Sanctioning Laughter in Stalin's Soviet Union
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4495009 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Waterlow, J C Waterlow (University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 79 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 198-214 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbv006 |
| OpenAlex | W2016805773 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
Laughter and humour in Stalin’s Soviet Union have long been considered weapons, wielded most effectively by the state against its (perceived) enemies, but also by the populace in acts of resistance aimed against the repressive regime in which they lived. This article argues that both these perspectives are misleading. The Soviet state in fact had a frequently ambiguous, evolving attitude to humour and its uses. At times, the humour of state and people even overlapped – particularly when attacking the caprice and foolishness of local bureaucrats – but the article emphasizes that the function and hence meaning of this humour differed radically depending upon who told a given joke and their position of power relative to its target. Ordinary people’s humour in the USSR was frequently reflexive: it was not aimed at the Soviet system, but represented Schadenfreude at one’s own misfortunes. In contrast to Merziger’s ‘German humour’, which ‘blocked everything disturbing out’, Soviet citizens used humour to bring the disturbing in, and to diminish its power through laughter. Nevertheless, the state considered political humour to be ‘antisoviet agitation’, and punished many joke-tellers accordingly. Despite this, the article demonstrates that such punishment was inconsistently enforced; in the USSR, laughter was not simply sanctioned, but was frequently recontextualized and reinterpreted.
Aesthetics · Art · Foolishness · Joke · Laughter · Literature · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Solidarity · Soviet union · State (computer science) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |