Soviet Transnationalism: Urban Milieus, Deterritorialization, and People's Friendship in the Late Soviet Union

Florin M, Zeller M (2018)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2018

Journal

Ab Imperio American Association for the Advencement of Slovac Studies

Pages Range: 131-146

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1353/imp.2018.0095

Abstract

The introduction to the forum "Urban Milieus, People's Friendship and the Late Soviet Transnational Experience" seeks to reconceptualize late Soviet cities as places of transnational interactions. After World War II, the overlapping social forces of consumerism, migrations, mass-mediatization, and urbanization problematized the stability of nominally fixed, territorially bound national identifications. The Soviet state failed to provide such multi-ethnic urban milieus with a positive vision of diversity. Even the celebration of "people's friendship" did little to change this. Instead of recognizing the multiplicity and complexity of diverse milieus, the concept only helped to perpetuate a cliched vision of archetypical nations as discrete and separable entities. Instead of accepting the deterritorialization of ethnicity and the resulting cosmopolitanism of urban milieus, the Soviet state remained stuck in the territorializing logic of nationalist discourse

Authors with CRIS profile

Moritz Florin Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte mit dem Schwerpunkt der Geschichte Osteuropas

Involved external institutions

Universität Bremen DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Florin, M., & Zeller, M. (2018). Soviet Transnationalism: Urban Milieus, Deterritorialization, and People's Friendship in the Late Soviet Union. Ab Imperio, 4, 131-146. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/imp.2018.0095

MLA:

Florin, Moritz, and Manfred Zeller. "Soviet Transnationalism: Urban Milieus, Deterritorialization, and People's Friendship in the Late Soviet Union." Ab Imperio 4 (2018): 131-146.

BibTeX: Download