Reconstructing the House of Culture

This is an anthropological investigation of the role played by the House(s) of Culture in the post-Soviet public sphere of Russia and other post-Soviet countries. The volume explores change and continuity between the Soviet and post-Soviet eras in the ways in which this institution, once a central element of the Soviet state's efforts to "bring culture to the masses," seeks to propagate norms and values through cultural and educational programs and the ways in which social policy agendas were and are reflected in its activities. The bulk of the presented research focuses on the social significance of the House of Culture in Siberia, particularly as a site of ethnic interactions between the dominant culture and indigenous minorities, but comparative research from other places is also included. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Brian Donahoe (Ph.D. Indiana University, 2004) is an independent researcher living in Kyzyl, Republic of Tyva. From 2004-2010 he was post-doctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. His research interests include the interaction between mobility and land tenure among nomadic (or formerly nomadic) groups under different administrative regimes; institutional analysis; and the dynamics of constructing, maintaining, and performing ethnic identity and indigeneity through the idiom of "culture."

Joachim Otto Habeck (Ph.D. Cambridge University, 2004) is coordinator of the Siberian Studies Centre at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. Having earlier pursued research on mobile pastoralists in the Russian North, he is now investigating cultural and ethno-cultural events and organizations, popular notions of culture, and gendered spaces of work and leisure. Employing the concept of lifestyle, he examines how rural and urban inhabitants of Siberia see themselves and want to be seen by others.