Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Russia

by Fran Markowitz

Russian adolescents of the 1990s were born into the Soviet Union and grew up in the midst of the tremendous political, economic, and social upheaval of glasnost, perestroika, and the raspad (fragmentation of the USSR). How has this environment of uncertainty and turmoil affected them?Anthropologist Fran Markowitz interviewed more than one hundred Russian teenagers to discover how adolescents have been coping with their country's seismic transitions. Her findings mark a substantive challenge to near-axiomatic theories of human development that regard cultural stability as indispensable to the successful navigation of adolescent upheaval.Markowitz's fieldwork supports the surprising conclusion that glasnost, perestroika, and the raspad -- and the disruptions they brought -- exerted a greater impact on Western political hopes and on many of Russia's adults than on young people's perceptions of their own lives. More momentous to nearly all these students than the 1991 attempted coup against Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the abandonment of school uniforms, an event that ushered in a new era of personal choice, experimentation, and consumption.In remarks on everything from being Russian to religion, sex, music, and military service, the teenagers convey a pragmatic, flexible, and optimistic approach to the future. Their perspectives suggest that culture change and social instability may be seen as positive forces, allowing for expressive opportunities, the establishment of individualized identities, and creative, pragmatic planning.

245 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[versarbre · Rating 2 out of 5]

The opening is interesting because transitions at the personal level and transitions at the society level are grouped together -- enough to arouse curiosity. The teens are in the process of being someone and becoming someone else; so does the Russia society. Then how to understand Russia's next generation? The main bulk of the book, however, is mostly reconstructions of interviews and presentations of snapshots of Russian teen life. The author already has an agenda of confirming the teens' "agency." Somehow I am unimpressed by the presentation of details. Perhaps more analyses could have been done. For example, it is curious why there is a narrative of "unchanging" among the teens. What do we have to assume when we trust the teens's narrative presentation (i.e. conceptualization) of their life experiences? When the author says the teens are aware of their dependency, what kinds of social conditions are necessary to make such knowledge (including the knowledge of hierarchy) possible? The interviewing methods also appear to be a little bit unconvincing because the author hasn't really discussed whether or how his presence may make the teens' vocal representation different from what they otherwise would not articulate in these ways.