such as ministries and ticketing offices and the space of the street, which includes the cafeterias, cafés, and stores. In one reading, space is simply physical space that has now been taken up with new commercial establishments, outdoor café seating, and parking lots. Another reading considers space as a metaphor for the quality of social relations in Soviet society. The buildings housing state ministries and ticketing offices framed the space of the street. Again:
[The cafeterias and café] were spacious [prostorniye], all of it. And between them there were railway and airline booking offices. And that was it. All the rest was simply space [prostor]. There was a store and above it two ministries on the right and left and a café. Another book, and likewise another, different ministry to the left. There was a café there too and there was vast space [prostor]. There was a store and above it two ministries on the right and left.
In this sense, the space is created and framed by the state, but it is set apart from the state. Tatiyana and Margarita mourn the loss of undetermined space.
Tatiyana and Margarita struggled to explain the quality of the space. "Well, how to explain it?" The space was "vast," "quiet," "simple," and "easy." Everyone walked in that space, no matter where they worked, where they lived, or where they came from. The space was a site of personal and collective expression and action, framed by the structures and functions of the state. This is in contrast to the transformed street, which is "not for everyone but for a certain type of people." The space that once existed for ordinary people—ministry workers, tourists, others—is now space for a certain class of people with money to spend. Space in the city is no longer a preserve from politics and economics but is invaded by capitalist logic. Instead of a space of spontaneity and indeterminacy, where social relations were merely framed by the state, now social relations are intimately colored by the currency of capitalism that orders, indeed quantifies, both places and people in units of rubles or dollars.
The fact that Tatiyana and Margarita also characterized Soviet-era cafés, shops, and grocery stores as spacious suggests that state enterprises could also be domains of social expression and autonomy. Although there were surly clerks and empty shelves, these were sites where individuals asserted themselves as individuals, and not merely state citizens, through moderate consumption. The limits on consumption were frustrating, but not any less rewarding. In fact, finding something special at a good price was a minor triumph in an economic system plagued by shortages and low-quality goods. In 2004, my Russian tutor told me that finding one pair of stylish Italian leather shoes was exciting in Soviet times. "Now everything is available, but there is no money to buy it." No more sense of surprise and serendipity in consumerism.
Another interviewee also told me that Moscow is now a different city. Around the year 2000 she returned to an area of the city where she had once lived for eight years, walking from the Byelorussian train station to Pushkin Square along a northwestern portion of Tverskaia Ulitsa, which radiates from the Kremlin and Red Square.
Those were my own places, and I didn't recognize my own street. It was all banks. I came to Pushkin Square, got on the metro and returned home. I even cried because that is not my city. That is for sure, for sure. I will not drop into a store where I could before because it is entirely boutiques there. [...] I have nothing to do there. They won't even let me in there. They will say, "Grandma, where do you think you are going?" For sure. Banks, boutiques, restaurants, where they will say, "Not dressed like that." [...] So that street is perfectly strange, it isn't mine.
Here too the street and city are no longer her own—"because that is not my city." She said, "I have nothing to do there. They won't even let me in there [...] it isn't mine." It is as if actual, physical urban spaces have shrunk for a certain generation. They no longer feel as though those spaces are theirs to inhabit.
Caldwell recounts an episode where an elderly friend refused to drink coffee at a coffeehouse on Tverskaia Ulitsa. She told Caldwell that she found the space uncomfortable. "The café was not an appropriate space for people like her" (Caldwell 2009, 102). Instead, she and Caldwell sat on an outside bench with bottled juice and water. Caldwell ties this to a discussion of the morality of space. She suggests that the coffeehouse confused "the anonymity of a public space with the intimacy of a private space" (124). My friends also thought this type of space was not simple, but this was due to a sense of exclusion. Instead of a space where people's interactions were framed by the political economy of socialism, this space was subsumed by the political economy of capitalism. In this way social inequality was written into the space in a way that clearly read social exclusion to older Muscovites, many of whom had never seen such lavish cafés with their trendy clientele and expensive coffee during most of their lifetimes. These spaces were no longer "for everyone but for a certain type of people." Even when a friend is buying coffee or the touts are inviting them inside, older Muscovites know these spaces are not for them. Spaces of capitalism effectively communicate social inequality in Russia, as in the West. Westerners, too, are highly attuned to these messages, and they determine where people go and where they do not. Older Muscovites felt this restriction of space acutely. Space in Moscow is now highly stratified.
Tverskaia Ulitsa (formerly Ulitsa Gorkovo) has always been a highly symbolic space in Moscow. Rüthers, drawing on Thorez, describes the street in the postwar years, contrasting the grand architectural facades with the courtyards behind them. "In the everyday life, two seemingly contradictory spaces existed: the anonymous and monumental in the front, and the retreat into the back as a space of self determination" (2006, 255). Writing about St. Petersburg, Nielsen draws a similar distinction between Nevskyi Prospekt and the courtyards (dvori). The prospekt is civilization; the dvor "a closely guarded bit of untamed nature" (Nielsen 2006, under "A. Prospekt and Dvor"). The contrast between state architecture and personal space marked Moscow and St. Petersburg in Soviet times. In Moscow, in particular, the facades of the street were originally a testament to Soviet power; the courtyards a testament to its malleability. The street represented state order while the courtyards represented the idiosyncratic and spontaneous social life that asserted itself in the interstices of state order—a bit of contained disorder. One made the effluence of the other possible. But, as Rüthers herself illustrates, the street itself evolved into a site for the expression of individuality.
Citizens came to Gorky Street in their best clothes to spend their time at leisure. They went window-shopping and strolled up and down Gorky Street between Okhotnyi Riad and Pushkin Square, all the while showing off to themselves and to the world the achievements of socialism. They thereby took possession of the public space as one of leisure, consumption and fashion, a space of urban lifestyle offering identity. (2006, 261)
The public space was appropriated and used in ways that Soviet planners could not have envisioned. It is worth noting that the city of Moscow itself has a facade and courtyard—the center, radiating from the Kremlin, and a vast periphery of apartment blocks, or sleeper districts. The layout of the city reflects both the state and the society that flourished in counterpoint—a "reconciliation between authority and the people," as Boym describes Moscow (2001, 115).
Certain post-Soviet spaces painfully testify to what has been lost for this generation. It is not just the loss of the state and a stable order but the space to circumvent and be free from that order.
Prostor
In one Russian-English dictionary the first definition of prostor is "space; expanse." The second is "range; scope; freedom" (Katzner 1994, s.v. "prostor"). Prostor is emblematic of Russia as a whole, both geographically and spiritually. When Valentina told Sveta and me, during our first interview on a bench by a pond, that Russia was a wild country, I asked her to clarify. She mentioned the thousands of kilometers, the forests, the rivers, Siberia, and Lake Baikal. She spoke of the distances and proportions. It is nature—untamed—and it is expansive—unbound. According to Caroline Humphrey, "freedom has always been a highly spatial idea in Russia, and is associated with sheer openness, endless space (prostor)" (2007, 7). A friend at the English club told James that Siberia was the only place in Russia where one could be free. In this sense, space (prostor) is possibility.
Space is also uncertainty, even angst. Living with possibility, where limits are constantly renegotiated, is tiring. In Pesmen's ethnography of Omsk in the early 1990s a friend says, "That spaciousness (prostor) tires me out. Spaciousness. With a sort of indeterminacy. It's hard for me to incorporate, to learn to live with that space" (2000, 283). A widely repeated refrain is, "It isn't allowed, unless you really want to." One day when I could not talk my way past the guard at the academy, I felt that I had failed. Living in a place of unpredictable possibilities makes it hard to know what exactly is possible and what to expect.
Space is also an analogue for the expansiveness of the Russian spirit. On the bench by the pond, Valentina spoke of Russians' wide nature and emotional richness by which Russians accomplish great things but also "get carried away." She described Europeans as "somehow narrow, [going] from this to that." Valentina continued, "On the other hand, a sense of form, discipline—that is what is difficult for a Russian person. That's why it has always been necessary [...] to force, pressure." The Russian spirit is essentially untamed, in need of boundaries.
Over a century ago, in an essay on "bourgeois democracy" in Russia, Max Weber (1995) lamented the importation of capitalism into Russia. His point was that Western capitalism did not have "any elective affinity with 'democracy' let alone with 'liberty'" (109). But he also insinuated that democracy and liberty would come to Russia only when "they are backed up by the determined will of a nation not to be ruled like a flock of sheep" (109). Weber may have been right about capitalism, but his reference to sheep is misleading. It is precisely because Russians are determined "not to be ruled like a flock of sheep," precisely because Russians are not sheep, that they have been ruled by an iron fist. And this is also the reason many Russians have preserved prostor—spiritual freedom—in times of oppression.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dying Unneeded by Michelle A. Parsons. Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt University Press. Excerpted by permission of Vanderbilt University Press.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Moscow 25
2 Paradox 48
3 War 60
4 Work 79
5 Shock 101
6 Mortality 124
7 Death of Society 141
8 Freedom 160
Conclusion 169
Notes 179
References 183
Index 203