Abstract: The research is based on the material of the information bulletins of the Communist Party
and the VChK-OGPU-NKVD’ departments and memoirs of 1920–1930. Texts describing the
meteorological magic rites in the Soviet countryside are analyzed. Comparative analysis of these
practices and the pre-revolutionary tradition is carried out and changes in connection with the new
socio-political context are identified.
“I Live in the Place Where the Troopers Wait, and Alexander Pushkin Is Walking...”: Memories of Vyacheslav Vs. Ivanov and Tatiana M. Nikolaeva about Moscow in 1930–1950s
Abstract: The interview with Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov and with Tatiana Mikhaylovna
Nikolaeva was dedicated to their private life during 1930–1950s, their pre-military childhood and
the everyday life of postwar Moscow. Elements of old Moscow’s architectural images and some
urban legends are mentioned in the interview. Memoirs contain an unofficial oral version of Soviet
history.
Abstract: The interview with Evdokia Dubinskaya describes the first decades of the Soviet regime in the
Trans-Don region. The publication comprises of narratives about rural mode of life in 1930s,
establishing of the first collective farms, a failed attempt to settle in the Kuban region, returning to
the home village, and organization of the first child camp.
Abstract: The interview with Fedora Kravchenko, born in the Uspensky District of the Krasnodarsky
Kray, actualizes the issue of the research potential of biographical materials collected in
ethnographic expeditions. The gap between individual stories and generalized facts is discussed.
The peculiarities of youth relationships and marital strategies in the Kuban region in the pre-war
period are characterized.
Abstract: The material concerns the period of 1920–1930s, describes the political, economic and social
phenomena and processes of the period, such as the establishing of collective farms, the famine of
the 1930s, anti-religious policy, Decossackization, etc., discloses the features of the Don Cossack’s
everyday life.
Demtchenko, I.N. (comp.). Uninvented Stories Prompted by Human Memory: 30, 40, 50s of the 20th Century in the Recollections of Children Having Grown Up Long Ago. Yekaterinburg: Autograph, 2013. 200 p.
Abstract: The article presents a review of memoirs and documentary materials collected by inhabitants
of Uralmash and about the Uralmash itself. Most attention is paid to the Second World War and
post-war years, although there are a number of interesting documents dating back to the beginning
of construction of the factory (1928) and the first five-year period. This book also includes a section
written by the honoured teacher of Russia, G.P. Staduhina, about more than a century of School
№160 history in the village of Pishma (now located in Ordzhonikidzevsky District of
Yekaterinburg). This collection of materials is interesting and worth reading due to the oral history
of the Uralmash and the Great Patriotic War in the Urals, and because it gives a ―snap shot‖ of the
development of Russian provincial journalism in the early 21st century.