Korte, ! 1

Beyond Material Envy: The Stilyagi as a Symbol of Choice of Identity Lindsey Korte

A former stilyaga, Vasilii Aksenov, recounts his experience as a misunderstood youth

dissenter in 1950s Soviet society in his memoir In Search of Melancholy Baby.

Clothes provided yet another window on the West. That is why, as I've pointed out, they turned into such a fetish. If a girl in an American dress (how did she come by it?) showed up walking along Leningrad's Nevskii Prospect, she would soon be followed by a crowd of stilyagi. Swinging and swaying (which is how they thought Americans moved along Broadway-they even nicknamed Nevskii Prospect "Broad"), they would sing, "I've met a girl/As sweet as can be/ Her name is Peggy Lee." The first satirical article about the stilyagi described a gang of youths swaggering down Nevskii Prospect in stars-and-stripes ties. When you think about it, stilyagi were the first dissidents. 1

As other accounts of the stilyagi, both from the perspectives of local Soviets and

American visitors, the stilyagi embody a unique identity that emulated parts of

American culture and rebelled against elements of Soviet society, but did not fit into to

either paradigm entirely. However, the stilyagi serve a distinct purpose in

understanding Cold War relations and dissent against Soviet propaganda, specifically

in characterizing how Western influences create a sense of disillusion in the Soviet

system especially during the heightened austerity experienced under Stalin’s postwar

leadership. Alexei Yurchak describes this as having “Westernized imaginations” and

being fascinated with the “Imaginary West” that were characteristic of both the stilyagi

Vassilii Aksenov, In Search of Melancholy Baby, New York: Random House, 1985, 18.1

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and those who condemned them, which can further prove that the stilyagi play a

critical role in explaining how ordinary Soviet citizens viewed material representations

of the West. 2

In studying the stilyagi, scholars who study the Cold War competition of

ideologies can better understand the role that Western cultural influence had with the

development of cultural dissent in the Soviet Union and the correlation between the

disillusionment that ordinary Soviet citizens experienced in response to faulty

propaganda that allowed for the development of these “Westernized imaginations.” The

stilyagi and their retooling of what it meant to have a cultured identity, through their

fashion, music and dance preferences, new interpretation of gender roles, and their

clear loyalty to the American way of life demonstrates how Soviet youth, who felt

alienated by the regime’s goals and ideal, consequently looked to the West to find a

sense of belonging and a way to express themselves while not strictly aligning with

either side.

Instead, their desire was to create a more accepting Soviet society by dissenting

culturally as illustrated in the stilyagi's imaginations of the West. In this way, the

stilyagi imagined a more open Soviet society in which minor variations, such as in how

one's choice in fashion represents the simple act of choosing one's own identity. These

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, 2

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 170.

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basic principles behind the motivations for the stilyagi's application of cultural dissent

would eventually see light during the openness experienced during Khrushchev's Thaw,

in which elements of practical areas of society experienced a relief from the crackdown

of the austere ideas transmitted through propaganda. The transition from heavy

Stalinist censorship in publication to samizdat publishing, which became a symbol for

a sense of progress in the tolerance in the ideas that are crucial to the development of

individual identities for ordinary citizens elucidates other experiences of cultural

dissent under similar conditions.

A holistic understanding of the stilyagi leads to an understanding of how

cultural dissent stands for something greater than what it appears to be on the surface.

In the context that the stilyagi developed under, their cultural choices pertaining to

identity spoke louder than outright political action could, as seen in relative limited

success of Soviet political dissent during 1960s. Instead, the stilyagi's actions and style

preference signaled that choice and identity beyond the Soviet propagated norm was

more than acceptable, it was necessary to concerns of citizens to be acknowledged by

the political leadership. And eventually, it would deter the inadequate political goals

implemented during Stalin's later leadership and extended until the downfall the Soviet

Union through the widespread disillusion and discontent with that marginalized status

of citizens' concerns. The interpretation of the stilyagi as the Soviet Union's first

dissenters leads to a better comprehension of how ordinary Soviet citizens lost faith in

the regime. The emergence and existence of the stilyagi marks an identifiable moment

that can be considered as a catalyst to the fall of communism in the Soviet Union.

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Literature Review

Much of the previous scholarship on the stilyagi is devoted to disproving previous

beliefs about this group of hipsters, notably those of American observers who witnessed this

strange group of Soviet youth when they visited the Soviet Union during the 1950s. Partially

due to their misunderstandings of Soviet culture and their own Cold War era biases,

Americans tended to view the stilyagi as political protesters and not as cultural dissenters.

Contemporary scholars who are knowledgeable about the stilyagi and Soviet culture,

especially during the years between the conclusion of the Second World War and Stalin's

death, recognize that understanding the stilyagi as a cultural dissent movement and how the

dissatisfaction that the majority of the citizens responded to the stilyagi is a critical

component in understanding Cold War era Soviet society.

By pulling from the relevant points of previous scholars, like Mark Edele and Alexei

Yurchak, and pairing their scholarship with firsthand accounts of stilyagi in the early 1950s,

this article stands to create a more comprehensive analysis of the stilyagi and what their role

as cultural dissenters has in understanding internal dissatisfaction with the Soviet system and

how it can be used as a way to study the complex ideological competition between the two

superpowers during the Cold War.

In addition, Tania Lozansky's “The Role of Dissent in the Soviet Union Since 1953” was

a useful framework to reinforce the paradigm of developing ideas of disillusion in the state

ideology and its preferred means of propaganda as the earliest stages of dissent. While her

work is not focused on the stilyagi and their actions of dissent, her work is especially practical

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in citing examples of the disillusioning factors of propaganda during Stalin's leadership and

pre-Thaw motivations to dissent.

Furthermore, she explains how they later manifested in politically motivated actions of

dissent when political dissent became a more acceptable and unavoidable factor from the

Thaw on to the death of the Soviet Union, and its accompanying waves of harsh reprisals on

the varying forms of dissent, notably in the form of local Soviet poetry published during

samizdat's popularity. Lozansky aptly refers to these conditions that allow for Soviet dissent

to form as “thaws” and “freezes,” respectfully. This is useful in explaining why the stilyagi

movement, though unique in character, was not isolated in its motivating ideas and

framework for cultural dissent.‑ This paradigm for the interaction between cultural dissent 3

and societal change is used to further extrapolate the important influences that the stilyagi

put forth for the rest of the history of dissent in the Soviet Union.

However, Yurchak's and Edele's respective scholarship is more contingent on

explaining the more politically soft manifestations of propaganda resistance in the form of

cultural rebellion, it is the combined perspective of examining the uniqueness of cultural

dissent with the extended effects on the political deterioration of the state that occurred with

the prolonged disillusionment of political promises embedded in propaganda that occurred

long before the political collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Even Frederick

Starr, a scholar on the history of jazz in the Soviet Union, has arrived to similar conclusions

! Tania E. Lozansky, “The Role of Dissent in the Soviet Union Since 1953,” The Concord Review (1989): 16-17, 3http://www.tcr.org/tcr/essays/Web_Dissent.pdf (accessed June 10, 2013).

Korte, ! 6

about the stilyagi's existence and their significance in the history of the Cold War. 4

Without their work deciphering both Russian and American sources, the American and

even contemporary Russian views on the stilyagi would be entirely misconstrued and

diminished in significance. Yurchak's scholarship maintains that even though the stilyagi

themselves were a “relatively small subculture,” their existence reveals that “they were a

symptom of a much bigger emerging importance of Westernized imaginations among millions

of regular Soviet youth, most of whom actually looked at the stilyagi with disdain.” The 5

strengths of these sources stem from the variety of sources that are considered in their

respective studies.

Unlike misleading studies predating their work, in which the stilyagi were portrayed

as American youth aspirants looking to immortalize an American identity over a Soviet self in

order to fully emulate American culture, Yurchak, Edele, and Starr utilize a variety of Russian

language accounts by stilyagi and other sources Soviet sources that recorded reactions to the

youth dissenters as voices for a larger symbolic change in Soviet society when it came to the

subject of identity formation. Previous scholars tend to focus on images of the stilyagi that

resemble other cultural dissent movements that occurred throughout the world at the same

time, such as Britain's Teddy Boys subculture. 6

S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, New York: Proscenium 4

Publishers Inc, 1994, 239.

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, 5

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 170.

Mark Edele, “Strange Young Men in Stalin’s Moscow: The Birth and Life of the Stilyagi, 1945-1953,” 6

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 50 (2002): 49.

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While it is crucial to note that the stilyagi movement was not isolated, it should not be

diminished to being categorized as merely an archetype of rebellious youth. Edele’s work

dispels those who preceded him in researching the stilyagi as focusing too much on the

generalizations that can be made about the stilyagi and other rebellious youth groups. Edele, 7

more so than any other scholar, accurately tracks the origins to the stilyagi in the Soviet

Union to the immediate Postwar period as young men who missed out serving militarily in the

war became influenced by veterans who brought back American goods, which subsequently

shaped the new generation of youth’s concept of masculinity and how they chose to express

their newfound identity. 8

Starr's narrow focus on the role of jazz and its impact on the stilyagi conjures up

relevant information on how even being associated with jazz music, whether actually owning

copies of American jazz music or emulating the style in the Soviet Union, was a dangerous

practice that could potentially lead to gulag imprisonment, a fact not developed in other

sources.‑ Furthermore, Starr describes jazz as the “centerpiece” to the stilyagi movement and 9

the popularity of jazz in the Soviet Union was to be attributed to the “incubator” that this

dissident movement provided for its enigmatic effect on the fans of the music despite the ban

on jazz that is characteristic of the Stalinist era.‑ 10

Ibid, 37-61.7

Ibid.8

! S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, New York: Proscenium 9Publishers Inc, 1994, 241-242.

! S. Ibid, 237.10

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Peter Kenez's A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End provides a

very astute and scholarly analysis of the period between the Second World War and the year

of Stalin's death in 1953, which I will refer to as Stalin's final years. This source is particularly

useful for establishing a better understanding of what type of environment brewed for the

stilyagi to form and to better understand what they were responding to in Soviet society.‑ 11

Utilizing the work of previous scholars like Edele, Yurchak, and Starr, there are clear

strengths in being able to contextualize the existence of the stilyagi to something beyond

rebellious youth trying to make a statement and being able to recognize the nuances in this

particular movement and what it means in the larger sense for Soviet and Cold War history.

Research Findings

Literally translated, the term stilyaga means “style chaser.” After the conclusion of

World War II, a period devoid of traditional masculine figures due to the large amounts of

soldiers fighting abroad and stationed away from the public, a new generation of young men

who missed their opportunity to serve their country sought to find a masculine identity;

making the stilyagi uniquely centered on the redefinition of Soviet masculinity from the

influence of Western culture that they did not completely understand but rather sought to

emulate the ideas behind the symbolic meaning of choice that the Western goods suggested to

! Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge: Cambridge 11University Press, 1999.

Korte, ! 9

impressionable young men. With the influx of veterans returning from abroad with access to

new and diverse Western goods and their accompanying ideas of freedom, these young men

drew influence from what they perceived as a new, more symbolically significant form of

masculinity, however traditionally unorthodox it seemed, to construct a new identity for

themselves.

Similar trends of young people trying to adopt new and rebellious identities became

commonplace worldwide, even in the United States, the source of the stilyagi's inspiration.

Previously, it was thought that the stilyagi emerged with the greater cultural freedoms

associated with the Thaw by means of lessening censorship regulations and increasing contact

with other nations in efforts to enhance cultural contact. However, when analyzed it is obvious

that even during the late 1940s young men began to copy American style and rebel against the

Stalinist regime, notably well before the Khrushchev years. Associating a group known for

exhibiting ideals of freedom with the intent to rebel against the system with a more relaxed

and open society is not logical given the context of Soviet history.

A more logical explanation of the origin of the stilyagi is actually unrelated to political

ideology, and is related to the refashioning of gender identity to fit in the new climate of

Postwar society. Additionally, looking at the similar movements globally, the stilyagi

organically fit in the context of adjusting to postwar society and the associated identity

changes that come along with such societal and cultural changes.

Interestingly, the original progenitor to the stilyaga had very little relation to making a

statement against the Soviet regime by embracing Western culture. The true originators of the

“style hunters” were known as the Stiliazhnichestvo, who were children of the elite and were

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literally at the top tier of society and were able to access foreign luxury goods, especially

clothing, with ease. Another youth group, the Stateniks, a group clearly infatuated with

emulated American culture, began to take the style and emulate what the Stiliazhnichestvo

represented but with the resources that they had in Soviet society and transformed their

image to more accurately resemble styles of the American youth and began to make a

statement against the Soviet Union and their discontent for Soviet society and made their

admiration for American culture well known to the public. Finally, after two previous phases,

the stilyagi emerge as products of the two youth movements before them.

Though American-style jazz and swing music was embraced in varying degrees by all

three groups, it really isn’t until the stilyagi that a full commitment to American culture

becomes predominate as seen in how a stilyaga became expected to adopt an American

version of their name and spoke commonly spoke in American slang. Examining the topic of

the stilyagi beyond its immediate associations allows for a more holistic understanding.

Looking at the genesis of the stilyagi’s emergence and influences leads to a more complete

understanding of how the stilyagi were clearly a product of Soviet societal changes during the

immediate Postwar period and played a crucial role in shaping methods of cultural dissent in

the Soviet Union, peaking at a pivotal moment in Soviet and Cold War history, the period of

Stalin’s declining health and his eventual death.

While the stilyagi's alteration of American fashion constituted their most identifiable

aperture to the West, their connection with American-derived jazz and swing music provided

the most visceral Western aperture for the youths complete their newly constructed identity.

Jazz also carried a message strictly against Stalin and his ban on jazz music. Aksenov

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characterized jazz music to be America's most powerful indirect influence, namely through

Voice of America broadcasts that stealthily penetrated the Iron Curtain, on Soviet youths of

his generation due to the fact that the music itself was so visceral and full of emotion that it

caused a groundswell of emotions that would produce disbelief in Stalinism by causing the

impressionable youth to look West. 12

The slogan “Down with Stalin! Up with jazz!” popularized these emotions that were

rooted in the distant feelings of belonging associated with the Soviet state and the tangible

feelings of creative individual expression that were fostered in the West. Furthermore, jazz is a

critical component in understanding the imperative need for individualized identity and sense

of belonging that was devoid in the state during the immediate post-war period until Stalin's

death and the subsequent Thaw on Soviet extremes; fashion that resembled that of their

American counterparts brought upon mere public disdain and a certain stigma attached to

their appearances, while owning jazz music or even an association with the music brought

upon “fistfights with Komsomol patrols or even police raids.” As a result, illegal music could

only be purchased in Leningrad, the hub of Soviet modernization, or more popularly, the

stilyagi turned to their own means by making their own copies on severely antiquated

equipment or by the ingenious method of transforming old x-ray plates into pseudo-records

by crating their own grooves to store music. For Aksenov, this music and the means to obtain

it created a sense of optimism and revelation through his encounter with “Melancholy Baby”

Aksenov, 18.12

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through these illegally fabricated Western connections. 13

An example of the illegally constructed pseudo-records that the stilyagi used to establish a connection with the West while circumventing the Soviet-issued ban on jazz. 14

Like any other significant moment in history, the stilyagi movement is multifaceted

and is greatly shaped by the political, cultural, and societal climate of the time. After the

tensions that arose after the defeat of Nazi Germany between the United States and the Soviet

Union, Soviet leadership reacted publicly to eminent subversive cultural competition the

enemy which greatly influenced the extreme reactions to the stilyagi.

One example of such reactions by Soviet citizens to the seemingly subversive stilyagi

was aptly recorded by Russian-American writer Maurice Hindus, who straddled the conflict

with conflicting allegiances between the superpowers. Hindus witnessed a confrontation

between an apparent stilyaga and a woman of the older generation who saw his acts of

“hooliganism” as deviant and subversive; her combative words toward the young man that

imply that the youth is sub-human and that he could not have been born from a woman, but

rather a “she-wolf” elucidate the extreme disdain for the stilyaga and the ideals that this new

Ibid, 17-20.13

Yurchak, Alexei, “X-ray Record of Little Richard, “Tutti Fruiti” (around 1955),” published in 2005, in Alexei Yurchak, 14

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 184.

Korte, ! 13

Korte, ! 14

generation represents. 15

There are several components to the image that the stilyagi crafted to portray their

unorthodox identity. Most identifiable was the style of clothing that they sought to wear to

distinguish themselves from their peers. As Aksenov's excerpt describes, stylishness in the

form of fashion allowed for an identifiable “window to the West” that would solidify their

attempts to attain a Western style of identity. Monochromatic uniformity tended to be the 16

norm in terms of Soviet fashion, especially amongst members of the Soviet Union's youth

communist party, known as the Komsomol. Beliaev, a Soviet witness to the stilyagi and a

contributor to the Soviet satirical magazine Krokodil, reacted to their style by characterizing it

as “incredibly absurd.” 17

Beliaev's reaction to this new style typified that of most ordinary Soviet citizens.

Visually, the stilyagi epitomized foreignness and rebelling against Soviet norms; their dress

was described by Beliaev and other witnesses as being characterized by bright colors, strange

jackets with odd lapels, wide-legged pants, and thick-soled shoes. Even minute details were

important to a stilyaga's image, everything from colorful socks to the correct number of

buttons, and especially a visually loud necktie were all considered necessary for a stilyaga to

Hindus, Maurice, House Without a Roof: Russia after Forty-three Years of Revolution, Garden City, 15

NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961.

Aksenov, 18.16

Beliaev, cited in James von Geldern and Richard Stites, eds., Mass Culture in Soviet Russia, Bloomington: 17

Indiana University Press, 1995, 451.

Korte, ! 15

be accepted within his own group. 18

American observations reveal a flawed interpretation of the stilyagi as hooligans who

lack a purpose and choose this type of life style out of mere curiosity for American goods and a

sense of delinquency that stems from flaws in the Soviet system. John Gunther's observations

recorded in his book, Inside Russia Today, plays on how ordinary Soviet citizens perceived

the stilyagi, but without the same context for forming these ideas about the youth.

Additionally, Gunther's American perspective prevents him from separating the stilyagi from

American juvenile delinquents, which leads to a misunderstanding about the core tenets

behind the stilyagi. Gunther allows his Cold War biases and American perspective interfere

with his explanation of why the stilyagi emerged, citing excessive frustrations due to the lack

of “outlet” or things to keep the youth busy, creating an inseparable link between political

shortcomings of the regime and youth alcoholism that is directly caused by “frustration [that]

leads to exaggerated behavior.” 19

More significantly than revealing the inaccuracies that were recorded by foreign

visitors, American sources, like Gunther, inadvertently contribute to a more in depth

understanding of biases that shape the nature of Cold War era competition between the

superpowers. Much like what Gunther's narrative reveals about Cold War biases, Harrison

Salisbury's commentary on his observations of the forming stilyagi indicate an interference of

Aksenov, 13.18

John Gunther, Inside Russia Today, Revised Edition, 1962. New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 72.19

Korte, ! 16

American bias that is present when the stilyagi are analyzed from a perspective devoid of

complete context, leading to an incomplete and obstructed view of the Soviet Union's first

dissidents. 20

Salisbury's bias contains an overemphasis on a single causation for the stilyagi's

emergence, and an incorrect one at that. Salisbury, a journalist correspondent, cites the

release of the American film Tarzan in the Soviet Union as what sparked the youth dissent

movement, which completely negates the culmination of ideas that scholars have put forth

about the development of the stilyagi as being shaped by multiple Soviet influences. Adding

to the sorts of biases and revelations that Gunther puts forth, Salisbury's commentary reveals

the American belief of having directly contributed to the formation of the stilyagi and further

playing into the themes of extreme ideological competition between the United States and the

Soviet Union. 21

Because the stilyagi invoked both inward and outward objection, Soviet sources were

also not exempt of contributing bias in presenting their observations on the emergence of the

group of mostly privileged youth dissidents. In late 1953, as the stilyagi reach their maturity,

S. Gushkov contributed an article to Komsomol'skaia Pravda that most likely was intended as

Harrison E. Salisbury, American in Russia, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955, 262.20

Salisbury, 262.21

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an allegory to combat the popularity and destructiveness of the stilyagi by warning of its

damaging effects on the individual and the collective. 22

S. Gushkov, “Grigory Dudko Finds Friends,” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, http://22www.soviethistory.org/index.phppage=article&ArticleID=1954gushkov&SubjectID=1954stilyaga&Year=1954, accessed December 11, 2011.

Korte, ! 18

Printed in a 1957 edition of Krokadi, this graphic plays on the widely held belief that the stilyagi were ridiculed

at every possible occasion. This particular image portrays the stilyaga and his girlfriend as subhuman. 23

Gushkov sets up an allegorical story of Grigorii Dudko, a bright, young borderline

Stakhanovite who loses his prestige and place in society after coming under the influence of a

deviant stilyaga who causes Dudko to lose all personal and professional prestige. The article

is essentially an outlet to portray the Komsomol as the saving grace of youth society and

personal dignity, while simultaneously reducing the stilyagi as a societal ill that required

Communist party intervention to eradicate. The article clearly lacks any sort of research to

explain the stilyagi's central tenets or at least acknowledge some sort of credence to the

stilyagi's attempt at refashioning the Soviet youth identity and making a valid statement

against the existing regime, thus contributing to the bias and misinformation pertaining to the

stilyagi and what they represented. 24

Historical Significance

After the tensions that arose after the defeat of Nazi Germany between the United

States and the Soviet Union, Soviet leadership reacted publicly to eminent cultural

competition “with the capitalist West [would be] inherently subversive,” which greatly

L. Khudiakov, “Monkeys,” Krokadil 2 (1957): 7.23

Gushkov, “Grigory Dudko Finds Friends.”24

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influenced the extreme reactions to the stilyagi. This can be seen when Hindus witnessed a 25

confrontation between an apparent stilyaga and a woman of the older generation who saw his

acts of “hooliganism” as deviant and subversive; her combative words toward the young man

that imply that the youth is sub-human and that he could not have been born from a woman,

but rather a “she-wolf” elucidate the extreme disdain for the stilyaga and the ideals that this

new generation represents. 26

As Hindus’s account indicates a rift between generational changes in the definition of

kulturnost, or what one considers to be cultural and appropriate for society, which inherently

ties in questions of ideology. Undoubtedly, this radical change between one generation and

the next creates tension that caused the stilyagi to become even more distant from Soviet

norms that the previous generation largely upheld and found solace in the consistency of

Soviet ideals and more even more visibly successful from their predecessors, the

Stiliazhnichestvo and the Stateniks. The stilyagi’s ideological connection to the West and 27

their subsequent conflict with peers in their own generation is perhaps more telling about the

conflict of ideological loyalty between the stilyagi and the rest of society and how the stilyagi

fulfilled a very specific use of cultural dissent during the early 1950s.

Their means of protesting state produced propaganda by embracing American popular

Kenez, Peter, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge: University Press, 25

1999.

Hindus, Maurice, House Without a Roof: Russia after Forty-three Years of Revolution, Garden City, NY: 26

Doubleday & Company, 1961.

Edele, 38-40.27

Korte, ! 20

culture as a critical tool of dissent, not only altered the cultural realm of society but also

exposed the fallacious nature of the messages of ideal Soviet citizenship present in

propaganda. The evolution and proliferation of the nonconformist stilyagi countered the

official party propaganda by defying laws against hooliganism and listening to jazz music, as

well as as the indirect pressures of the Komsomol ideology, reflect the concepts of

counterculture and dissent as a force beyond their immediate representation. 28

More comprehensibly, the lack of belonging fostered by the period of harsh Stalinism

and the relative lack of connection to the communist cause fostered by the ineffectiveness of

the Komsomol during the period, the stilyagi delved into intense feelings of alienation that

rendered them sympathetic to the disaffected artists in the United States who produced

works based on their new-found acceptance of their nonconformist identity. Aksenov 29

further admits that though their imagination of life in the West were undoubtedly flawed and

largely ignored in hindsight, but were resoundingly significant to the beginnings of the

“America cult [that] had its roots in our basic anti-revolutionary character.” 30

The contrast between the official state ideology reflected in the party loyalty of the

Komsomol and its rather indoctrinated members contrasts with the messages of freedom of

Starr, 239-241.28

Ibid, 243.29

Aksenov, 19.30

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identity that were so critically embodied in the mentality of each stilyaga as he elected to

modify his fashion and music choices, along with his decision to partake in reprimanded

activities serves as a sounding board for the significance of actually rebelling against state

ordained propaganda. While the stilyagi did not exist as a blatantly political entity, as once

believed, but eventually evolved into a statement against the realities of propaganda and its

adverse effects, contributing to the stilyagi movement's monumental significance as the first

dissident movement in the Soviet Union.

These “Western Imaginations,” no matter how seemingly futile individually, collectively

serve as proof of early disbelief in the communist system, something that would later become

a commonly believed catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union, while also signaling that

choice in identity was possible in a drab totalitarian system, albeit through extremely

subversive means, something that would be a common thread in Soviet dissident movements

to follow. Cumulatively, this collection of personal accounts of the immediate effects on 31

society that the hipsters themselves curated, the idea of political alienation that resounded

among Postwar youths invariably lead them to search for a sense of belonging elsewhere

without loosing sight on their message of allowing an acceptance of choice in identity to be

accepted within the existing political and economic system in the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

Every time a stilyaga elected to wear a brightly colored necktie instead of a Komsomol

uniform, or choose to spend his evenings attending cocktail halls on Broadway and not out on

Yurchak, 170-175.31

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neighborhood watch patrol, he revealed an ever-important message about the Soviet Union—

that oppression of identity inherently leads to a feeling of disbelief and lack of confidence in

the Soviet system, resulting in a cultural disillusion of propagated ideals under the Soviet

leadership of the period. While the stilyagi's actions were important in their own right and in

understanding the societal conditions of their time, their actions helped to catalyze a

concurrent theme that endures until the fall of the Soviet Union. The stilyagi's protest against

restrictive identities can be characterized as one of the first instances of widespread disillusion

in the Soviet system by a group of Soviet dissenters.

With hindsight, this historical moment can be used to understand how the

deterioration of trust wasn't sudden, instead, it spanned through several incarnations until

the watershed moments in the late 1980s that inevitably lead to the collapse of the Soviet

Union, through various manifestations of the catalyzing ideas of change or dissent, their

course of action in the aforementioned periods of softened “thaws,” and the resulting “freezes”

that cracked down on dissenting actions. This phenomenon is also visible with the Romanian

equivalent of the stilyagi where Romanian youths blended elements of Western popular

culture into their everyday lives under more relaxed years of Ceauşescu's early leadership in

the mid 1960s, demonstrating how the phenomenon continued to progress in a different time

and place, but still within the Eastern Bloc during nearly concurrent political and cultural

climates. The stilyagi's mode of cultural dissent is the first visible case of this cyclic chain of 32

events that spawned the popularity of dissent against propaganda in the Soviet Union, making

Madigan Fitcher, “Rock 'n' Roll Nation: Counterculture and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1975,” Nationalities 32

Papers 39, no. 4 (July 2011): 567-585, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2011.585146 (accessed October 3, 2011).

Korte, ! 23

it a formidable event in tracing the long-term disillusionment with Soviet political ideals long

before the actual protests of dissatisfaction with the Soviet state in the late 1980s.

In other words, organization of dissent is not merely relevant to the time and place it

develops, rather there is a certain common formation of the ideas that inspire popular cultural

dissent against state-produced propaganda. Specifically, the stilyagi, formed of sons of the

middle class intelligentsia, proceeded to fashion bold statements against the propaganda and

merit of state's ideal citizenship by dissenting culturally in the form by breaking from the

restrictions of totalitarianism and creating a new identity that emulated parts of Western

culture while not exactly fitting in with either Western or Soviet cultural paradigm.

The roots of the stilyagi's statements against Soviet propaganda, clearly favoring an

abandonment of the strict adherence to state ideology and its restraint on teetering from the

politicized norms set forth in propagandized materials, formidably fits with previously

established ideas that for dissent to be possible. There must be prompting ideas of

disillusionment and dissatisfaction, which in the Soviet model almost always forms among

educated middle class citizens. Many scholars on the area will point to this sentiment as a less

obvious contribution to the fall of the Soviet regime, but few remark on how prevalent it was

years before previously associated with. The fact that the stilyagi depended on social roles and

group comradeship also dispels the previously held belief that the forms of the Soviet Union's

first dissenters were isolated and had little public influence, while reactions to stilyagi proved

otherwise, as evidenced in the cultural comradeship that made cultural dissent in the Soviet

Union and Eastern Bloc possible; as in the youthful cultural protests formed by Mayakovsky

aspirants in Mayakovsky Square in 1958, and the expansion of dissent through strictly

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cultural means to the satellite states, notably with the events and consequences of the Prague

Spring and the similarities with the cultural dissidents in Romania that formed approximately

a decade after the heightened influence of the stilyagi .

Studying the stilyagi in the proper context with credence to their influences also serves

to elucidate elements of the past to give a more complete understanding of the broad

paradigm that they are organized under. The stilyagi, a product of Stalin's Final Years, serve

to demonstrate the cultural significance of reactions to Stalin and his ideas on an ideal society.

With these applied applications of the stilyagi, it is evident that this group of youth rebels

were not merely an insignificant reinterpretation of style, or even of gender roles, but more

importantly their actions reveal volumes about the success of the regime in convincing its

citizens of the superiority of their ideological system. As concrete proof of much earlier

shortcomings of the Soviet system and the disconnect between citizen and state, the choices

and actions of the stilyagi act as a small, yet very tangible example of the Soviet Union's prime

failure in engaging in the ideological battle throughout the entirety of the Cold War, and at

much historical context than previously associated with.

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Memoirs

Aksenov, Vassily. In Search of Melancholy Baby. New York: Random House, 1985. This document is classified as a memoir, and is intended to reach ordinary Soviet citizens in the early 1950s in order to educate the public on the emerging stilyagi phenomenon from the perspective of a former stilyaga reflecting upon his expereinces. This source is useful for my

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research because Aksenov describes the early stilyaga and describes their influences, and Aksenov’s closeness to the phenomenon allows the present day audience to understand how stilyaga were perceived in the early 1950s.

Belyaev, D. Excerpt from Stilyaga. In Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays, and Folklore, 1917-1953, edited by James von Geldern and Richard Stites, 450-453. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. This memoir focuses on how people who were not a part of the stilyagi but interacted with them characterized this group of Soviet youth during the height of the stilyagi movement. Similar to the other firsthand accounts listed, this article is intended to document the uniqueness of the stilyagi and inform people outside of this group of just what being a stilyaga meant. Specifically, this source is useful in characterizing the stilyagi’s influences and how they impacted their demeanor, which Belyaev was able to gather by interacting with members of the stilyagi in normal, everyday settings.

Gunther, John. Inside Russia Today, Revised Edition, 1962. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. As an American, Gunther's observations about the stilyagi are incorrect because he lacks the understanding of the context in which the stilyagi formed. His observations can be attributed to the previous beliefs that the stilyagi were political dissidents rather than cultural dissidents, leading to an American misunderstanding of the stilyagi and an overall bias against Soviet cultural and societal norms.

Gushkov, S. “Grigory Dudko Finds Friends.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. http://www.soviethistory.org/index.phppage=article&ArticleID=1954gushkov1

&SubjectID=1954stilyaga&Year=1954, accessed December 11, 2011.

Gushkov’s article recounts his encounters with the stilyagi in 1953 and describes how they were deviant to established institutions, such as the Komsomol, the school, and the workplace. His memoir emphasizes the themes of how social deviance negatively impacts the whole of society and how ordinary citizens like himself feared the stilyagi for what they represented and how they went about exercising their beliefs. Printed in the Komsomolskaia Pravda, this article served as a warning to youth to avoid the stilyagi in order to protect your well-being and the well-being of those around you.

Hindus, Maurice. House Without a Roof: Russia after Fourty-three Years of Revolution. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961. Hindus's unique perspective of having both Soviet and American ties provides an analysis of his experience as an American with Russian roots visiting the Soviet Union in the early 1950s.

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His insight reveals a rather unbiased view of the stilyagi and describes an event that indirectly reveals the significance of the stilyagi in creating a different cultural identity.

Salisbury, Harrison E. American in Russia. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Salisbury's observations on the stilyagi from an American perspective helps to demonstrate how American bias of Soviet society and culture actually contributes to their lack of understanding of Cold War issues.

Newspaper Images

Khudiakov, L. “Monkeys.” Krokadil 2 (1957): 7. The image will be placed with in the text of the narrative in order to demonstrate the extremes that the stilyagi were ridiculed to.

Secondary Sources

Cuordileone, K.A.. “‘Politics in an Age of Anxiety’: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American Masculinity, 1949-1960.” The Journal of American History 87 (September 2000): 515-545. In this scholarly article, Cuordileone describes the conditions that lead to the American “Crisis in Masculinity” that occurred in its postwar period and argues that a culmination of societal pressures lead to this deficit in strong and masculine American political leadership. This article is intended to be useful to other scholars and provide innovative information that will debunk past proposals of singular causes to the Crisis in Masculinity. This article is conducive to my research as it demonstrates how the deficit in masculinity on the postwar period that is believed to be a cause for the emergence stilyagi in the Soviet Union was not an isolated event.

Edele, Mark. “Strange Young Men in Stalin’s Moscow: The Birth and Life of the Stilyagi, 1945-1953.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 50 (2002): 37-61. In addition to thoroughly describing the stilyagi, their traits, and their origins, Edele’s scholarly article is based off of previous scholarly research on the stilyagi; Edele’s research proves to be innovative from previous works in that he argues that the stilyagi resulted from a culmination of causes and that it was not an isolated phenomenon, much like the Cuordileone article. This article targets other scholars and serves as a well-rounded and well-grounded analysis of the stilyagi of their origins that remains current and relevant. This source can be paired with the Curdileone article when analyzing the elements of gender in the stilyagi phenomenon, and also to provide insight on the more obscure and lesser known elements of the stilyagi.

Fitcher, Madigan. “Rock 'n' Roll Nation: Counterculture and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1975.” Nationalities Papers 39, no. 4 (July 2011): 567-585, http://dx.doi.org/

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10.1080/00905992.2011.585146 (accessed October 3, 2011). This source is used to reference counterculture in Romania that occurred under similar conditions that allowed the character of the stilyagi to take root in the Soviet Union. With the comparison between these two markedly important instances of cultural dissent in socialist ruled states, I argue reinforce the argument that there are conditions in which make cultural dissent both possible and historically significant in their respective environments. Though because the stilyagi movement was formed earlier and in arguably tenser conditions, the historical significance of the stilyagi specifically in the Stalinist Soviet Union is further emphasized, and is regarded with allowing dissent to become more common amongst citizens who sought a political message through cultural means.

Kassof, Allen. The Soviet Youth Program: Regimentation and Rebellion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. This source is used primarily for contextual information about the Komsomol reaction to the stilyagi and what influenced these reactions. In addition, this source is particularly useful because it focuses on the effects of strict adherence to Communist doctrine and how it affects rebellion.

Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. This source is used primarily for contextual information about the Komsomol reaction to the stilyagi and what influenced these reactions. The author more or less compiles information and statistics to provide an objective analysis of the important components to the Communist Youth Party.

Lozansky, Tania E. “The Role of Dissent in the Soviet Union Since 1953.” The Concord Review (1989). http://www.tcr.org/tcr/essays/Web_Dissent.pdf (accessed June 10, 2013). This source provides a useful framework to reinforce the paradigm of developing ideas of disillusion in the state ideology and its preferred means of propaganda as the earliest stages of dissent. While her work is not focused on the stilyagi and their actions of dissent, her work is especially practical in citing examples of the disillusioning factors of propaganda during Stalin's leadership and pre-Thaw motivations to dissent.

Starr, S. Frederick. Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union. New York: Proscenium Publishers Inc, 1994. This scholarly book is analysis of the prevalence of jazz music in the Soviet Union throughout its entire life, from 1917 to 1990, and is intended to reach other scholars of similar interests. Starr gathers information from sources associated with the history of each respective time period that he establishes for Soviet jazz history, information on the types of jazz that were prevalent in each period, and how the music was received during the time in order to provide a comprehensive outlook on the presence of jazz and its effects in the Soviet Union. Since jazz was the main component of the stilyagi’s musical interests, this source is phenomenal for

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profiling the types of jazz that the stilyagi listened to, why it was important to them, and how it was received by the citizens who were weary of the stilyagi and what its members and their music of choice represented.

Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Yurchak is a trained anthropologist, and this scholarly book explores the anthropology of Socialism in its “last generation” to other scholars with knowledge of anthropology. Since this source is more anthropological in nature, there is less emphasis on as thesis and more interest on presenting one’s findings in a manner that sets up related topics and remains easy to understand. Yurchak utilizes methodology more akin to cultural anthropology, so this source, in addition to presenting an insightful profile of the stilyagi will also be useful for establishing the cultural climate of the period from a perspective strictly concerned with culture, and it is especially useful for topics on fashion, how stilyagi were portrayed in the media, and “rock on bones.” Yurchak maintains that the stilyagi's existence in itself and the reaction that stilyagi received reveals the larger conditions of life in Stalinist Soviet Union, notably the disconnect between what was seen as Western and culturally advanced, and what was Soviet and culturally advanced.