Опубликовано в журнале Неприкосновенный запас, номер 4, 2007
This issue of NZ is dedicated to the seemingly elementary but, in fact, to the most puzzling concept of modern Western thought of the last seventy years — to the notion of so-called “everyday life”. Being, on the one hand, the logical continuation of the traditional for the New Age local lore, antique and ancient morals’ studies, research of everyday life, on the other hand, it presents itself as an ultra-modern answer to the elaborations of Annales School and historical anthropology. This fact predetermines the heterogeneity of the NZ thematic issue.
Two articles which are important for the theory of everyday life are published here: “Common Sense as a System of Culture” by the prominent American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) and “A Common Place: Ordinary Language” by the famous French historian Michel de Certeau (1925-1986). Besides, Ilya Kalinin, NZ editor-in-chief, in his introductory article “Everyday life as a ▒moveable feast’”, touches some basics of our vision of everyday life.
“Intermediate”, theoretical and practical level of reflection is introduced by several publications. In Culture of Politics section Geoffrey Hosking, a well-known British historian, analyses the structures of trust in the late USSR. A whole collection of essays deals with the role of culture in everyday life. Aleksandr Dolgin reflects on so-called “consumer’s expertise” of cultural products. Furthermore, Denis Dragunsky, and Vladimir Dubin discuss various aspects of this “political economy of culture”.
It goes without saying that an issue given up to everyday life contains a variety of examples concerning everyday life. In the Case Study section three articles adjoin each other. Semyon Ekshut has probed into the influence of official ranks and decorations on their holders. The diary of a German town-dweller of the XVI century induces Kirill Levinson to draw interesting generalizations regarding everyday life of a medieval German city. Walker Evans, US photographer who heavily contributed in a creation of an American everyday life’s image in the 1930-1950s became a hero of the article by Oksana Gavrishina. And in the Politics of Culture section Kirill Kobrin observes the contents of his own bookcase in the genre of “micro-historical etude”.
A special section contains several articles touching the period, which is widely popular among “micro-historians” — “Soviet 1970s”. Analytical memoirs of Olga Serebryanaya concerning “the late Soviet Union” side with anthropological and historic-cultural articles written by Ilya Utekhin and Ksenia Gusarova. Anatoly Vishevsky considers the most interesting source characterizing the consciousness of Soviet intellectuals — “ironical prose” which was used to be published on the last pages of Soviet newspapers. Galina Orlova frames “the fight for peace” in the context of everyday life of the Soviet people, and Anna Tikhomirova paradoxically uncovers the mental structures of the Soviet period in the contemporary fashion.
In a sense current history of “everyday life” reproduces habits and ways, which are traditional for the Western culture. An article by Natalia Danilova and Anna Chernyh “Today Hermitage Museum, or Museum in the Mass Society Epoch” serves as a good illustration of this thesis. Different conceptual approaches to “everyday life” are touched in our permanent columnists’ sections such as: Humanitarian Economics by Evgeny Saburov, Sociological Lyrics by Aleksei Levinson, and Imaginary of Politics by Aleksandr Kustarev. The last one deals with extremely sensitive nuances of everyday life in the West such as obsession with “healthy way of life” and abolition of smoking. The issue is concluded with the traditional sections: Russian Intellectual Journal Review and New Books review.