Stites, Chapter 5

Russian Popular Culture
Richard Stites

Chapter 5: Springtime for Khrushchev 1953-1964

The death of Stalin split the executive between Malenkov as head of government and Khrushchev as head of party. Khrushchev launched a selective but harsh attack upon the crimes of the Stalin era and the gross cult of Stalin himself. He removed Stalin embalmed cadaver from Lenin's tomb and removed Stalin's name from the legendary city of Stalingrad. The climate that was created is known as "the thaw."

The long-time cultivation of jazz among many in the intelligentsia and officialdom and the recent exposure to in the front lines during the war fed the hunger of the new generation. A new trend among urban youth was to join gangs for the companionship of peers. The young in these gangs were called stilyagi. The word tarzanets took its place beside stilyaga, the Tarzan movies were devoured by peasant-child and urban-child alike. The stilyaga were no numerical thread, but their signifiers were a public rejection of official values and the authorities continued to fear infection of all by the few.

An old form of editing was reintroduced to for the non-musical foreign films: new titles and ideological lectures to explain their real meaning. My favorite new title is A Soldier's Fate in America for The Roaring Twenties.

Foreign sci-fi once again made its way into the more thawed literary market. The recently translated works of Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury took their place beside the old favorite classics of Wells and Verne. Sci-fi lifted readers out of the everyday and placed them in a time full of adventure, suspense, and puzzling situations.

The thaw allowed the studios to finally make films. Life was put on the screen once again. Directors could use irony instead of only solemnity. The true side of everyday life began creeping into pictures. The success of films like The Cranes are Flying showed that audiences desired emotional catharsis of the kind provided by nostalgic war romances and melodrama.