Imagining America: Influence And Images In Twentieth-century Russia

Imagining America This Page Intentionally Left Blank Imagining America Influence and Images in TwentiethCentury Russia Alan M. Ball ROWMAN 6r LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham Boulder New York Oxford ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright 02003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ball, Alan M. Imagining America : influence and images in twentieth-century Russia / Alan M. Ball. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7425-2792-1 (cloth : alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7425-2793-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Soviet Union-Civilization-American influences. 2. Soviet Union-RelationsUnited States. 3. United States-Relations-Soviet Union. I. Title. DK268.3.B3128 2003 303.48’2470736~21 2003011208 Printed in the United States of America eTM paper used publication meets minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence Paper for The in this the Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992. of For Colleen This Page Intentionally Left Blank w Contents ix Preface Introduction: The Land of the Benzine Pegasus PART I: 1 THE EARLY SOVIET PERIOD Chapter 1 Soviet Americanism 23 Chapter 2 Heavenly Miracles 57 Chapter 3 Happy Endings and Jolly Guys 87 Chapter 4 Arch-Bourgeois Machines 119 Chapter 5 Catch and Surpass 145 PART 11: THE CONTEMPORARY ERA Chapter 6 Holy Communion at McDonald’s 177 Chapter 7 The American Model 213 Chapter 8 Counterstrike 237 Conclusion: Gud-bai Amerika? 259 Index 293 About the Author 309 vii This Page Intentionally Left Blank Preface As the Soviet era drew to a close, the Snake Brothers, a rock group from the Ukrainian city of Lvov, introduced a song titled “America”: When midnight replaces the bright day And everybody is resting after work I haven’t yet closed my eyes-ey-ey In my dreams I’m flying to New York.’ Performed partly in English, the song satirized contemporary idolization of the United States along with shabby conditions in the Soviet homeland that could give rise to such yearning. Its refrain-“America, you say to me ‘welcome’ / I say, Oh-yea, America / Will I ever sail to your shore?”-captured a disposition common not only in the Soviet twilight but also a century earlier, when subjects of Tsar Nicholas I1 emigrated by the millions to the New World. Russian fascination with America in tsarist times passed easily through the Bolshevik Revolution and flourished thereafter. Spellbinding images of American bounty, common among the general population in the 1920s, coexisted with the inte