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Consumption and Advertising in
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Consumption and
Advertising in Eastern
Europe and Russia in
the Twentieth Century
Edited by
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger
Heidi Hein-Kircher
Julia Malitska
Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe
and Russia in the Twentieth Century
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger ·
Heidi Hein-Kircher · Julia Malitska
Editors
Consumption
and Advertising
in Eastern Europe
and Russia
in the Twentieth
Century
Editors
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger Heidi Hein-Kircher
University of Bamberg Herder Institute
Bamberg, Germany Marburg, Germany
Julia Malitska
Södertörn University
Huddinge, Sweden
ISBN 978-3-031-20203-2 ISBN 978-3-031-20204-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9
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Preface
The opening of the first McDonalds branch in 1990 and the fast-food
company’s withdrawal from Russia in the early summer of 2022, as well
as the opening of the “Russian McDonalds” just a few weeks later, were
events, which attracted a lot of media attention worldwide. The opening
of the Moscow branch of McDonalds in particular was an expression of
the “consumer revolution” that had begun to take shape in the late Soviet
Union. Indeed, the Russian counter-project of 2022 contained a political
message that consumption in Russia was not endangered by the Russia’s
full-scale war in Ukraine. This illustrates how important consumerism
has become for modern and globalized societies and that consumption
and consumerism are important political issues, while related advertising
reflected current social and individual (self-)perceptions.
Consumerism and advertising have become key characteristics of
modernity. Consumption as a cultural practice did not just start with
the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. In the continental empires, consumer
behaviour and thus also advertising developed under conditions of multi-
ethnicity and multiculturality with the onset of socio-economic modern-
ization as early as in the nineteenth century. The emergence of the
nation-states in Eastern Europe and the establishment of the Soviet
Union had a particular impact on these cultural practices of (collective)
self-representation through consumer behaviour.
In Consuming and Advertising, we scrutinize these processes in a
transnational perspective and contribute to the understanding of the
v
vi PREFACE
specific developments of modernity in Eastern Europe, Russia, as well as

the Soviet Union. The volume contains the contributions presented at the
bi-annual conference of the German Associations of Historians working
on Eastern Europe and Russia (Verband Deutscher Osteuropahistorik-
erinnen und –historiker) and the Herder-Institute for Historical Research
on East Central Europe taken place in Marburg in March 2021.
Bamberg, Germany Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger

Marburg, Germany Heidi Hein-Kircher
Huddinge, Sweden Julia Malitska
About This Book
The volume offers insights into current historical research on

consumerism and advertising in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
through the twentieth century. It contributes to the understanding of
modernity there, as consumerism became a key characteristic for modern
societies and an important political issue. Consumption as a cultural
practice did not just start with the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. In the conti-
nental empires, consumer behaviour and thus also advertising developed
under conditions of multiethnicity and multiculturality with the onset
of socio-economic modernization as early as in the nineteenth century.
The emergence of the nation-states in Eastern Europe and the estab-
lishment of the Soviet Union had a particular impact on these cultural
practices of (collective) self-representation through consumer behaviour.
In Consuming and Advertising, we scrutinize these processes by offering
transnational and trans-imperial perspective on the matter.
vii
Contents
Introduction
Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia
in the Twentieth Century: Introductory Remarks 3
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger, Heidi Hein-Kircher,
and Julia Malitska
Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before

World War II
Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan
Consumers: Textiles, Social Entrepreneurship,
and the Austro-Hungarian Countryside 33
Corinne Geering
German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire
as a Reflection of Consumer Policies, Culture,
and Communication 55
Lilija Wedel
The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman
as a Consumer: The Case of the Women’s Magazine Eva
(1928–1938) 83
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger
ix
x CONTENTS
“Soviet Style” of Advertising and Consumption

Fur Trade in Turmoil: Pelt Commodification in Leipzig
from Fin de Siècle to Sovietization 113
Timm Schönfelder
Early Soviet Consumption as a First “Battle”
on the Cultural Front 135
Iryna Skubii
“They Even Gave Us Pork Cutlets for Breakfast”: Foreign
Tourists and Eating-Out Practices in Socialist Romania
During the 1960s and the 1980s 155
Adelina Stefan
Transformations in Socialist Consumer Cultures and

Advertisements
Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker
of Growing Social Difference in 1980s Hungary 181
Annina Gagyiova
Eesti Reklaamfilm as a Jack-of-All-Trades: On the Untold
Opportunities of a Late Soviet Advertising Bureau 205
Airi Uuna
Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking
in the USSR 243
Tricia Starks
Concluding Comment
Consuming and Advertising in Eastern Europe:
Concluding Commentary and Research Perspectives 267
Kirsten Bönker
People Index 291

Geographical Index 295
Subject Index 299
Notes on Contributors
PD Dr. Kirsten Bönker is head of the Institute for East European

History at the University of Cologne. Previously, she was Interim
Professor of East European History, Contemporary History, and the
History of Modern Societies at the Universities of Bielefeld, Göttingen,
and Oldenburg. She was also fellow of Gerda Henkel Foundation. She
earned her MA, PhD, and Habilitation from Bielefeld University. Her
research interests include the intertwining history of the Cold War, the
history of media, of consumption, and of civil society. She is co-editor of
the book series Rethinking the Cold War with De Gruyter / Oldenbourg.
Her recent publications are: Television and Political Communication in
the Late Soviet Union (Lanham/MD: Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington
Books 2020); Nachrichten aus der Neuen Welt: Deutungskämpfe im
Feld der Auslands- und Reiseberichterstattung über die Sowjetunion,
1922–1933. Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte, 24 (2022): 59-
83; Auslandskorrespondenten im Kalten Krieg: Akteure der Détente?. In
Entbehrung und Erfüllung: Praktiken von Arbeit, Körper und Konsum
in der Geschichte moderner Gesellschaften, ed. Gleb J. Albert, Daniel
Siemens, Frank Wolff, 171–195 (Bonn: Dietz Verlag 2021).
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger is a research associate and Ph.D. candi-
date at the Chair of Slavic Art and Cultural Studies at the University of
Bamberg, Germany. Holding a M.A. in Slavic Studies as well as a M.Sc.
in Psychology, her current doctoral project deals with the participation of
women in artistic-cultural life in interwar Prague. Besides her teaching
xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
activities at the university, she also works as a cultural manager and

cultural mediator for various institutes. Her scientific interests include art
and cultural history of East Central Europe in the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries, pluriculturalism, interculturality and processes of cultural
transfers as well as food and consumer cultures with special interest in
a gender perspective. Selected publication: Kulinarische Streifzüge durch
das östliche Europa (Bamberg 2021).
Annina Gagyiova has completed her Ph.D. titled “From Goulash to
Fridges. Individual Consumption between Eigensinn and Political Domi-
nance in Socialist Hungary (1956–1989)” under the supervision of Prof.
Ulf Brunnbauer at the University of Regensburg. Her thesis examines
the question why socialism failed in Hungary although its consump-
tion culture was more Western and colourful than anywhere else in the
socialist bloc. It has been published as a monograph with Harrrassowitz,
Wiesbaden, in 2020. She currently holds a Postdoc-position at Masaryk
University Brno and is teaching at Charles University and other academic
institutions in Prague, Czech Republic.
Corinne Geering leads the junior research group “Contrasting East
Central Europe” at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of
Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. She received her Ph.D. in Eastern
European History from the University of Giessen in 2018 where she was
a doctoral fellow at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of
Culture (GCSC). She has published on cultural politics, heritage, mate-
rial culture and international cooperation in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Her wider research interests include the use of the past in rural
and urban development.
PD Dr. Heidi Hein-Kircher earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Hein-
rich Heine-University in Düsseldorf. Working at the Herder-Institute for
Historical Research in East Central Europe, Germany, since 2003, she has
been the head of department “Academic Forum” since 2009. In 2018,
she received her habilitation degree at Philipps-University Marburg. In
her research, she focuses on urban history (emerging cities) of the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries in East Central Europe with regard to
modernization, knowledge transfer and nationalization as well as histor-
ical critical security and conflict studies. Specialized on East Central
European History in nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she works on
modernizing societies there. Selected Publications: Lembergs ‘polnischen
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii
Charakter’ sichern. Kommunalpolitik in einer multiethnischen Stadt der

Habsburgermonarchie 1861/62–1914 (Stuttgart: Steiner 2020); ed. with
Werner Distler: The Mobility-Security Nexus and Making of Order (New
York and London: Routledge 2022), ed. with Eszter Gantner and Oliver
Hochadel: Interurban Knowledge Exchange in Southern and Eastern
Europe, 1870–1950 (New York and London: Routledge 2021); ed. with
Lilya Berezhnaja (2009): Rampart Nations. Bulwark Myths of East Euro-
pean Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of Nationalism (New York
and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2019); special issue with Eszter Gantner:
Emerging Cities. Journal of Urban History 43 (2017), 4.
Julia Malitska Ph.D. in History, is a project researcher at Södertörn
University, Stockholm, Sweden. She is an author of a book “Negotiating
Imperial Rule: Colonists and Marriage in the Nineteenth-Century Black
Sea Steppe” (2017), which is her doctoral dissertation defended at the
same university. Between 2019 and 2022, she conducted her postdoctoral
project on the history of vegetarian social activism in the late Russian
Empire. She has published extensively on different aspects of the topic
of her postdoctoral project in different peer-reviewed scholarly journals,
such as Media History and Global Food History. Recently, she has been a
guest editor of a special section on the history of dietary reforms in the
Baltic and East Central Europe in ca 1850–1950, in a scholarly journal
Baltic Worlds, 2022: 1–2. Her new project, financed by The Foundation
for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjöstiftelsen), deals with the
intertwined histories of science, biopolitics, food and environment in the
late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union during 1860s until 1939.
Her current research interests also include imperial histories of Ukraine,
Black Sea Region and Eastern Europe, as well as environmental history.
Timm Schönfelder is a postdoc researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the
History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig, Germany.
In 2019, he defended his dissertation on Soviet agromeliorative infras-
tructures in the North Caucasus at the University of Tübingen, where he
worked for the Collaborative Research Center 923: “Threatened Orders.
Societies under Stress”, funded by the German Research Foundation. He
has published on Russian and Soviet environmental history, the history
of science and technology, agricultural policies and political propaganda.
Currently, he investigates the manifold social and cultural implications of
hunting practices in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Iryna Skubii is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at

Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her doctoral project is focused
on consumption, material culture and the environment during the Soviet-
era famines in Ukraine. She worked at the Petro Vasylenko Kharkiv
National Technical University of Agriculture and held visiting research
and teaching positions at the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich,
the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta. Her scien-
tific interests include social and economic history, trade, consumption,
material culture, famines and the environment.
Tricia Starks is Professor of History and Director of the Univer-
sity of Arkansas Humanities Center. She is the author of The Body
Soviet (Wisconsin, 2008), Smoking under the Tsars (Cornell, 2018) and
Cigarettes and Soviets (Northern Illinois, 2022). She is also coeditor
of several collections—most recently From Fish Guts to Fabergé: The
Lifecycle of Russian Things (Bloomsbury 2021). She has earned grants
from the National Institutes of Health as well as the Kennan Institute for
Advanced Russian Studies.
Adelina Stefan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Contem-
porary and Digital History at the University of Luxembourg. She holds
a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pittsburgh, USA (2016). Her
book project tentatively titled, “Vacationing in the Cold War: Foreign
Tourists to Socialist Romania and Francoist Spain, 1960s–1970s”, exam-
ines how international tourism brought about a bottom-up liberalization
in the two dictatorships, as it altered ordinary people’s lifestyles and
material culture. Her most recent publication is “Unpacking Tourism
in the Cold War: International Tourism and Commercialism in Socialist
Romania, 1960s–1980s” in Contemporary European History, 2022,
1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S096077732-1000540.
Airi Uuna is a Ph.D. student in History and a junior researcher at the
School of Humanities of Tallinn University, Estonia. Her primary research
interests contain the history of (Soviet) marketing and advertising, busi-
ness history (including that of Soviet advertising enterprises and oral
history) and the history of consumer culture.
Lilija Wedel studied history and political science at the Leibniz Univer-
sity of Hanover. In 2013, she moved to Göttingen and completed her
doctorate in Eastern European History. At the same time, she returned
to the Provincial Church Archives of Hanover as an archivist and taught
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv
in the field of Eastern European History at the Faculty of Medieval

and Modern History in Göttingen. Since 2018, she has been working
as a lecturer at the University of Göttingen and has been employed at
the Provincial Church Archives of Hanover. Since 2020, she has been
engaged in the project “German Advertising in the Russian Empire,
1870–1914” at the University of Bielefeld.
Abbreviations
ANIC Arhivele Nat, ionale Istorice Centrale (Romanian

National Archives)
AvtoVAZ Volzhskii avtomobil’nyi zavod (Volga Automotive Plant)
BAT British-American Tobacco Company
COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
Deurauch Deutsche Rauchwaren-Gesellschaft mbH, German Fur
Products Ltd.
DOSAAF Dobrovol´noe Obshshchestvo Sodeistviia Armii, Aviatsii
i Flotu (Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the
Army, Aviation, and Navy)
ERA Eesti Rahvusarhiiv (Estonian National Archives)
ERF Eesti Reklaamfilm (Estonian Commercial Film
Producers)
F1 Formula One
FISA Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (Inter-
national Motor Sport Federation)
FOCA Formula One Constructor’s Association Rostor-
greklama
FSU Former Soviet Union
Glavkooptorgreklama Glavnoe upravlenie torgovoi reklamy Tsentrossoiuz
(Central Department of Trade Advertising of
Tsentrosoiuz; Tsentrosoiuz—Tsentralnyi soiuz
potrebitel’skikh obshchestv Rossiiskoi SFSR (Central
Union of Consumer Societies of the Russian SFSR)
xvii
xviii ABBREVIATIONS
Glavlit Glavnoe upravlenie po okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v

pechati (Main Directorate for the Protection of State
Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of
the USSR)
Goskino Gosudarstvennyi komitet po kinematografii SSSR
(USSR State Committee for Cinematography)
Gosteleradio Gosudarstvennyi komitet SSSR po televideniiu i
radioveshchaniiu (USSR State Committee for Televi-
sion and Radio)
GPR Gross Rating Point—A standardized measure for
assessing advertising impact
IPA Internationale Pelzfach-Ausstellung, International Fur
Trade Exhibition
Mossel’prom Moscow All-Union State Trest of Processing of Agri-
cultural Products
NEP novaya ekonomicheskaya politika (New Economic
Policy)
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,
National Socialist German Workers’ Party
ONT Carpathians Oficiul Nat, ional de Turism -Carpat, i
(National Office for Tourism-Carpathians)
OSA Open Society Archives
Soiuztorgreklama Vsesoiuznoe ob”edinenie po torgovoi reklame (All-Union
Association of Commercial Advertising)
StA-L Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Leipzig City Archive
TARK Tallinna Autode Remondi Katsetehas (Tallinn Experi-
mental Car Repair Factory)
TAROM Transporturi Aeriene Române (Romanian Air Travel)
UK United Kingdom
UKRMEKhTORG Ukrainian Fur Trade Organization
UKRSBYTPUShNINA Ukrainian Fur Distribution Organization
US United States
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
VEB Volkseigener Betrieb, Publicly Owned Enterprise
List of Figures
Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan Consumers:

Textiles, Social Entrepreneurship, and the
Austro-Hungarian Countryside
Fig. 1 The Ruthenian group at the Austrian Home Industry Ball
in Vienna (1911). Der österreichische Hausindustrieball.
Sport & Salon. Illustrirte Zeitschrift für die vornehme Welt
14.6 (1911), 9–11, here 10 34
Fig. 2 Archduchess Isabella von Croÿ wearing an embroidered
shirt with her daughters in the Palais Grassalkovich
in Pressburg/Bratislava/Pozsony (ca. 1898). Austrian
National Library ÖNB/Vienna, Signature Pf 3948:E(3) 42
Fig. 3 Home industry product advertisements from associations
based in Hungary, Dalmatia, and Bukovina were published
in women’s magazines. Drawings from Blatt der Hausfrau
(1909: 16) 49
German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire

as a Reflection of Consumer Policies, Culture, and
Communication
Fig. 1 “Lokomobili Genrich Lanc, Mangeim” (“Locomobiles
Heinrich Lanz, Mannheim”). In Saratovskii Listok. No 45.
25.02.1910 58
xix
xx LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 2 “Dekadentskie Z-duchi fabriki T-va R. Keler i Ko v Moskve”

(“Decadent Z-perfume of the Fabric R. Koehler & Co
in Moscow”). In Golos Moskvy. No 223. 30.09.1909 59
Fig. 3 Color lithograph “V pitanii sila. Kakao Žorzh Borman”
(“In the Sustenance is a Power. Cacao Georg Borman”).
Unknown Author. St. Petersburg 1904, 47*77 cm.
russianposter.ru 60
Fig. 4 “Rojali i Pianino Ja. Bekker i Br. Diderichs. Kavkazskoe
central’noe Glavnoe Depo muzykal’nych instrumentov, B.
M. Mirimanian. Tiflis” (“Grand Pianos Ja. Becker & Br.
Diederichs. The Caucasian Central Warehouse of Musical
Instruments. B. M. Miriminian. Tiflis”). In Kavkaz
(Tiflislak). No 28. 30.01.1905 61
The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a

Consumer: The Case of the Women’s Magazine Eva
(1928–1938)
Fig. 1 Advertisement JAWA motorcycle in Eva V/14
(15/05/1933): p. 1 85
Fig. 2 Advertisement Minerva sewing machine in Eva VIII/8
(15/02/1935): p. 1 86
Fig. 3 Advertisement Bat’a shoes in Eva II/21–22 (01/09/1930):
p. 1 98
Fig. 4 Advertisement Auto Praga in Eva V/12 (15/04/1933): p. 1 100
Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker of

Growing Social Difference in 1980s Hungary
Fig. 1 Here and now: “Good that prices have finally swept
out the many workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia,” in:
Ludas Matyi, 18 May 1988 187
Fig. 2 Miracle: “The master vanished within a second after he
realized we wanted an invoice,” in: Ludas Matyi, 18 May
1988 193
Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking in the

USSR
Fig. 1 Pack of Priiatnye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive
Arts. Russian/Soviet era posters, books, publications,
graphics—1920s–1950s. www.productivearts.com 253
LIST OF FIGURES xxi
Fig. 2 Pack of Krestianskie. Undated. Courtesy of Productive

Fig. 3 Pack of Trudovye. Undated. Courtesy of Productive
Fig. 4 Pack of Oktiabria. Undated. Courtesy of Productive
Fig. 5 Pack of Krasnaja strela. Undated. Courtesy of Productive
Introduction
Consuming and Advertising in Eastern
Europe and Russia in the Twentieth
Century: Introductory Remarks
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger , Heidi Hein-Kircher ,

and Julia Malitska
We should not merely give up meat but transform our whole life. Luxury,
fashion, the waste of money by some, and overwork by others to obtain
them – these play a significant role in all the horrors of our lives. And so it
goes on, and on, and on ... And all the most terrible consequences of this,
of all that is based on the pursuit of all sorts of worldly goods. Vegetarians
reject these worldly goods. Meat, wine, cigarettes, all kinds of luxury, and
M. Eriksroed-Burger
University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany
e-mail: magdalena.eriksroed-burger@uni-bamberg.de
H. Hein-Kircher (B)
Herder-Institute, Marburg, Germany
e-mail: heidi.hein-kircher@herder-institut.de
J. Malitska
Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden
e-mail: julia.malitska@sh.se
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Switzerland AG 2023
M. Eriksroed-Burger et al. (eds.), Consumption and Advertising
in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20204-9_1
4 M. ERIKSROED-BURGER ET AL.
the pursuit of fashion, status, etc., etc. – vegetarianism repels all this. The
path of vegetarianism is the path of feat.
—wrote Olga Prokhasko, litterateur, intellectual and the publisher

of The Vegetarian Herald, a Kyiv-based periodical, in 1917 (Prokhasko
1917: 1–3). This passage illustrates the global trend that influenced
(urban) lifestyles of the parts of the Russian Empire (Malitska 2021,
2022a, b) as well as Eastern Europe. A wave of issue-oriented lifestyle-
reform movements that flourished across Europe and America in the nine-
teenth and early twentieth century, particularly in the areas of nutrition,
clothing, consumption, housing and health care, was to a certain extent a
reaction to and a critique of the rise of modern consumer culture, char-
acteristic of modernity and often associated with industrialization, mass
communication, urbanization and societal change. Anti-tobacco, temper-
ance and vegetarian movements, with their counter-cultural and social
reformism spirit, often perceived consumption as a danger, corrupting
society.
Such trends regarding different forms of consumption became transna-
tional, if not global phenomena. They show that consumption is more
than a “simple” consumption of products to maintain “mere” physical
performance. These developments reaffirm the statement that consump-
tion—in whatever form—was and is a tool of individual and social
self-development and self-expression (König 2013: 11). Consumption
is thus to be considered as a cultural practice that reflects values and
norms, but also political attitudes. It is therefore not surprising that,
particularly since the end of nineteenth century, different consumption
patterns became an important topic within modernizing societies and
were negotiated differently across these societies, even if products were
similar. Hence, Consuming and Advertising assumes that Eastern Euro-
pean consumers not only adopted and aligned Western attitudes, but also
developed their own ways of negotiating consumption and, last but not
least, through that their own lifestyle in modernity.
Entanglements and Overlaps of Modernities

A growing diversity of understandings of modernity from the end of the
twentieth century, as well as its “de-Westernization”, has recently become
a dominant trend in the humanities and social sciences. Critical discus-
sions have focused on the dark sides of modernity, on different forms of
CONSUMING AND ADVERTISING IN EASTERN EUROPE … 5
imperialism and colonialism worldwide (Eisenstadt 2000: 14), as well as

on the totalitarian forces embedded in some modernity programs. The
sociologist Shmul Eisenstadt’s (2000) idea of “multiple modernities” and
Göran Therborn’s notion of “entangled modernities” (Therborn 2003:
293–305), formulated two decades ago, have been influential for the
debate.
Eisenstadt proposed the idea of approaching modernity in plural, as
a multiplicity of cultural programs of different modern societies which
were not exclusively related to industrialization but to cultural changes
as well. “One of the most important implications of the term ‘mul-
tiple modernities’ is that modernity and Westernization are not identical;
Western patterns of modernity are not the only, ‘authentic’ modernities,
though they enjoy historical presence”, as Eisenstadt (2000: 2–3) stated.
He assumes that diverse understandings of “modern” developed within
different (nation-)states and regions, and within different ethnic and
cultural groupings, as well as within communist, fascist and other move-
ments but were in many respects global (Eisenstadt 2000: 2). As a subse-
quent idea, sociologist Göran Therborn suggested perceiving modernity
as a global phenomenon, which meant focusing on global variability,
global connectivity and global intercommunication, but also on conti-
nuity and discontinuity. Hence, his notion of “entangled modernities”
(Therborn 2003) emphasizes the coexistence of different modernities in
their inter-relations which is a main assumption Consumption and Adver-
tising relies on. That Eastern Europe and Soviet Union have not been
overlooked and not included by Eisenstadt is one of the criticisms of
his conceptualization, for example expressed by German historian Stefan
Plaggenborg (Plaggenborg 2013: 67–78).
Since the 1990s, a debate has evolved in the field of Soviet and Russian
historical studies about the concept of modernity. The question has been
whether late Habsburg Monarchy (Bachinger et al. 2021, Ganzenmüller
and Tönsmeyer 2016) and imperial Russia, the Eastern European socialist
societies and the USSR can be considered modern and, if so, in what
sense (David-Fox 2006). The debate, conducted mostly by historians, has
been ranging between four main standpoints of “no modernity”; “shared
modernity”; “alternative modernity”; and finally, “entangled moderni-
ties” in Russian and Soviet history, brilliantly discussed and contributed
to by Michael David-Fox (2016).
Inspired by David-Fox’s elaborations, both notions of alternative and
entangled modernities are equally influential for this volume (David-Fox
2016: 37–38). Alternative modernity proceeds from the premise that

communism was established in Eastern Europe as an alternative formation
distinct from capitalism and the West (David-Fox 2016: 3). Communism
explicitly positioned itself as an alternative modern project, and it was
perceived as such. The most important feature of the concept of entan-
gled modernities, suggested by David-Fox, is that various strands of the
modern are understood to be interacting across time and space, across
separate countries and national groups, both Western and non-Western,
which might be discovered in practices, discourses, technologies, material
culture, different forms of cultural transfer and the circulation of knowl-
edge (David-Fox 2016: 28, 34). This point is of particular relevance for
the study of consumption and advertising in Eastern Europe throughout
the twentieth century, given the turbulent socio-political changes the
region and its people experienced.
Recent research on Eastern Europe has pointed out that its societies
formed their own path to modernity, which was not shaped by large-scale
industrialization but by small-scale industrialization and urbanization—
an argument that refutes the assumed backwardness of the region. Yet,
modern life in Eastern Europe was mainly an urban phenomenon and
differed in most cities from that in Western European societies because
of the influence of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural life (Gantner and
Hein-Kircher 2017; Gantner et al. 2021). Modernity as such has thus
been discussed differently, but not in the relation to multi-ethnic urban
development and the emergence of modern consumer cultures and adver-
tisements. “The divisions between modernities followed not only national
and cultural, but also social borders”, noted Alexey Golubev in his study
of late Soviet material history, because class and gender mattered in
Soviet and socialist societies, similarly to the countries of Western Europe,
and “transnational entanglements across the Iron Curtain demonstrate
that different social groups had their own understandings and practices
of what it meant to be modern” (Golubev 2016: 241). In the Soviet
multinational empire, there was no single and unified Soviet modernity;
intertwined forms of modernity co-existed within the Soviet project. The
same is true for the socialist Eastern European societies. There is no
unilinear East European modernity, just as there is no monolithic history
of Eastern European consumption and advertising. We would like to spot-
light the transnational histories of consumption and advertising within the
region called Eastern Europe, with its continuities and discontinuities,
commonalities and peculiarities, cross-influences and interactions.
Consuming and Advertising follows this trend of recent research on

East Central European and Russian consumerism (see below, and, e.g.,
Verderey 1996), but aims to go beyond the analysis of case studies by
offering a cross-epochal and cross-regional perspective. Herewith, we
want to pick up and underline the findings which research on Eastern
Europe and Russia respectively the Soviet Union has elaborated over the
last two decades (particularly to urban development; see, e.g., Behrends
and Kohlrausch 2014; Gantner et al. 2021). There, diverse and peculiar
forms of modernity developed and were triggered through multi-ethnicity
and multi-culturality, which had a delayed start in comparison with
Western Europe because of lacking impulses of industrialization and the
broad range of urban development but nevertheless found their own path.
From that time on, consumer cultures developed with certain particular-
ities regarding the respective national or socialist branding, but generally
followed transnational incentives and exchanges, even in Soviet times.
Consumerism, Consumer Societies and Advertising

as Representations of Lifestyles of Modernity
Even if “consumption” describes generally the use of products for
everyday life or of services, economically, it is defined as the purchase
of goods for private use and their usage by “consumers” (Siegrist 1997:
16–17). The main precondition here is that consumption industries had
already emerged by this time and provided the “market” with (mass)
production of consumer goods. Another prerequisite is that advertising,
sales promotion and, last but not least, advertisements played a major
role in the sale of such products in order to trigger the consumers to buy
products they had no urgent need for. The emergence of consumerism is
tightly enlaced with the emergence of modern industrial (mass) produc-
tion and, necessarily, the rise of the modern money economy. Hence, this
process is also interconnected with the broad distribution of consumer
goods, the emergence of modern media, as well as of modern forms
of communication and everyday life, particularly in the urban centers
(Kleinschmidt 2008: 37). Yet, (mass) consumption needs to be fostered
by advertisements which suggest that buying and using a given product
or service will fulfill individual needs and wishes. A more sociological
perspective connects such consumption with a modern way of life and
(liberal) market economies. Even if humankind had always consumed
goods, particularly food, the rise of consumption and the emergence of
the modern way of life are intertwined. These interconnections become

quite clear if we look at the most impressive expression of consumer
cultures: the emergence of huge department stores, which were perceived
as sparkling palaces of consumption (and capitalism), like the legendary
consumers’ temples of Printemps, opened in Paris in 1865, or Moscow’s
GUM , opened in 1893. The time gap of nearly 30 years between the
disclosure of Printemps and GUM hints clearly at one further prerequi-
site of consumption: the existence of adequately suited middle classes who
are able to spend money on consumption. The example of GUM shows
clearly that the emergence of consumer societies in Eastern Europe was
retarded in comparison with Western Europe, but, as Consumption and
Advertisings wants to show, developed particular variations.
Although consumerism and advertisements are enrooted in nineteenth-
century industrialization and modernization, Wolfgang König, one of
Germany’s historians specializing in the topic of consumption and the
throw-away society, has stated that the question of exactly when consump-
tion took on a societally shaping function depends on the analytical
perspective—whether we focus only on the participation of the elites in
consumption or broaden the discussion to include the majorities of the
population (König 2013: 9). Here, the USA took a global leading role:
The rise of the so-called consumer society was firstly a phenomenon of
industrialization in the USA (König 2008: 9–11). If we focus only on
the minority of the wealthy elite, consumer societies emerged in the nine-
teenth century, but if we take the participation of broader social strata
into account, the beginning of modern consumer societies appears to have
started in the USA in the 1930s, in Germany only around 1960. Through
American incentives, consumerism has continued to grow, influence and
shape societies on a global scale (idem: 20) and to drive industrial produc-
tion and trade. The nineteenth century saw the emergence and global
spread of industries and services that sought to satisfy personal desires
as much as possible. As a reaction, cooperative movements emerged and
prospered, for example in different parts of the Habsburg Monarchy
and the Russian Empire, starting in the late nineteenth century and
ending with the outbreak of the First World War (Salzman and MF
1982; Wawrzeniuk, ed. 2008). Although consumerism and advertise-
ments got growing importance before the First World War, the interwar
period seems to be a key for the further development of Eastern Euro-
pean consumerism, not least because of the value changes caused by the
break-up of empires and democratization, the Revolutions of 1917 and

the nation-state building starting from 1918.
While consumption is closely connected with economic life, consump-
tion and advertising as the visualization of consumer wishes and behavior
and consumption culture as a cultural practice became indispensable
components of a modern lifestyle and (self-)representation in indus-
trialized societies. Since the nineteenth century, lifestyles have been
particularly shaped by modernity, not only because of industrialization
and urbanization, but also because of the rise of mobility which provided
a precondition for the dissemination of consumer goods, and cultural
and societal processes that have accompanied and triggered the modern-
ization. Here, following van der Loo and van Rijen (van der Loo
and van Reijen 1992: 11), we understand “modernization” as a knot
of interwoven cultural, social, economic and political processes. Thus,
modernization is more than industrialization and administrative strength-
ening of the state—it also describes a modernization of “hearts and
minds” and the emergence of new, “modern” values and norms, attitudes
and ways of life. Within this process, consumption became an important
part and representation of changing ways of life. Following Pierre Bour-
dieu (1984, see also de Certeau 2011), consumption suggests status and
vice versa: it is an expression of claiming it. Consumerism could be thus
interpreted as a representation of habitus and collective self-perception in
modernity. It has become a part of the modern way of life and lifestyle
products form a broad range of consumer goods. Consumption is there-
fore more than the use of resources for a person’s survival, and it became
a social practice essential for creating and maintaining individual as well as
collective identities, for self-presentation and the claim of needing certain
goods in order to have a “good life”.
These desires are “implanted” through advertisements, which nego-
tiate a “dream of a good life” (title of Andersen 1997). Without adver-
tising, the desire to purchase such goods would not arise. Because of these
processes, since the rise of modern (mass) consumption during the era of
industrialization, advertisements became an everyday experience in media.
And vice versa: industrialization (and modern capitalism) was fostered
by the rise of consumption and the production of consumer goods that
had to be advertised. Hence, catalogues, the cylindric advertising pillars
(so-called Littfaßsäulen), a particularly urban form of visualizing prod-
ucts in the public sphere, as well as billboards, leaflets and advertisements
in newspapers and magazines became the main tools for communicating
to consumers what they should want to have until the rise of modern
mass media like radio, film, television and, since the end of twentieth
century, the Internet. Hence, consumption and, on the other hand,
advertisements and promotion form two sides of a coin—representing
the modernized lifestyles and aesthetic sensations of (collective) identity
and self-perception. As they should trigger desires to buy, they repre-
sent the habitus and lifestyle desired and emulated by the consumers,
and are adapted to the current societal life at the same time. Both adver-
tising and consumption have shaped forms of modern life since then—but
only in the “rich” countries of “capitalism”? This is an assumption that
Consuming and Advertising wants to challenge by showing that seem-
ingly less industrialized countries, governed by a socialist ideology that
claimed to be the counterpart of capitalism, produced their own particular
variations of consumerism.
The processes of societal change that accelerated in the era of moder-
nity as well as the rise of consumerism provoked a wide range of criticism
among contemporary intellectuals which could here only briefly outlined.
Already in 1859, Karl Marx criticized the fetishization of products, while
Adam Smith (Smith 1776) addressed production of consumer goods as
a trigger of the wealth of nations and sociologist Georg Simmel analyzed
the individualization and subjectification within a society (Simmel 1904,
see also Schrage 2008). The anti-consumerism life-reform movements
that emerged at the end of nineteenth century, for example, the anti-
tobacco and vegetarian movements that sprang up all over Europe, were
part of this critique. Hence, consumption and, associated with it, pros-
perity and the possibility of obtaining goods according to one’s wishes
became the object of visions, if not utopian ideals, but also fueled a
growing critique of capitalism. The most outstanding example is certainly
Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World (1932), in which
consumption was presented as a social duty aimed at optimizing industrial
production, so that even children, for example, were obliged to consume.
Consumption has thus received a Janus-faced attribution since then: as a
component of a critique of capitalism on the one hand, but as the result
of an affluent society on the other.
Consumption, Consumerism
and Advertisements in Eastern Europe
When it comes to consumption as a characteristic, Eastern Europe has
often been associated with scarcity and queuing—and not with broad
access to supply facilities or a variety of consumer goods, because the
subject has been perceived quite stereotypically until recently (Gronow
2011: 251–256). While consumption is ideologically connected with
a Western, “modern” and prosperous way of life and of capitalism,
consumerism in Eastern Europe did not seem to exist until the fall
of the Iron Curtain and the transformation period. Eastern European
societies had long been (self-) perceived as backward (West 2011; Shere-
sheva and Antonov-Ovseenko 2015), less modern and not fitting in
with the way consumption is initially perceived (Goldschweer 2014: 31).
Herewith, we connect the (self-)perception, even of contemporaries, of
“backwardness” caused by a lacking range of industrialization processes
(e.g., Szczepanowski 1888) and, not least, the images of supply short-
ages during Soviet times, so that the first branch of McDonalds in Soviet
Union opened in Moscow in January 1990 could be used as a “synonym
of revolution in consumption” (Althanns 2007). The issue of advertising
is interpreted similarly: Advertising as the commercial means of influ-
encing people to buy (and consume) certain goods, mostly available as
a range of products on the market by different producers, seems to be
strongly connected with capitalism and not with socialism.
Here, we particularly understand consumer societies as societies in
which not only a few members of an elite, but also where the masses
can buy industrially produced wares, but we also acknowledge that first
consumerism in the social elites and then in the other social strata
emerged. An understanding of consumerism in modernity presupposes
consumers buying and using products which are not only for individual or
family survival but also enhance the “beautiful things” of life and are used
for leisure and pleasure. Discussing Eastern European and Russian forms
of consumer culture and advertising goes far beyond the scope of purely
economic questions because of the premise that both are cultural practices
which are closely linked with societal modernization. Such practices offer
insights into ways of life, of values and (self-)images of societies through
the forms in which they present production. Furthermore, they give us
insights into aesthetics and, of course, of necessities and inadequacies of
everyday life.
In Eastern Europe, particular forms of consumptions and specific ways

of advertising developed during the later stages of the Russian Empire, the
German Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy, though these were delayed
in comparison with Western Europe. With the establishment of Soviet
power, it appears that consumer culture and advertising were banned,
but only at a first glance, since the rise of Socialism brought an inherent
criticism of ‘bourgeois’ consumerism and can be outlined as an anti-
consumerism project. Yet, a second glance reveals that particular forms of
consumption and advertisements did emerge, spreading the image of the
“socialist world” and socialist ideas of consuming and advertising, which
also deeply shaped everyday life (Zakharova 2013, compiles studies by
Eastern European scholars). This was politically necessary, since it became
clear, that consumption and sufficient provision with consumer goods
were considered by the people as the most important part of the promised
‘good life’; consumption and advertisement were instrumentalized to
proof that promise.
State of Research on Consumption

and Advertising in Eastern Europe
One may think that the “Iron Curtain” once separating capitalist Western
Europe and communist Eastern Europe throughout the period of the
Cold War continues to imprint historical research on consumption and
advertising. Indeed, general works on this topic with a European (Siegrist
et al. 1997; König 2013) or global perspective, such as the Encyclo-
pedia of Consumer Culture (Southerton 2011), by usually following an
interdisciplinary approach and focusing on the period from the Age of
Enlightenment to the present, tend to summarize the whole East Euro-
pean region in one more or less detailed chapter, since consumerism
is perceived as an outcome of the Western lifestyle (König 2008: 9).
However, book series1 such as Cultures of consumption series or Worlds
of consumption as well as edited volumes on the topic advocating a
global perspective still tend to omit case studies on Eastern Europe
(e.g., Berghoff and Spiekermann 2012). Access to and publication of
archival records since the end of the Cold War as well as new interdis-
ciplinary research methods (e.g., oral interviews) have given incentive to
a vast number of studies on consumption in Eastern Europe over the
last two decades. Operating with multi-layered concepts of “consump-
tion” and using a variety of sources, scholars from a range of disciplines
including economics, history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies

and art history have examined the consumer cultures of former socialist
countries. Hence, a considerable number of Anglo-American studies on
the history of consumption in the Soviet Union either lean toward Soviet
Russia and specifically its European part, or they focus predominantly on
the post-Second World War period.
Rather than providing an exhaustive historiographic overview, we
would rather map some trends in the consumption studies of Eastern
Europe during the last two decades.2 With some exceptions (e.g., Hilton
2011; Sheresheva and Antonov-Ovseenko 2015; West 2011), issues of
consumption and advertising in the late imperial period either have
not been sufficiently discussed in historical scholarship, or have been
rather fleetingly touched upon in studies focusing, for example, on the
history of retail, media, cooperative movement press, food and counter-
cultural lifestyles (Brang 2002; Eriksson et al. 2010; Glants and Toomre
1997; Kokoszycka 2008; Malitska, 2022a, b; Smith 2021; Stites 1992).
The present volume includes and discusses late imperial and pre-socialist
patterns of advertising and consumption, aiming to offer a holistic
perspective on the topic and thus bridging different political formations
and contexts, as well as urban and rural dynamics.
Existing research has focused primarily on the socialist period. The
New Economic Politics (NEP) became hence one focal point in consump-
tion studies (Skubii 2017; Osokina 2022; Ivanova 2018), while other
scholars provided synthetic overviews, like Julie Hessler (2004). She offers
a comprehensive study of the Soviet retail trade in consumer goods from
the revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin in 1953, covering both
the supply side of the consumer goods market and its demand side—
consumer behavior and patterns of consumption. Her book contributes
to social and political history of the consumer economy with new findings
on the extent of private trade in the USSR during the Second World War
and its aftermath, the scale and ways of involvement of urban and rural
workers in small-scale retail operations, and the relative importance of
private trade as a source of goods for a working family. Hence, because of
the precarity of consumer goods supply, black markets developed all over
the Eastern Bloc, which first Jerzy Kochanowski explored with regard
to Poland (Kochanowski 2010). Focusing on Soviet retail trade and
consumption in the 1930s, Amy Randall (2008) adds to Hessler’s find-
ings the significant role of the state by examining political and economic
framework conditions and delivering a perspective “from above”. In addi-

tion, she shows how the role of women as cultured consumers was shaped,
followed by changes in their social status as well as legitimization of trade.
Focusing on the period between 1933 and 1939, Jukka Gronow
(2003) has offered a sociological perspective on “common luxuries” such
as gramophones, caviar and champagne, which played an important role
in the new conception of the socialist lifestyle by promoting material
pleasures that had once only been available to pre-revolutionary elites
for enjoyment by ordinary people—at least on special occasions. With
her analysis of Soviet consumer culture in the Brezhnev era, Natalya
Chernyshova (2013) has highlighted discontinuities in comparison with
the former Khrushchev era and demonstrated how consumption became
a factor of social cohesion as well as individual self-actualization. While
questions around ideology and legitimation play a fundamental role in
each of these studies, the examination of communist consumption over
a longer period of time has highlighted its ruptures and continuities
on an ideological basis (Gurova 2006). Dealing with consumer prac-
tices and consumerism in (Soviet) Russia over a longer time period,
Timo Vihavainen and Elena Bogdanova (2016) have convincingly posi-
tioned the Eastern European alternative against the background of an
“affluent” (Western) society, while showing the complex and ambivalent
attitudes toward consumerism as well as the dilemma it created for the
population and the Communist Party. In this context, the ambivalent
references of consumer cultures as well as popular cultures in a broader
sense toward Americanization have been shown by means of consumer
images and practices in Central and Eastern Europe, for example in coun-
tries such as the GDR or Poland (Herrmann 2008). By questioning
the simplistic East–West binaries in principle, Paulina Bren and Mary
Neuburger (2013) have demonstrated the commonalities and differences
of various consumption practices across Eastern Europe, from Romania to
Yugoslavia to Czechoslovakia and the GDR during the Cold War period
and beyond. By examining the entanglement of labor, consumption and
the public sphere, Nada Boškovska et al. (2016) have highlighted new
forms of consumption (e.g., media such as TV) and everyday-life policies
in the Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia and have contributed the concept of
“developed socialism”.
As has already become clear, research has also been conducted on
consumption, everyday life, as well as on mass culture in a broader sense.
With their studies on leisure activities, entertainment and “pleasures in
socialism” (Crowley and Reid 2010), historians have comprehensively

demonstrated the various ways of “escaping” from hassles of everyday
life in the Eastern Bloc after the Second World War (Giustino et al.
2013; Noack 2011), while Ewa Mazierska offers reflection on consump-
tion and other everyday challenges in Poland since 1918 through an
film studies approach (Mazierska 2017). With their two-volume ency-
clopedia on lifestyle, entertainment and leisure, Martin Franc and Jiří
Knapík et al. (2011) offer a comprehensive overview of the cultural
developments in Czechoslovakia in 1948–1967. Connecting contempo-
rary cultural phenomena to propaganda and ideology, this Guidebook
provides insights into this region. Another study of these scholars (Franz
and Knapík 2013) traces the social context and the impact of new ways
of spending leisure time on the functioning of Czechoslovak society in
the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s in greater detail. Drawing
on various forms of activities (e.g., DIY, travel, dance entertainment and
cultural activities), it discusses their often very complicated relationship to
the ideologies of the time. Moreover, the study spotlights the transforma-
tion of the mentality of the Czechoslovak society in its new relationship to
consumerism. Gleb Tsipursky’s Socialist Fun (2016) has approached the
issues of consumption through the examination of the changing Soviet
youth culture in the period from the end of the Second World War to the
aftermath of the Prague Spring with a focus on Soviet Russia. Dealing
with phenomena such as the so-called Stilyagi, a post-war youth coun-
terculture fascinated by eye-catching Western fashion and music trends
(jazz/swing), in particular the role of fashion and physical appearance
in the post-war Soviet Union, has been studied (Bartlett 2010; Haus-
bacher et al. 2014). In their study of clothing fashions as an element
of Soviet consumption after the Second World War, Jukka Gronow and
Sergey Zhuravlev (2015) have touched upon differences and similarities
between Western, capitalist fashion and Soviet socialist fashion. The Soviet
designers and their Western counterparts relied on the same sources of
inspiration. Authors point out the major differences between these two
worlds of fashion. Commercial advertisements and promotions on the
pages of journals and magazines were relatively rare in the Soviet context.
Those socialist advertisements that existed were less appealing and less
competitive than Western advertisements.
In addition to practices and strategies of consumption, historians have
increasingly focused on the various imaginaries, on ideological, polit-
ical and economic frameworks, as well as material culture, in line with
the materiality turn (Gagliardi 1990). Scholarship on materiality in

Eastern Europe (Reid and Crowley 2000), especially in the context of
Russia/Soviet Russia starting with Peter the Great (Roberts 2017), has
discussed the ambivalent relationship between the consumers and their
commodities, suggesting a dynamic and relevant tension between indi-
vidual desires, collective values and social functions (Oushakine 2014;
Gagyjova 2020). With her study on the objects of Russian construc-
tivism, Christina Kiaer (2005) further demonstrated the interrelationship
between socialist objects, artistic practice and industrial production.
Examining the so-called socialist thing (Goldschweer 2014: 41), the life
of things (Schlögl 2018: 212) or, to put it another way, the things of life
(Golubev 2020), scholars have highlighted the entanglement of political
and economic power of people (as consumers), declaring them as a poten-
tial threat to state authority. Anthropologist Katherine Verdery (1996:
14) has summarized this as follows: “Acquiring consumer goods and
objects conferred an identity that set one off from socialism. To acquire
objects became a way of constituting your selfhood against a regime you
despised”.
Hence, luxury goods and quality leisure created a space for individual
desires and self-realization within a context ruled by collective ownership
and values and characterized through the discrepancy between political
promises and the naked reality. Despite the growing number of scholar-
ships on consumer culture and related topics such as materiality or leisure
time, the transnational and holistic approach to consumption patterns and
forms of advertising across the region and with a consideration of the
longue-durée represents a desideratum. Gendered consumption studies
is still an emerging field of historical research on Eastern Europe. Iryna
Skubii tackled on the gendered consumption in urban Soviet Ukraine in
the 1920s–1930s by examining the characteristic features of male and
female consumer needs and in their interrelation with Soviet ideology
(Skubii 2018, 2020).
Using these previous research insights as an impetus, Consumption
and Advertising takes a transnational perspective and aims to provide
incentives for deeper comparative analysis including different epochs and
regions in former Russian and Habsburg respectively Soviet spheres of
influence. The goal is to reflect the ways in which this region belonged
to globalizing consumption trends of the period in question, while, at
the same time, highlighting the peculiarities of consumption and adver-
tising patterns underpinned by specific political and economic formations,
institutional patterns of political and social life, social structures and the
distinct historical trajectories of the region. Thus, the edited volume aims
at including Eastern Europe into a comparative view on consumerism and
advertising as social practices and representations of lifestyles of moder-
nity. On the one hand, it reflects the growing globalization of the history
of consumption and, on the other hand, adopts a transnational approach
and a regional perspective with regard to heterogeneous and conflicting
models of consumption during the “long” twentieth century in Eastern
Europe.
Focal Perspectives and Structure

This edited volume offers a historical analysis of consumption and adver-
tising in the region called Eastern Europe from the late imperial era
through to the collapse of the communist regimes, representing a rare
attempt to produce a “long” history of the region throughout the twen-
tieth century. The cross-epochal composition of chapters in the first
section highlights that some trends in consumption already started under
the monarchical rule of the Empire and were only fostered through nation
and Soviet state building. Moreover, Consuming and Advertising bundles
cross-regional case studies, showing that, despite similar ideological influ-
ences, diverse forms of consumerism and advertising emerged, which were
also influenced by Western patterns. Being aware of different definitions
of Eastern Europe, we use a pragmatic approach and, omitting long
historiographic debates about the origins of the concept and its varying
definitions, we perceive the region “Eastern Europe” as a social construct
and use the term to refer to those European countries that once belonged
to imperial formations of the Russian and the eastern parts of German
empires and the Habsburg Monarchy and, in twentieth century, to the
“Eastern Bloc”. However, we don’t conceptualize “Eastern Europe” and
the European parts of Russia and Soviet Union as a homogeneous region,
rather on the contrary, as the different case studies show.
Changes in consumption patterns and practices have often signi-
fied shifts in social, political and cultural frameworks, and vice versa.
Consumption has often entailed symbolic acts affirming status and iden-
tities; it has always been about class and gender. Adopting an integrative
approach to the histories of consumption and advertising, advocated
by Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann (2012: 4), the contribu-
tions of the volume thoroughly examine multiple political, economic,
social and cultural contexts and variations of consumerism and adver-

tising in the eastern part of Europe throughout the “long” twentieth
century. The setting of Consuming and Advertising aims to open up
and inspire discussions as well as transnational, trans-imperial and trans-
epochal comparisons on these practices in Eastern Europe and Russia
and, in doing so, to conceptualize the peculiarities of consumption within
that part of Europe, which has until recently been associated with “back-
wardness”, “poverty” and “hunger” (and not with consumption at all).
Our volume aims at contributing to a scholarly trend that challenges
recently dominant “powerful paradigms of ‘the culture of shortage’
and ‘economy of scarcity”’ (Oushakine 2014) and reductive conceptu-
alizations of socialist societies defined by deficit and scarcity. Because
advertising arose during the period of societal and economic modern-
ization and could be interpreted as a signum of the modern lifestyle, the
book traces the development of promotion from a broad cultural histor-
ical perspective, presenting different forms of modern consumer cultures
and examining how consumers were animated to purchase consumer
goods before First World War and in the interwar period. This period
is closely connected with “new” ways of life, which were influenced by
democratization as well as by the “Americanization” of consumption. By
including pre-socialist forms of consumption, we are therefore able to
trace the traditions and the peculiarities of consumption within Eastern
Europe and Russia. Doing so, Consuming and Advertising wants to
discuss how consumption and advertising as cultural practices represented
modernity and coined its habitus and lifestyles.
Illuminating various forms of consumption and advertising media in
Eastern Europe, the chapters included in Consuming and Advertising
show that this field of historical research on everyday life is much more
extensive than one might initially think. The first section of the book,
entitled The Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before World
War II , deals with lifestyles and advertising strategies in imperial contexts
in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Aiming to highlight the
societal and cultural dimensions of consumer practices, it shows that the
seemingly accelerated development to consumerism was already laid out
by the turn of the twentieth century. Corinne Geering traces how
peasant home industries produced for the emerging urban markets in
the nineteenth century. Following this, workshops were set up across
Europe with the objective to promote rural home industries producing
textiles, woodwork, ceramics or basketry. These initiatives by state insti-

tutions, members of the nobility and wealthy industrialists combined
commercial interests with the charitable objective of halting the rural
exodus and granting social relief to people experiencing poverty. Facing
economic decline and competition from cheaper commodities produced
in factories, the sale of handmade objects from rural home industries
required novel promotion strategies that underlined their high produc-
tion value and drew on the idea of social change. Acknowledging these
processes, Geering’s chapter discusses the international sale and promo-
tion of home industry products by imperial elites, notably women, from
Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The
handmade products were commissioned and marketed as luxury items
to metropolitan consumers in Vienna, London, Paris, New York and
other metropolises. Based on contemporary journalism, advertisements
and the writings of women, this chapter analyzes the consumption of
rural textiles in late imperial society. In particular, it seeks to foreground
the role of female social entrepreneurship in Eastern European consumer
cultures at the turn of the century in the wider European context.
While Geering focusses on the production for social elites, Lilija Wedel
discusses the emergence of consumerism from the vantage point of ethnic
heterogeneity in the Russian Empire and focusses on German adver-
tising practices. The focus on German and Russian-German advertising
is primarily related to the unique position and economic contribution
of German and Russian-German entrepreneurship in the Russian Empire
compared to other foreign and non-Russian representatives. During that
period, industrial entrepreneurship was able to emerge after the reforms
of the 1860s, and then, around 1870, the press and advertising busi-
ness was able to develop and flourish until the outbreak of the First
World War in 1914. From that point on, German goods, German-
language press and printed advertisements could no longer be distributed
in the Russian Empire. Hence, Wedel discusses the role of German
and Russian-German advertising there by exploring advertising strate-
gies, communication networks, consumer culture, and local mindsets and
lifestyles. By doing so, she shows that needs and concerns of consumers
varied from region to region and did not develop uniformly. Since the
section features papers on ‘advertising’ and ‘selling’, its last chapter by
Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger focuses on urban consumer cultures
and discusses how the idea of “the New” was promoted in the interwar
period. Based on the women’s magazine Eva (1928–1938), the chapter
examines the various roles of the “new woman” as a consumer in the

First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), a comparatively progressive
young state. During this time, feminists succeeded in achieving impor-
tant goals and in strengthening the participation of women in public life,
not least thanks to the strong support of President Tomáš G. Masaryk.
The representations and layers of images of the new woman, which
indicated a specific way of life and was closely connected to consump-
tion, are of special interest. Being a Czechoslovak new woman of the
upper middle class meant being urban, “civilized” and cosmopolitan,
participating in Western consumer cultures, but equally appreciating local
traditions. Referencing the differing areas of fashion and beauty prod-
ucts as well as mobility and traveling, Eriksroed-Burger illustrates how
a (rather) superficial kind of self-realization was propagated through
consumption. Meanwhile, luxury goods such as cars not only functioned
as status symbols and means of enjoyment, but also became symbols of
emancipatory ideas. Consequently, these chapters show clearly that we
can trace highly different forms of consumerism coined by social differ-
ence as well as ethnic diversity from the end of nineteenth century, on
which nationalization had a great impact. Thus, the chapters discuss not
only the uses of modern consumer goods and advertisements, but also
the nationally interpreted and shaped perceptions of “modernity” that
emerged through consumption and advertisements (see also Kühschelm
et al. 2012: 25–37; Möhring 2009; Scholliers 2001).
Yet, these rich and differentiated forms of consumerism were part of
attitudes formed by capitalist industrialization and in late imperial multi-
ethnic societal contexts. The emergence of socialist societies, first in the
Soviet Union following the 1917 October Revolution and then as a
result of the communist hegemony in Eastern Europe after the Second
World War, did not suppress consumerism there but predetermined it:
consumerism and related advertising emerged in a Soviet style.
In line with this, the last two sections are dedicated to consumer
and advertising cultures within the Soviet Union and its satellite states:
The second section highlights the specific “Soviet Style” of Adver-
tising and Consumption, but also traces its roots and consequences.
Timm Schönfelder outlines the development through the lens of pelt
commodification in Leipzig and emphasizes that Nazi politics cut busi-
ness ties because of the influential role of Jewish pelt merchants. Since
furs could not be advertised in socialist societies as luxury goods, the
socialization of fur production and trade in the Soviet Union and the
GDR and the market regulation shows how pelt products were used as
trading goods with Western countries in order to acquire valuta. Schön-
felder’s case study demonstrates clearly how Soviet ideology shaped the
handling of consumption and influenced cultural practices. Other exam-
ples of this influence are discussed by Iryna Skubii. Consumption in
the interpretation of Bolshevik ideology in the early Soviet Union was
primarily based on the fight against the Western style of life and the
critics of “bourgeois” consumption culture. Commercial and state adver-
tisements in the 1920 and 1930s were used to advertise goods and locate
them within the socialist society. Hence, elite and prestigious goods were
ideologized, advertised and consumed according to a particular Soviet
variation of consumerism. Elite commodities, such as chocolate and furs,
were assessed as anti-communist behavior by early Soviet ideology in the
first decade of Soviet rule, but were finally reinterpreted as representations
of Soviet modernity, prosperity and abundance by the mid-1930s. Tracing
the emergence of the so-called world of Soviet goods along the non-linear
path from their rejection to their adoption, and, later, from adoption to
appropriation, Skubii uncovers the logic behind the advertisement of elite
goods in the early Soviet period and provides explanations as to why the
early Soviet cultural “battle” failed. Then, Adelina Stefan explores the
tense relationship between socialist ideology, “Soviet style” consumption
and the need to sell products, even to Western, ‘bourgeois’ customers
and discusses a way to advertise the socialist way of life. Hence, tourism
in Romania was promoted through the advertisement of “authentic” food
as a main tourist experience as well as an iconic element of socialist Roma-
nian identity. Thus, food is depicted not only as a basis of existence, but
as part of a lifestyle representing pleasure and leisure.
Since these three case studies discuss the implementation of socialist
consumerism and advertising, the third section Transformations in
Socialist Consumer Cultures and Advertisements explores the fate of
socialist consumerism in the period of late socialism and also highlights
the impact of mass media. First, using the example of the Estonian Film
and Advertising Bureau Eesti Reklaamfilm, Airi Uuna highlights how
the USSR struggled to ensure the provision of high-quality products or
simply a steady supply of consumer items for its citizens and how commer-
cial advertising was encouraged by the Soviet authorities under the condi-
tions of planned economies. This chapter highlights the importance of
case studies on the Soviet Republics, since Eesti Reklaamfilm ‘assimilated’
the Soviet lifestyle for Estonians, while also introducing slight modifica-
tions. In this way, advertisements became part of Soviet soft power, which
was effectively applied in Estonia. This ideologically motivated reinterpre-
tation of consumer goods was not only a signature of early Soviet Union,
but also of its last decades in which Western influence increased. Although
ideologists considered tobacco smoking a Western habit, smoking was
part of Soviet everyday life too. However, the marketing of cigarettes was
less intensive than in Western societies. Trish Stark’s outline of smoking
in the Soviet world and tobacco advertisements shows that the Soviet
regime was unable to suppress the habit among the population, which
increased after 1991, largely because of Westernized promotion and
product design. The scarcity of consumer goods produced in the Soviet
Bloc and the allure of largely unavailable Western products provoked a
desire for a similar kind of consumerism. Using the Hungarian consumer
market as an example, Annina Gagyjova discusses how the perception
of Western consumerism and advertisement together with the less flam-
boyantly packaged and advertised products of socialist economies woke
a desire for Western-style consumerism across the Soviet Bloc. The lega-
cies of this perception could be interpreted as one of the main reasons
why many rejected an increasingly unpopular socialist system. However,
the case of Hungary with its particular understanding of the socialist
good life—very much shaped by the shattering experience of uprising
in 1956—created what later became known as “Goulash Communism”.
Especially in the 1970s and 1980s, Hungarian consumption culture
became very much informed by Western consumerist trends so that the
perception of Western consumer goods served as positive reflection foils
and woke desires. In comparison with most other socialist countries,
Hungary succeeded in providing more colorful and varied consumption
possibilities, which were produced by a small stratum of entrepreneurs,
while a growing number of citizens was unable to make ends meet. The
conspicuous consumption of Western luxury goods by a new economic
elite became a signifier for how the state party had distanced itself from
the intrinsically socialist values of equality and social security. The three
examples explored in this section show how socialist ideology influenced
consumption and advertising, but the socialist vision of a good life was
not realized in the eyes of the Soviet consumers—it failed, while ‘good
life’ was instead associated with Western consumer goods. The legacies
of socialist economics grew during the lifetime of the Eastern Bloc and
the final “nail in the coffin’ at the end of 1980s was not least due to
the Republics” striving for independence, but also people’s longing for
better consumer conditions. The concluding and summarizing chapter by
Kirsten Bönker gives a short overview of the state of the art regarding
the cultural history of consumption in Eastern Europe. Thus, it pays
special attention to the political potential of consumption, its significance
for political communication and the impact of medialization on consumer
cultures and advertising since the late nineteenth century. In particular, it
reflects on methodical approaches and concepts based on cultural and
new political history that draw on a constructivist and broad concept of
consumption. Bönker highlights that we may analyze the consumer as a
political actor and explore in what way various actors had the opportunity
to (de-)politicize consumption.
Consumerism and advertisements were cultural practices representing
habitus and self-perception of both, individuals and the society, so that
they were it could also instrumentalized and politicized as tools of soft
power in order to mobilize the population in favor of the state and
nation, in accord with the Roman adage of “bread and games”. The
different case studies in particular underline the complexity and hetero-
geneity of this region and want to reflect differentia specifica within
the region and in comparison, with Western European consumption
and advertising styles, not least to discuss “socialist modernity”. Tracing
consumption since the tail end of the nineteenth century, as well as
focusing on Soviet and socialist forms of consumption, Consuming and
Advertising aims at historicizing and conceptualizing “consumption”
and “advertising” in Eastern Europe by deconstructing still prevalent
images (particularly outside academia) of Eastern European and Russian
forms of consumerisms and advertisements and through that at inciting
more comparative research through the volume’s transnational and cross-
epochal approach. Doing so, it contributes to a discussion on modernities
in Europe: Consumption and Advertising delivers new insights into soci-
etal and political transformations as well as into the relations between the
societies and states during the twentieth century.
Notes
1. The series Worlds of consumption is edited by Hartmut Berghoff and
Jan Logemann and published by Palgrave Macmillan, whereas the series
Cultures of consumption based on a programme directed by Frank Trent-
mann is published by Bloomsbury.
2. Since Eastern European scholars often publish their studies originally in

English or in translation, we quote their publications in English, if possible.
We also point to particular bibliographic information on literature in
Eastern European languages provided in the chapters.
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Mich.; he is well and talks encouraging. We have no
shelter of any kind whatever. Eighteen or twenty die
per day. Cold and damp nights. The dews wet things
through completely, and by morning all nearly chilled.
Wood getting scarce. On the outside it is a regular
wilderness of pines. Railroad a mile off and can just
see the cars as they go by, which is the only sign of
civilization in sight. Rebels all the while at work
making the prison stronger. Very poor meal, and not
so much to-day as formerly. My young friend Billy
Havens was sent to the hospital about the time we
left Richmond. Shall be glad to hear of his recovery.
Prevailing conversation is food and exchange.
March 19.—A good deal of fighting going on
among us. A large number of sailors and marines are
confined with us, and they are a quarrelsome set. I
have a very sore hand, caused by cutting a hole
through the car trying to get out. I have to write with
my left hand. It is going to be an awful place during
the summer months here, and thousands will die no
doubt.
March 21.—Prison gradually filling up with forlorn
looking creatures. Wood is being burned up
gradually. Have taken in my old acquaintance and a
member of my own company “A” 9th Mich. Cavalry,
Wm. B. Rowe. Sergt. Rowe is a tall, straight, dark
complexioned man, about thirty-five years old. He
was captured while carrying dispatches from
Knoxville to Gen. Burnside. Has been a prisoner two
or three months, and was in Pemerton Building until
sent here. He is a tough, able-bodied man. Every day
I find new Michigan men, some of them old
acquaintances.
March 23.—Stockade all up, and we are penned
in. Our mess is out of filthy lucre—otherwise, busted.
Sold my overcoat to a guard, and for luxuries we are
eating that up. My blanket keeps us all warm. There
are two more in our mess. Daytimes the large spread
is stretched three or four feet high on four sticks, and
keeps off the sun, and at night taken down for a
cover.
March 24.—Digging a tunnel to get out of this
place. Prison getting filthy. Prisoners somewhat to
blame for it. Good many dying, and they are those
who take no care of themselves, drink poor water,
etc.
March 25.—Lieut. Piersons is no longer in
command of the prison, but instead a Capt. Wirtz.
Came inside to-day and looked us over. Is not a very
prepossessing looking chap. Is about thirty-five or
forty years old, rather tall, and a little stoop
shouldered; skin has a pale, white livered look, with
thin lips. Has a sneering sort of cast of countenance.
Makes a fellow feel as if he would like to go up and
boot him. Should judge he was a Swede, or some
such countryman. Hendryx thinks he could make it
warm for him in short order if he only had a chance.
Wirtz wears considerable jewelry on his person—
long watch chain, something that looks like a
diamond for a pin in his shirt, and wears patent
leather boots or shoes. I asked him if he didn’t think
we would be exchanged soon. He said: Oh, yes, we
would be exchanged soon. Somehow or other this
assurance don’t elate us much; perhaps it was his
manner when saying it. Andersonville is getting to be
a rather bad place as it grows warmer. Several sick
with fevers and sores.
March 26.—Well, well, my birthday came six days
ago, and how old do you think I am? Let me see.
Appearances would seem to indicate that I am thirty
or thereabouts, but as I was born on the 20th day of
March, 1843, I must now be just twenty-one years of
age, this being the year 1864. Of age and six days
over. I thought that when a man became of age, he
generally became free and his own master as well. If
this ain’t a burlesque on that old time-honored
custom, then carry me out—but not feet foremost.
March 27.—We have issued to us once each day
about a pint of beans, or more properly peas, (full of
bugs), and three-quarters of a pint of meal, and
nearly every day a piece of bacon the size of your
two fingers, probably about three or four ounces.
This is very good rations taken in comparison to what
I have received before. The pine which we use in
cooking is pitch pine, and a black smoke arises from
it; consequently we are black as negroes. Prison
gradually filling from day to day, and situation rather
more unhealthy. Occasionally a squad comes in who
have been lately captured, and they tell of our
battles, sometimes victorious and sometimes
otherwise. Sometimes we are hopeful and
sometimes the reverse. Take all the exercise we can,
drink no water, and try to get along. It is a sad sight
to see the men die so fast. New prisoners die the
quickest and are buried in the near vicinity, we are
told in trenches without coffins. Sometimes we have
visitors of citizens and women who come to look at
us. There is sympathy in some of their faces and in
some a lack of it. A dead line composed of slats of
boards runs around on the inside of the wall, about
twelve or fourteen feet from the wall, and we are not
allowed to go near it on pain of being shot by the
guard.
March 28.—We are squadded over to-day, and
rations about to come in. It’s a sickly dirty place.
Seems as if the sun was not over a mile high, and
has a particular grudge against us. Wirtz comes
inside and has began to be very insolent. Is
constantly watching for tunnels. He is a brute. We
call him the “Flying Dutchman.” Came across Sergt.
Bullock, of my regiment, whom I last saw on Belle
Isle. From a fat, chubby young fellow, he is a perfect
wreck. Lost his voice and can hardly speak aloud;
nothing but skin and bone, and black and ragged.
Never saw such a change in a human being. Cannot
possibly live, I don’t think; still he is plucky and hates
to die. Goes all around enquiring for news, and the
least thing encouraging cheers him up. Capt.
Moseby, of the raiders, is in the same squad with me.
He is quite an intelligent fellow and often talks with
us. We lend him our boiling cup which he returns with
thanks. Better to keep on the right side of him, if we
can without countenancing his murderous
operations.
March 29.—Raiders getting more bold as the
situation grows worse. Often rob a man now of all he
has, in public, making no attempt at concealment. In
sticking up for the weaker party, our mess gets into
trouble nearly every day, and particularly Hendryx,
who will fight any time.
March 30.—The gate opens every little while
letting some poor victims into this terrible place,
which is already much worse than Belle Isle. Seems
as if our government is at fault in not providing some
way to get us out of here. The hot weather months
must kill us all outright. Feel myself at times sick and
feverish with no strength seemingly. Dr. Lewis
worries, worries, all the day long, and it’s all we can
do to keep him from giving up entirely. Sergt. Rowe
takes things as they come in dogged silence. Looks
like a caged lion. Hendryx sputters around, scolding
away, &c.
April 1.—This is an April Fool sure. Saw a fellow
to-day from our regiment, named Casey. Says I was
reported dead at the regiment, which is cheerful.
Perhaps it is just as well though, for them to
anticipate the event a few months. It is said that Wirtz
shot some one this morning. Often hear the guards
shoot and hear of men being killed. Am not ambitious
to go near them. Have completely lost my desire to
be on the outside working for extra rations. Prefer to
stick it out where I am than to have anything to do
with them. They are an ungodly crew, and should
have the warmest corner in that place we sometimes
hear mentioned.
April 2—James Robins, an Indiana soldier, is in our
close proximity. Was wounded and taken prisoner not
long since. Wound, which is in the thigh, is in a
terrible condition, and gangrene setting in. Although
he was carried to the gate to-day, was refused
admission to the hospital or medical attendance.
Rebels say they have no medicine for us. Robins has
been telling me about himself and family at home,
and his case is only one of a great many good
substantial men of families who must die in Southern
prisons, as victims to mismanagement. The poorer
the Confederacy, and the meaner they are, the more
need that our government should get us away from
here, and not put objectionable men at the head of
exchange to prevent our being sent home or back to
our commands.
April 3—We have stopped wondering at suffering
or being surprised at anything. Can’t do the subject
justice and so don’t try. Walk around camp every
morning looking for acquaintances, the sick, &c. Can
see a dozen most any morning laying around dead. A
great many are terribly afflicted with diarrhea and
scurvy begins to take hold of some. Scurvy is a bad
disease, and taken in connection with the former is
sure death. Some have dropsy as well as scurvy, and
the swollen limbs and body are sad to see. To think
that these victims have people at home, mothers,
wives and sisters, who are thinking of them and
would do much for them if they had the chance, little
dreaming of their condition.
April 4.—Same old story—coming in and being
carried out; all have a feeling of lassitude which
prevents much exertion. Have been digging in a
tunnel for a day or two with a dozen others who are
in the secret. It’s hard work. A number of tunnels
have been discovered. The water now is very warm
and sickening.
April 5.—Dr. Lewis talks about nothing except his
family. Is the bluest mortal here, and worries himself
sick, let alone causes sufficient for that purpose. Is
poorly adapted for hardships. For reading we have
the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” donated to me by some one
when on Belle Isle. Guess I can repeat nearly all the
book by heart. Make new acquaintances every day.
“Scotty,” a marine, just now is edifying our mess with
his salt water yarns, and they are tough ones. I tell
him he may die here; still he declares they are true.
April 6—John Smith is here and numerous of his
family. So many go by nick-names, that seldom any
go by their real names. Its “Minnesota,” “Big Charlie,”
“Little Jim,” “Marine Jack,” “Indiana Feller,” “Mopey,”
“Skinny,” “Smarty,” &c. Hendryx is known by the latter
name, Sanders is called “Dad,” Rowe is called the
“Michigan Sergeant,” Lewis is called plain “Doc.”
while I am called, for some unknown reason,
“Bugler.” I have heard it said that I looked just like a
Dutch bugler, and perhaps that is the reason of my
cognomen. Probably thirty die per day. The slightest
news about exchange is told from one to the other,
and gains every time repeated, until finally its grand
good news and sure exchange immediately. The
weak ones feed upon these reports and struggle
along from day to day. One hour they are all hope
and expectation and the next hour as bad the other
way. The worst looking scallawags perched upon the
stockade as guards, from boys just large enough to
handle a gun, to old men who ought to have been
dead years ago for the good of their country. Some
prisoners nearly naked, the majority in rags and daily
becoming more destitute. My clothes are good and
kept clean, health fair although very poor in flesh.
Man killed at the dead line.
April 7.—Capt. Wirtz prowls around the stockade
with a rebel escort of guards, looking for tunnels. Is
very suspicious of amateur wells which some have
dug for water. It is useless to speak to him about our
condition, as he will give us no satisfaction whatever.
Says it is good enough for us —— yankees. I am
deputized by half a dozen or so to speak to him as to
the probabilities of a change, and whether we may
not reasonably expect to be exchanged without
passing the summer here. In his position he must
know something in relation to our future. At the first
favorable moment shall approach his highness.
Prison is all the time being made stronger, more
guards coming and artillery looking at us rather
unpleasantly from many directions. Think it
impossible for any to get away here, so far from our
lines. The men too are not able to withstand the
hardships attendant upon an escape, still fully one-
half of all here are constantly on the alert for chances
to get away. Foremost in all schemes for freedom is
Hendryx, and we are engaging in a new tunnel
enterprise. The yankee is a curious animal, never
quiet until dead. There are some here who pray and
try to preach. Very many too who have heretofore
been religiously inclined, throw off all restraint and
are about the worst. Tried and found wanting it
seems to me. Those who find the least fault, make
the best of things as they come and grin and bear it,
get along the best. Weather getting warmer, water
warmer and nastier, food worse and less in
quantities, and more prisoners coming nearly every
day.
April 8.—We are digging with an old fire shovel at
our tunnel. The shovel is a prize; we also use half of
canteens, pieces of boards, &c. Its laborious work. A
dozen are engaged in it. Like going into a grave to go
into a tunnel. Soil light and liable to cave in. Take
turns in digging. Waste dirt carried to the stream in
small quantities and thrown in. Not much faith in the
enterprise, but work with the rest as a sort of duty.
Raiders acting fearful. Was boiling my cup of meal to-
day and one of the raiders ran against it and over it
went. Give him a whack side of the head that made
him see stars I should judge, and in return he made
me see the whole heavens. Battese, a big Indian,
rather helped me out of the scrape. All of our mess
came to my rescue. Came near being a big fight with
dozens engaged. Battese is a large full blooded six
foot Minnesota Indian, has quarters near us, and is a
noble fellow. He and other Indians have been in our
hundred for some weeks. They are quiet, attend to
their own business, and won’t stand much nonsense.
Great deal of fighting. One Duffy, a New York rough,
claims the light weight championship of
Andersonville. Regular battles quite often.
Remarkable how men will stand up and be
pummeled. Dr. Lewis daily getting worse off. Is
troubled with scurvy and dropsy. If he was at home
would be considered dangerously ill and in bed, but
he walks around slowly inquiring for news in a pitiful
way. I have probably fifty acquaintances here that
visit us each day to talk the situation over. Jimmy
Devers, my Michigan friend whom I found on Belle
Isle, Sergt. Bullock, of my regiment; Tom McGill, also
of Michigan; Michael Hoare, a schoolmate of mine
from earliest recollection, Dorr Blakeman, also a
resident of Jackson, Michigan, a little fellow named
Swan, who lived in Ypsylanti, Mich.; Burckhardt from
near Lansing; Hub Dakin, from Dansville, Mich., and
many others, meet often to compare notes, and we
have many a hearty laugh in the midst of misery. I
dicker and trade and often make an extra ration. We
sometimes draw small cow peas for rations, and
being a printer by trade, I spread the peas out on a
blanket and quickly pick them up one at a time, after
the manner of picking up type. One drawback is the
practice of unconsciously putting the beans into my
mouth. In this way I often eat up the whole printing
office. I have trials of skill with a fellow named Land,
who is also a printer. There are no other typos here
that I know of.
April 9.—See here Mr. Confederacy, this is going a
little too far. You have no business to kill us off at this
rate. About thirty or forty die daily. They have rigged
up an excuse for a hospital on the outside, where the
sick are taken. Admit none though who can walk or
help themselves in any way. Some of our men are
detailed to help as nurses, but in a majority of cases
those who go out on parole of honor are cut-throats
and robbers, who abuse a sick prisoner. Still, there
are exceptions to this rule. We hear stories of Capt.
Wirtz’s cruelty in punishing the men, but I hardly
credit all the stories. More prisoners to-day. Some
captured near Petersburg. Don’t know anything
about exchange. Scurvy and dropsy taking hold of
the men. Many are blind as soon as it becomes
night, and it is called moon blind. Caused, I suppose,
by sleeping with the moon shining in the face. Talked
with Michael Hoare, an old school fellow of mine.
Mike was captured while we were in Pemerton
Building, and was one of Dahlgreen’s men. Was
taken right in the suburbs of Richmond. Has told me
all the news of their failure on account of Kilpatrick
failing to make a junction at some point. Mike is a
great tall, slim fellow, and a good one. Said he heard
my name called out in Richmond as having a box of
eatables from the North. He also saw a man named
Shaw claim the box with a written order from me,
Shaw was one of our mess on Belle Isle. He was
sent to Richmond while sick, from the island, knew of
my expecting the box, and forged an order to get it.
Well, that was rough, still I probably wouldn’t have
got it any way. Better him than some rebel. Mike
gave me a lot of black pepper which we put into our
soup, which is a luxury. He has no end of talk at his
tongue’s end, and it is good to hear. Recounts how
once when I was about eight or ten years old and he
some older, I threw a base ball club and hit him on
the shins. Then ran and he couldn’t catch me. It was
when we were both going to school to A. A.
Henderson, in Jackson, Mich. Think I remember the
incident, and am strongly under the impression that
he caught me. It is thus that old friends meet after
many years. John McGuire is also here, another
Jackson man. He has a family at home and is
worried. Says he used to frequently see my brother
George at Hilton Head, before being captured.
April 10.—Getting warmer and warmer. Can see
the trees swaying back and forth on the outside, but
inside not a breath of fresh air. Our wood is all gone,
and we are now digging up stumps and roots for fuel
to cook with. Some of the first prisoners here have
passable huts made of logs, sticks, pieces of
blankets, &c. Room about all taken up in here now.
Rations not so large. Talk that they intend to make
the meal into bread before sending it inside, which
will be an improvement. Rations have settled down to
less than a pint of meal per day, with occasionally a
few peas, or an apology for a piece of bacon, for
each man. Should judge that they have hounds on
the outside to catch runaways, from the noise. Wirtz
don’t come in as much as formerly. The men make it
uncomfortable for him. As Jimmy Devers says, “He is
a terror.” I have omitted to mention Jimmy’s name of
late, although he is with us all the time—not in our
mess, but close by. He has an old pack of cards with
which we play to pass away the time. Many of the
men have testaments, and “house-wives” which they
have brought with them from home, and it is pitiful to
see them look at these things while thinking of their
loved ones at home.
April 11.—Dr. Lewis is very bad off with the scurvy
and diarrhea. We don’t think he can stand it much
longer, but make out to him that he will stick it
through. Our government must hear of our condition
here and get us away before long. If they don’t, its a
poor government to tie to. Hendryx and myself are
poor, as also are all the mess. Still in good health
compared with the generality of the prisoners. Jimmy
Devers has evidently sort of dried up, and it don’t
seem to make any difference whether he gets
anything to eat or not. He has now been a prisoner of
war nearly a year, and is in good health and very
hopeful of getting away in time. Sticks up for our
government and says there is some good reason for
our continued imprisonment. I can see none. As
many as 12,000 men here now, and crowded for
room. Death rate is in the neighborhood of eighty per
day. Hendryx prowls around all over the prison,
bringing us what good news he can, which is not
much. A very heavy dew nights, which is almost a
rain. Rebels very domineering. Many are tunneling to
get out. Our tunnel has been abandoned, as the
location was not practicable. Yank shot to-day near
our quarters. Approached too near the dead line.
Many of the men have dug down through the sand
and reached water, but it is poor; no better than out
of the creek.
April 12.—Another beautiful but warm day with no
news. Insects of all descriptions making their
appearance, such as lizards, a worm four or five
inches long, fleas, maggots &c. There is so much filth
about the camp that it is terrible trying to live here.
New prisoners are made sick the first hours of their
arrival by the stench which pervades the prison. Old
prisoners do not mind it so much, having become
used to it. No visitors come near us any more.
Everybody sick, almost, with scurvy—an awful
disease. New cases every day. I am afraid some
contagious disease will get among us, and if so every
man will die. My blanket a perfect God-send. Is large
and furnishes shelter from the burning sun. Hendryx
has a very sore arm which troubles him much. Even
he begins to look and feel bad. James Gordan, or
Gordenian, (I don’t know which) was killed to-day by
the guard. In crossing the creek on a small board
crossway men are often shot. It runs very near the
dead line, and guards take the occasion to shoot
parties who put their hands on the dead line in going
across. Some also reach up under the dead line to
get purer water, and are shot. Men seemingly
reckless of their lives. New prisoners coming in and
are shocked at the sights.
April 13.—Jack Shannon, from Ann Arbor, died this
morning. The raiders are the stronger party now, and
do as they please; and we are in nearly as much
danger now from our own men as from the rebels.
Capt. Moseby, of my own hundred, figures
conspicuously among the robberies, and is a terrible
villain. During the night some one stole my jacket.
Have traded off all superfluous clothes, and with the
loss of jacket have only pants, shirt, shoes, (no
stockings,) and hat; yet I am well dressed in
comparison with some others. Many have nothing
but an old pair of pants which reach, perhaps, to the
knees, and perhaps not. Hendryx has two shirts, and
should be mobbed. I do quite a business trading
rations, making soup for the sick ones, taking in
payment their raw food which they cannot eat. Get
many a little snack by so doing.
April 14.—At least twenty fights among our own
men this forenoon. It beats all what a snarling crowd
we are getting to be. The men are perfectly reckless,
and had just as soon have their necks broken by
fighting as anything else. New onions in camp. Very
small, and sell for $2 a bunch of four or five. Van
Tassel, a Pennsylvanian, is about to die. Many give
me parting injunctions relative to their families, in
case I should live through. Have half a dozen
photographs of dead men’s wives, with addresses on
the back of them. Seems to be pretty generally
conceded that if any get through, I will. Not a man
here now is in good health. An utter impossibility to
remain well. Signs of scurvy about my person. Still
adhere to our sanitary rules. Lewis anxious to get to
the hospital. Will die any way shortly, whether there
or here. Jimmy Devers, the old prisoner, coming
down. Those who have stood it bravely begin to
weaken.
April 15.—The hospital is a tough place to be in,
from all accounts. The detailed Yankees as soon as
they get a little authority are certain to use it for all it
is worth. In some cases before a man is fairly dead,
he is stripped of everything, coat, pants, shirt, finger
rings (if he has any), and everything of value taken
away. These the nurses trade to the guards. Does
not seem possible but such is the case, sad to relate.
Not very pleasant for a man just breathing his last,
and perhaps thinking of loved ones at home who are
all so unconscious of the condition of their soldier
father or brother, to be suddenly jerked about and
fought over, with the cursing and blaspheming he is
apt to hear. The sick now, or a portion of them, are
huddled up in one corner of the prison, to get as bad
as they can before being admitted to the outside
hospital. Every day I visit it, and come away sick at
heart that human beings should be thus treated.
April 26.—Ten days since I wrote in my diary, and
in those ten days was too much occupied in trying to
dig a tunnel to escape out of, to write any. On the
21st the tunnel was opened and two fellows
belonging to a Massachusetts regiment escaped to
the outside. Hendryx and myself next went out. The
night was very dark. Came up out of the ground
away on the outside of the guard. We crawled along
to gain the woods, and get by some pickets, and
when forty or fifty rods from the stockade, a shot was
fired at some one coming out of the hole. We
immediately jumped up and ran for dear life,
seemingly making more noise than a troop of cavalry.
It was almost daylight and away we went. Found I
could not run far and we slowed up, knowing we
would be caught, but hoping to get to some house
and get something to eat first. Found I was all broke
up for any exertion. In an hour we had traveled
perhaps three miles, were all covered with mud, and
scratched up. I had fell, too, in getting over some
logs, and it seemed to me broken all the ribs in my
body. Just as it was coming light in the east we heard
dogs after us. We expected it, and so armed
ourselves with clubs and sat down on a log. In a few
moments the hounds came up with us and began
smelling of us. Pretty soon five mounted rebels
arrived on the scene of action. They laughed to think
we expected to get away. Started us back towards
our charnel pen. Dogs did not offer to bite us, but
guards told us that if we had offered resistance or
started to run they would have torn us. Arrived at the
prison and after waiting an hour Capt. Wirtz
interviewed us. After cussing us a few minutes we
were put in the chain gang, where we remained two
days. This was not very fine, but contrary to
expectation not so bad after all. We had more to eat
than when inside, and we had shade to lay in, and
although my ancles were made very sore, do not
regret my escapade. Am not permanently hurt any.
We had quite an allowance of bacon while out, and
some spring water to drink. Also from the surgeon I
got some elder berries to steep into a tea to drink for
scurvy, which is beginning to take hold of me. Lewis
is sick and can hardly walk around. His days are few.
Have taken another into our mess, named Swan,
from Ypsilanti, Michigan. Is a fresh looking boy for
this place and looks like a girl.
April 27.—Well, I was out from under rebel guard
for an hour or so any way. Hurt my side though, and
caught a little cold. Am sore somewhat. Have given
up the idea of escaping. Think if Hendryx had been
alone he would have gotten away. Is tougher than I
am. A man caught stealing from one of his comrades
and stabbed with a knife and killed. To show how

Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in The Twentieth Century Magdalena Eriksroed Burger Full Chapter

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Consumption and Advertising in

Eastern Europe and Russia in the

ISBN 978-3-031-20203-2 ISBN 978-3-031-20204-9 (eBook)

specific developments of modernity in Eastern Europe, Russia, as well as

Bamberg, Germany Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger

The volume offers insights into current historical research on

Rise of Modern Consumption and Advertising before

“Soviet Style” of Advertising and Consumption

Transformations in Socialist Consumer Cultures and

People Index 291

PD Dr. Kirsten Bönker is head of the Institute for East European

activities at the university, she also works as a cultural manager and

Charakter’ sichern. Kommunalpolitik in einer multiethnischen Stadt der

Iryna Skubii is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at

in the field of Eastern European History at the Faculty of Medieval

ANIC Arhivele Nat, ionale Istorice Centrale (Romanian

Glavlit Glavnoe upravlenie po okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v

Handmade by Peasants for Metropolitan Consumers:

German Advertisements in the Late Russian Empire

Fig. 2 “Dekadentskie Z-duchi fabriki T-va R. Keler i Ko v Moskve”

The Role(s) of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a

Socialism Without Future: Consumption as a Marker of

Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking in the

Fig. 2 Pack of Krestianskie. Undated. Courtesy of Productive

Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger , Heidi Hein-Kircher ,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

—wrote Olga Prokhasko, litterateur, intellectual and the publisher

Entanglements and Overlaps of Modernities

imperialism and colonialism worldwide (Eisenstadt 2000: 14), as well as

2016: 37–38). Alternative modernity proceeds from the premise that

Consuming and Advertising follows this trend of recent research on

Consumerism, Consumer Societies and Advertising

the modern way of life are intertwined. These interconnections become

break-up of empires and democratization, the Revolutions of 1917 and

In Eastern Europe, particular forms of consumptions and specific ways

State of Research on Consumption

including economics, history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies

framework conditions and delivering a perspective “from above”. In addi-

socialism” (Crowley and Reid 2010), historians have comprehensively

the materiality turn (Gagliardi 1990). Scholarship on materiality in

Focal Perspectives and Structure

social and cultural contexts and variations of consumerism and adver-

textiles, woodwork, ceramics or basketry. These initiatives by state insti-

examines the various roles of the “new woman” as a consumer in the

2. Since Eastern European scholars often publish their studies originally in

Kleinschmidt, Christian. 2008. Konsumgesellschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &

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