Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika

by Nancy Ries

Soulful, theatrical, intense: Russian talk is notably full of existential musing and dark passion. However, despite the widespread appreciation of Russian talk, no one has analyzed it as a form of cultural performance. As one of the first Western ethnographers to undertake fieldwork in Moscow, Nancy Ries did just that. In this pioneering study, she shows how everyday conversation shapes Russian identity and culture. Dire stories about poverty, hardship, and social decay recited constantly during perestroika served to fabricate a common worldview―conveying a sense of shared experience and destiny, and casting Russian society as an inescapable realm of absurdity and suffering. Ries agues that while these narratives aptly depicted the chaotic events of the time, they also comprised a kind of contemporary folklore, generic in their lamenting, portentous tones and their culturally poignant details. The story of a grandmother who stands in line all day in order to bring home a precious kilo of sugar becomes a parable of feminine self-sacrifice and endurance. Sardonic narratives about frustrated communal apartment dwellers pouring hot pepper in their neighbor's soup pot challenge the myth of camaraderie and express the proverbial notion that revenge is sweeter for Russians than reconciliation. This insightful ethnography suggests the enormous power that ordinary talk has, in any society, to shape social and political attitudes, and to produce distinctive cultural patterns.

Genres: Nonfiction, Russia, Anthropology, History, Language, Linguistics

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Quagsire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly insightful even for a Russian, but also really sad: Russian Talk thoroughly demonstrates the core Catch-22 of the Russian culture – the self-identification with suffering and hardship that has been keeping Russian people in the vicious circle of misery since forever.

Despite being written in very different economic and political conditions almost 30 years ago, this work still stands strong for explaining modern Russian sentiments. The subjects may have changed, but the litanies underlined by Nancy Ries keep being one of the main forms of the Russian discourse.

[Olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when it first came out and it rang really true, but the conclusions seemed a bit alien and far-fetched. This time around the conclusions ring very true, but the material itself makes me realize that twenty years is a pretty long time.

[Tiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briiliant accounts about times of tempestuous, польная разруха.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, but dense and very scholarly read. Not likely to be sought out by too many people who aren't assigned it for class, but if you're interested in anthropology and post-Soviet studies and haven't read it, I would recommend doing so. I read it shortly after undergrad, and the ideas expressed, the concept (new to me then) of analyzing everyday life and talk, and my somewhat romantic view of the author's bravery at going to perestroika-era Russia for this kind of fieldwork (as I was in Russia at the time, not-very-bravely slouching along as a halfhearted English teacher) made a big impression on me, even as the academic framework of the book largely went over my head.