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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
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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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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public and private life, of comfort and happiness, of luxury and
misery, of activity and laziness, of industry and indolence, which
were exhibited in the streets, the market-places, and in the interior of
the courtyards. It was the most animated picture of a little world in
itself, so different in external form from all that is seen in European
towns, yet so similar in its internal principles.
Here a row of shops filled with articles of native and foreign
produce, with buyers and sellers in every variety of figure,
complexion, and dress, yet all intent upon their little gain,
endeavouring to cheat each other; there a large shed, like a hurdle,
full of half-naked, half-starved slaves torn from their native homes,
from their wives or husbands, from their children or parents,
arranged in rows like cattle, and staring desperately upon the
buyers, anxiously watching into whose hands it should be their
destiny to fall. In another part were to be seen all the necessaries of
life, the wealthy buying the most palatable things for his table, the
poor stopping and looking greedily upon a handful of grain; here a
rich governor dressed in silk and gaudy clothes, mounted upon a
spirited and richly caparisoned horse, and followed by a host of idle,
insolent slaves; there a poor blind man groping his way through the
multitude, and fearing at every step to be trodden down; here a yard
neatly fenced with mats of reed, and provided with all the comforts
which the country affords—a clean, snug-looking cottage, the clay
walls nicely polished, a shutter of reeds placed against the low, well-
rounded door, and forbidding intrusion on the privacy of life, a cool
shed for the daily household work,—a fine spreading alléluba-tree,
affording a pleasant shade during the hottest hours of the day, or a
beautiful gónda or papaya unfolding its large feather-like leaves
above a slender, smooth, and undivided stem, or the tall date-tree,
waving over the whole scene; the matron in a clean black cotton
gown wound round her waist, her hair neatly dressed in “chókoli” or
bejáji, busy preparing the meal for her absent husband, or spinning
cotton, and at the same time urging the female slaves to pound the
corn; the children naked and merry, playing about in the sand at the
“urgi-n-dáwaki” or the “da-n-chácha,” or chasing a straggling
stubborn goat; earthenware pots and wooden bowls, all cleanly
washed, standing in order. Further on a dashing Cyprian, homeless,
comfortless, and childless, but affecting merriment or forcing a
wanton laugh, gaudily ornamented with numerous strings of beads
around her neck, her hair fancifully dressed and bound with a
diadem, her gown of various colours loosely fastened under her
luxuriant breast, and trailing behind in the sand; near her a diseased
wretch covered with ulcers, or with elephantiasis.
1, My own quarters in Dalá. During my second stay in Kanó, I also resided in

Dalá, at a short distance from my old quarters; 2, Great market-place; 3, Small
market-place; 4, Palace of Governor; 5, Palace of Ghaladíma; 6, Kofa Mazúger; 7,
Kofa-n-Adama; 8, Kofa-n-Gúdan; 9, Kofa-n-Kansákkali; 10, Kofa-n-Limún, or
Káboga: 11, Kofa-n-Dakanye, or Dukánie; 12, Kofa-n-Dakaina; 13, Kofa-n-Naísa;
14, Kofa-n-Kúra; 15, Kofa-n-Nasaráwa; 16, Kofa-n-Máta; 17, Kofa-n-Wambay; 18,
Kofa-n-Magardi; 19, Kofa-n-Rúa (at present shut); 20, Mount Dalá; 21, Mount
Kógo-n-dútsi.
Now a busy “máriná,” an open terrace of clay, with a number of

dyeing-pots, and people busily employed in various processes of
their handicraft; here a man stirring the juice, and mixing with the
indigo some colouring wood in order to give it the desired tint; there
another, drawing a shirt from the dye-pot, or hanging it upon a rope
fastened to the trees; there two men beating a well-dyed shirt,
singing the while, and keeping good time; further on, a blacksmith
busy with his rude tools in making a dagger which will surprise, by
the sharpness of its blade, those who feel disposed to laugh at the
workman’s instruments, a formidable barbed spear, or the more
estimable and useful instruments of husbandry; in another place,
men and women making use of an ill-frequented thoroughfare, as a
“kaudi tseggenábe,” to hang up, along the fences, their cotton thread
for weaving; close by, a group of indolent loiterers lying in the sun
and idling away their hours.
Here a caravan from Gónja arriving with the desired kola-nut,
chewed by all who have “ten kurdí” to spare from their necessary
wants, or a caravan laden with natron, starting for Núpe, or a troop of
Asbenáwa going off with their salt for the neighbouring towns, or
some Arabs leading their camels, heavily laden with the luxuries of
the north and east (the “káya-n-ghábbes”) to the quarter of the
Ghadamsíye; there, a troop of gaudy, warlike-looking horsemen
galloping towards the palace of the governor to bring him the news
of a new inroad of serkí Ibrám. Everywhere human life in its varied
forms, the most cheerful and the most gloomy, seem closely mixed
together; every variety of national form and complexion—the olive-
coloured Arab, the dark Kanúri, with his wide nostrils, the small-
featured, light, and slender ba-Féllanchi, the broad-faced ba-
Wángara (Mandingo), the stout, large-boned, and masculine-looking
Núpe female, the well-proportioned and comely ba-Háushe woman.
Delighted with my trip, and deeply impressed by the many curious
and interesting scenes which had presented themselves to my eyes,
I returned by way of the “úngwa-n-makáfi,” or “belád el amiyán” (the
village of the blind), to my quarters, the gloominess and
cheerlessness of which made the more painful impression upon me
from its contrast with the brightly animated picture which I had just
before enjoyed. The next day I made another long ride through the
town; and being tolerably well acquainted with the topography of the
place and its different quarters, I enjoyed still more the charming
view obtained from the top of the Dalá.
I had just descended from the eminence beneath which spread
this glorious panorama, when I heard a well-known voice calling me
by my name; it was ʿAbdallah the Tawáti, my friend and teacher in
Ágades, who, after residing some time in Tasáwa, had come to try
his fortune in this larger sphere of action. I had besides him some
other acquaintances, who gave me much interesting information,
particularly a young ba-Háushe lad of the name of Íbrahíma, who
gave me the first tolerably correct idea of the road to Yóla, the capital
of Adamáwa, although he was puzzled about the direction of the
Great River, which he had crossed, supposing that it flowed
eastward instead of westward. I derived also a great deal of
information from a less agreeable man named Mohammed, with the
surname “el Merábet” (reclaimed), rather antithetically, as “lucus à
non lucendo,” for he was the most profligate drunkard imaginable,
and eventually remained indebted to me for several thousand
cowries.
I was much worried during my stay in Kanó by a son of the
governor of Zária, who, suffering dreadfully from stricture or some
other obstruction, had come expressly to Kanó in the hope of being
relieved by me; and it was impossible for me to convince him that I
had neither the knowledge nor the instruments necessary for
effecting the cure of his disease. It would, no doubt, have been of
great service if I had been able to cure him, as he was the son of
one of the most powerful princes of Negroland; but as it was, I could
only afford him a little temporary relief. My intercourse with this man
was indeed most painful to me, as I felt conscious of entire inability
to help him, while he conjured me, by all that was dear to me, not to
give him up and abandon him. He died shortly afterwards. More
agreeable to me was a visit from the eldest son of the governor of
Kanó, who, accompanied by two horsemen, came to call upon me
one day, and not finding me at home, traced me whither I had gone,
and having met me, followed silently till I had re-entered my quarters.
He was a handsome, modest, and intelligent youth of about eighteen
years of age, and was delighted with the performance of my musical-
box. I gave him an English clasp-knife, and we parted the best of
friends, greatly pleased with each other.
I had considerable difficulty in arranging my pecuniary affairs, and
felt really ashamed at being unable to pay my debt to the Háj el
Dáwaki till after el Wákhshi himself had arrived from Kátsena. After
having sold, with difficulty, all that I possessed, having suffered a
very heavy loss by Báwu’s dishonesty, paid my debts, and arranged
my business with Mohammed el Túnsi, who, suffering under a very
severe attack of fever, wanted most eagerly to return home, I should
scarcely have been able to make the necessary preparations for my
journey to Bórnu if the governor had not assisted me a little. He had
hitherto behaved very shabbily towards me, not a single dish, not a
sheep or other token of his hospitality having been sent me during
my stay in the town. I was therefore most agreeably surprised when,
on the morning of the 2nd of March, old Elaíji came and announced
to me that, in consequence of his urgent remonstrances, the
governor had sent me a present of sixty thousand kurdí. He told me,
with a sort of pride, that he had severely reprimanded him, assuring
him that he was the only prince who had not honoured me. I should
have been better pleased if the governor had sent me a pair of
camels or a horse; but I was thankful for this unexpected supply, and
giving six thousand to the officer who had brought the money, and as
much to Elaíji, and dividing eight thousand between Báwu and Sídi
ʿAlí, I kept forty thousand for myself.
With this present I was fortunately enabled to buy two camels
instead of sumpter-oxen, which give great trouble on the road during
the dry season, especially if not properly attended to, and prepared
everything for my journey; but the people in these countries are all
cowards, and as I was to go alone without a caravan, I was unable to
find a good servant. Thus I had only my faithful Tébu lad Mohammed
whom I could rely upon, having besides him none but a debauched
young Fezzáni, Makhmúd, who had long lived in this town, and a
youth named ʿAbdallah. Nevertheless I felt not a moment’s
hesitation, but, on the contrary, impatiently awaited the moment
when I should leave my dingy and melancholy quarters, full of mice
and vermin.
I had hoped to get off on the 6th; but nothing was heard from the
governor, and it would have been imprudent to start without his
permission. With envious feelings I witnessed the departure of the
natron caravan for Núpe or Nýffi, consisting of from two to three
hundred asses. With it went Mohammed Ánnur, a very intelligent
man, whom I had endeavoured by all possible means to hire as a
servant, but could not muster shells enough. However, the
exploration of all those more distant regions I was obliged in my
present circumstances to give up, and to concentrate my whole
energies on the effort to reach Kúkawa, where I had concerted with
Mr. Richardson to arrive in the beginning of April. I had had the
satisfaction of sending off a long report and several letters to Europe
on the 1st of March (when the Ghadamsíye merchants despatched a
courier to their native town), and felt therefore much easier with
regard to my communication with Europe. My delay also had given
me the great advantage of making the acquaintance of a man
named Mohammed el ʿAnáya, from the Dʿara el Takhtaníye, to the
south of Morocco, who first gave me some general information about
the route from Timbúktu to Sókoto, which in the sequel was to
become a new field for my researches and adventures.
I became so seriously ill on the 8th, that I looked forward with
apprehension to my departure, which was fixed for the following day.
But before leaving this important place, I will make a few general
observations with regard to its history and its present state.
The town of Kanó, considered as the capital of a province, must
be of somewhat older date than Kátsena, if we are to rely on Leo’s
accuracy, though from other more reliable sources (which I shall
bring to light in the chapter on the history of Bórnu) it is evident that
even in the second half of the sixteenth century there could have
been here only the fortress of Dalá, which, at that period, withstood
the attacks of the Bórnu king. I think we are justified in supposing
that, in this respect, Leo (when, after an interval of many years, he
wrote the account of the countries of Negroland which he had
visited) confounded Kanó with Kátsena. The strength of the Kanáwa,
that is to say, the inhabitants of the province of Kanó, at the time of
the Bórnu king Edrís Alawóma, is quite apparent from the report of
his imám; but from that time forth the country seems to have been
tributary to Bórnu; and the population of the town of Kanó is said,
with good reason, to have consisted from the beginning mostly of
Kanúri or Bórnu elements. However, the established allegiance or
subjection of this province to Bórnu was evidently rather precarious,
and could be maintained only with a strong hand; for there was a
powerful neighbour, the King of Korórofa or Júku, ready to avail
himself of every opportunity of extending his own power and
dominion over that territory. We know also that one king of that
country, whose name, however, I could not obtain, on the entry of a
new governor into office in Kanó, made an expedition into that
country, and installed his own representative in the place of that of
Bórnu, and though the eastern provinces of Korórofa itself (I mean
the district inhabited by the Koána or Kwána) became afterwards
tributary to Bórnu, yet the main province (or Júku proper) with the
capital Wukári, seems to have always remained strong and
independent, till now, at length, it seems destined to be gradually
swallowed up by the Fúlbe, if the English do not interfere. But to
return to our subject. As long as Kátsena continued independent and
flourishing, the town of Kanó appears never to have been an
important commercial place; and it was not till after Kátsena had
been occupied by the Fúlbe, and, owing to its exposed position on
the northern frontier of Háusa, had become a very unsafe central
point for commercial transactions, that Kanó became the great
commercial entrepôt of Central Negroland. Before this time, that is to
say, before the year 1807, I have strong reason to suppose that
scarcely any great Arab merchant ever visited Kanó, a place which
nevertheless continues till this very day to be identified with Ghána
or Ghánata, a state or town expressly stated by Arab writers of the
eleventh century to have been the rendezvous for Arab merchants
from the very first rise of commercial connections with Negroland.
And all regard to historical or geographical facts is put aside merely
from an absurd identification of two entirely distinct names such as
Kanó and Ghána or Ghánata.
As to the period when the Kánawa in general became
Mohammedans, we may fairly assume it to have been several years
later than the time when Máji, the prince of Kátsena, embraced
Islám, or about the seventeenth century, though it is evident that the
larger portion of the population all over Háusa, especially that of the
country towns and villages, remained addicted to paganism till the
fanatic zeal of their conquerors the Fúlbe forced them to profess
Islám, at least publicly. Nevertheless even at the present day there is
a great deal of paganism cherished, and rites really pagan
performed, in the province of Kanó as well as in that of Kátsena,—a
subject on which I shall say something more on another occasion.
With regard to the growth of the town, we have express testimony
that Dalá was the most ancient quarter. The steep rocky hill, about
120 feet high, naturally afforded a secure retreat to the ancient
inhabitants in case of sudden attack; but it is most probable that
there was another or several separate villages within the wide
expanse now encompassed by the wall, which rather exceeds than
falls short of fifteen English miles, and it seems inconceivable why
the other hill, “Kógo-n-dútsi” (which is enclosed within the
circumference of the walls), though it is not quite so well fortified by
nature, should not have afforded a strong site for another hamlet.
We have, indeed, no means of describing the way in which the town
gradually increased to its present size; this much, however, is
evident, that the inhabited quarters never filled up the immense
space comprised within the walls, though it is curious to observe that
there are evident traces of a more ancient wall on the south side,
which, as will be seen from the plan, did not describe so wide a
circumference, particularly towards the south-west, where the great
projecting angle seems to have been added in later times, for merely
strategical purposes. The reason why the fortifications were carried
to so much greater extent than the population of the town rendered
necessary, was evidently to make the place capable of sustaining a
long siege (sufficient ground being enclosed within the walls to
produce the necessary supply of corn for the inhabitants), and also
to receive the population of the open and unprotected villages in the
neighbourhood. The inhabited quarter occupies at present only the
south-eastern part of the town between Mount Dalá and the wall,
which on this side is closely approached by the dwellings.
On the northern margin of the Jákara is the market-place, forming
a large quadrangle, mostly consisting of sheds built in regular rows
like streets; but the westernmost part of it forms the slaughtering-
place, where numbers of cattle are daily butchered, causing an
immense quantity of offal and filth to accumulate, for which there is
no other outlet than the all-swallowing Jákara. It is the accumulation
of this filth in the most frequented parts of the town which makes it
so unhealthy. On the north-east side of the sheds is the camel-
market, where also pack-oxen are sold. The shed where the slaves
are sold is at the north-west corner; and thence, along the principal
street, which traverses the market, is the station of the people who
sell firewood. The market is generally immensely crowded during the
heat of the day, and offers a most interesting scene.
The wall, just as it has been described by Captain Clapperton, is
still kept in the best repair, and is an imposing piece of workmanship
in this quarter of the world. This wall, with its gates, I have not been
able to lay down with much exactness; but, from my observations on
my later visit in 1854, being aware of the great inaccuracy of the little
sketch of the town given by Clapperton, who himself pretends only to
give an eye-sketch, I thought it worth while, with regard to a place
like Kanó (which certainly will at some future period become
important even for the commercial world of Europe), to survey and
sketch it more minutely; and I hope my plan, together with the view
taken from Mount Dalá of the southern and really inhabited quarter
of the town, will give a tolerably correct idea of its character.
The market-place is necessarily much less frequented during the
rainy season, when most of the people are busy with the labours of
the field. A great part of the market-place during that time is even
inundated by the waters of the pond Jákara.
I now proceed to enumerate the quarters, the names of which are
not without their interest. I must first observe, that the quarters to the
north of the great and characteristic pond Jákara, which intersects
the town from east to west, are chiefly inhabited by Háusa people,
or, as they are called by their conquerors, “Hábe,” from the singular
“Kádo,” while the southern quarters are chiefly, but not at all
exclusively, inhabited by the Fúlbe (sing. Púllo), called Féllani (sing.
ba-Féllanchi) by the conquered race.
Beginning with Dalá, the oldest quarter of the town, and which in
commercial respects is the most important one, as it is the residence
of almost all the wealthy Arab and Berber (principally Ghadamsíye)
merchants, I shall first proceed eastwards, then return by south to
west, and so on. East-south-east, the quarter called Déndalin (the
esplanade) borders on Dalá, then Kutumbáwa, Gérke, Mádabó, Ya-
n-tándu, Adakáwa, Kóki, Zéta, Límanchí (or the quarter of the people
of Tóto, a considerable town not far from Fánda); south from the
latter, Yandówea, and thence, returning westward, Jibdji-n-Yél-labu,
another Límanchí (with a large mosque), Masu-kiyáni (the quarter
near the “kaswa” or market-place), Túddu-n-mákera (the quarter of
the blacksmiths) on the west side of the market, Yámroché,
“Marárraba bókoy” (the seven crossways), “Báki-n-rúa” (the
waterside—that is, the quay along the Jákara, not very neat nor
fragrant, and in this respect deserving to be compared, with the
quays of the Thames, which may be called, just with the same
reason, the great sink of London, as the Jákara is that of Kanó, the
difference being only that the Thames is a running stream, while the
Jákara is stagnant), “Runfáwa” (the quarter of the sheds), Yéllwá.
Here, turning again eastwards, we come first to the quarter Ríma-n-
jirájiré, then enter Mággoga, then Maggógi, Ungwa-n-kári, Déndali-n-
Wáre, Límanchí (a third quarter of this name), Dukkuráwa, Rúffogí,
Dérma. All these are quarters of the Hábe, where no Púllo, as far as
I am aware, would deign to live. Beyond the Jákara we now come to
the quarters of the ruling race, proceeding from west to east.
Yaálewa, Mármara, Ágadesáwa (a quarter belonging originally to
the natives of Ágades), Yóla—the princely quarter of the town, and
called on this account “mádaki-n-Kanó.” It is interesting also as
having given its name to the new capital of Ádamáwa (the natives of
Negroland being not less anxious than Europeans to familiarize the
new regions which they colonize by names taken from their ancient
homes); el Kántara (so called from a rough kind of bridge, or
kadárko, thrown over one of those numerous pools which intersect
the town), Wuaitákka, Go-shérifé-dodó (a quarter, the name of which
is taken from the ancient pagan worship of the “dodó),” Tókobá,
Dukkáwa, Zaghidámse, Sháfushí. Returning from east to west we
have the quarters Shérbalé, Mádaté, Kúrna, Sheshé, “Dirmí (or
dírremi)-kay okú” (called from a tree of the dírremi species, with
three separate crowns), Lelóki-n-lemú, Kóllwá al héndeki, Sóra-n-
dínki, Rími-n-kóro, Tojí, Yárkasá, Mándáwari, Mármara (different
from the quarter mentioned above), Dantúrku, Sabansára,
Kudedefáwa, Jingo, Doséyi, Warúre, Gʿao (an interesting name,
identical with that of the capital of the Sónghay empire), Kurmáwa,
Háusáwa, Ungwa Mákama, Ghaladánchi (the quarter wherein
resides the ghaladíma), Shúramchí (the quarter where lives the
eldest son of the governor, whose title chiróma—a Kanúri name—in
the corrupted form of “shúromo” has furnished the name of the
quarter), Ye-serkí, Kurmáwa (not identical with the above),
“Kusseráwa” (the corner), Udeláwa. South from the palace of the
governor, Rími-n-kerá, Káraká, Dugeráwa, Yákase, Naseráwa (most
probably destined to be hereafter the quarter of the Nasára or
Christians), and ʿAbdeláwa.
All over the town, clay houses and huts, with thatched conical
roofs, are mixed together; but generally in the southern quarter the
latter prevail. The clay houses, as far as I have seen them in Dalá,
where of course Arab influence predominates, are built in a most
uncomfortable style, with no other purpose than that of obtaining the
greatest possible privacy for domestic life, without any attempt to
provide for the influx of fresh air and light, although I must admit that
a few houses are built in somewhat better taste; but invariably the
courtyard is extremely small, and in this respect the houses of Kanó
are very inferior to those of Ágades and Timbúktu, which are built
almost on the same principle as the dwellings of the ancient Greeks
and Romans. I here give the ground plan of the house in which I
lodged in 1851.
Almost all these houses have also a very irregular upper story on
a different level, and very badly aired. Many of the Arabs sleep on
their terraces.
In estimating the population of
the town at 30,000, I am
certainly not above the truth.
Captain Clapperton estimated it
at from 30,000 to 40,000. The
population, as might be
expected in a place of great
commercial resort, is of a rather
mixed nature; but the chief
elements in it are Kanúri or
1, Large public yard common to the Bórnu people, Háusáwa, Fúlbe
two houses with two huts; 2, Irregular or Féllani, and Nyfláwa or Núpe;
apartment, where I was to reside, as it a good many Arabs also reside
was least wanting in light and air; 3,
there, who by their commerce
Dark room without any current of air, but
to which I was obliged to withdraw when and their handicraft contribute a
suffering from fever; 4, Storeroom; 5, great deal to the importance of
Inner private yard; 6, Closet. the place. The influx of
foreigners and temporary
residents is occasionally very
great, so that the whole number of residents during the most busy
time of the year (that is to say from January to April) may often
amount to 60,000. The number of domestic slaves, of course, is very
considerable; but I think it hardly equals, certainly does not exceed,
that of the free men, for while the wealthy have many slaves, the
poorer class, which is far more numerous, have few or none. It would
be very interesting to arrive at an exact estimate of the numbers of
the conquering nation, in order to see the proportion in which they
stand to the conquered. As for the town itself, their whole number, of
every sex and age, does not, in my opinion, exceed 4,000; but with
regard to the whole country I can give no opinion.
The principal commerce of Kanó consists in native produce,
namely, the cotton cloth woven and dyed here or in the neighbouring
towns, in the form of tobes or rígona (sing. ríga); túrkedí, or the
oblong pieces of dress of dark-blue colour worn by the women; the
zénne[27] or plaid of various colours; and the ráwani bakí, or black
lithám.
The great advantage of Kanó is, that commerce and manufactures
go hand in hand, and that almost every family has its share in them.
There is really something grand in this kind of industry, which
spreads to the north as far as Múrzuk, Ghát, and even Tripoli; to the
west, not only to Timbúktu, but in some degree even as far as the
shores of the Atlantic, the very inhabitants of Arguin dressing in the
cloth woven and dyed in Kanó; to the east, all over Bórnu, although
there it comes in contact with the native industry of the country; and
to the south it maintains a rivalry with the native industry of the Ígbira
and Ígbo, while towards the south-east it invades the whole of
Ádamáwa, and is only limited by the nakedness of the pagan sans-
culottes, who do not wear clothing.
As for the supply sent to Timbúktu, this is a fact entirely
overlooked in Europe, where people speak continually of the fine
cotton cloth produced in that town, while in truth all the apparel of a
decent character in Timbúktu is brought either from Kanó or from
Sansándi; and how urgently this article is there demanded is amply
shown by the immense circuit which the merchandise makes to
avoid the great dangers of the direct road from Kanó to Timbúktu
travelled by me, the merchandise of Kanó being first carried up to
Ghát and even Ghadámes, and thence taking its way to Timbúktu by
Tawát.
I make the lowest estimate in rating this export to Timbúktu alone
at three hundred camel-loads annually, worth sixty million kurdí in
Kanó—an amount which entirely remains in the country, and
redounds to the benefit of the whole population, both cotton and
indigo being produced and prepared in the country. In taking a
general view of the subject, I think myself justified in estimating the
whole produce of this manufacture, as far as it is sold abroad, at the
very least at about three hundred millions; and how great this
national wealth is, will be understood by my readers when they know
that, with from fifty to sixty thousand kurdí, or from four to five
pounds sterling a year, a whole family may live in that country with
ease, including every expense, even that of their clothing: and we
must remember that the province is one of the most fertile spots on
the earth, and is able to produce not only the supply of corn
necessary for its population, but can also export, and that it
possesses, besides, the finest pasture-grounds. In fact, if we
consider that this industry is not carried on here, as in Europe, in
immense establishments, degrading man to the meanest condition of
life, but that it gives employment and support to families without
compelling them to sacrifice their domestic habits, we must presume
that Kanó ought to be one of the happiest countries in the world; and
so it is as long as its governor, too often lazy and indolent, is able to
defend its inhabitants from the cupidity of their neighbours, which of
course is constantly stimulated by the very wealth of this country.
Besides the cloth produced and dyed in Kanó and in the
neighbouring villages, there is a considerable commerce carried on
here with the cloth manufactured in Nýffi or Núpe, which, however,
extends only to the first and the third of the articles above
mentioned, viz. the “ríga,” or shirt worn by men, and the “zénne,” or
plaid; for the Nyffáwa are unable to produce either túrkedí or ráwaní
—at least for export, while they seem, with the exception of the
wealthier classes, to supply their own wants themselves. The tobes
brought from Nýffi are either large black ones, or of mixed silk and
cotton.
With regard to the former, which are called “gíwa” (the elephant’s
shirt), I am unable to say why the Kanáwa are not capable of
manufacturing them themselves; but it seems that, while they
thoroughly understand how to impart the most beautiful dye to the
túrkedí, they are unable to apply the same to the ríga—I do not know
why.
Of the latter kind there are several varieties: the ríga sáki, the
small squares blue and white, as if speckled, and therefore called by
the Arabs “fílfil” (pepper), and by the Tuarek, who, as I have
mentioned, esteem it more than any other kind, the “Guinea-fowl
shirt” (tekátkat taílelt), as shown in the woodcut on page 301, is very
becoming, and was my ordinary dress from the moment I was rich
enough to purchase it, as a good one fetches as much as from
eighteen to twenty thousand kurdí; then the tob-harír, with stripes of
speckled cast like the taílelt, but intermixed with red; the jellába, red
and white, with embroidery of green silk, and several others.
Specimens of all these I have brought home and delivered to the
Foreign Office.[28]
The chief articles of native industry, besides cloth, which have a
wide market, are principally sandals. The sandals are made with
great neatness, and, like the cloth, are exported to an immense
distance; but being a cheap article (the very best, which are called
“táka-sárakí,” fetching only two hundred kurdí), they bear of course
no comparison in importance with the former. I estimate this branch
at ten millions. It is very curious that the shoes made here by Arab
shoemakers, of Sudán leather, and called “bélghʿa,” are exported in
great quantities to North Africa. The “nesísa,” or twisted leather
strap, is a celebrated article of Kanó manufacture, and “jebíras,”
richly ornamented, as the woodcut on page 303 shows, are made by
Arab workmen.
The other leather-work I will not
mention here, as it does not form a
great article of commerce; but tanned
hides (“kulábu”) and red sheepskins,
dyed with a juice extracted from the
stalks of the holcus, are not
unimportant, being sent in great
quantities even as far as Tripoli. I
value the amount of export at about
five millions.[29]
Besides these manufactures, the
chief article of African produce in the
Kanó market is the “gúro,” or kola-nut:
but while on the one hand it forms an
important article of transit, and brings
considerable profit, on the other large
sums are expended by the natives
upon this luxury, which has become to
them as necessary as tea or coffee to
us. On another occasion I shall enumerate the different kinds of this
nut, and the seasons when it is collected. The import of this nut into
Kanó, comprising certainly more than five hundred ass-loads every
year, the load of each, if safely brought to the market—for it is a very
delicate article, and very liable to spoil—being sold for about two
hundred thousand kurdí, will amount to an average of from eighty to
one hundred millions. Of this sum, I think we shall be correct in
asserting about half to be paid for by the natives of the province,
while the other half will be profit.
But we must bear in mind that the
greater part of the persons employed
in this trade are Kanáwa, and that
therefore they and their families
subsist upon this branch of trade.
A very important branch of the
native commerce in Kanó is certainly
the slave-trade; but it is extremely
difficult to say how many of these
unfortunate creatures are exported, as
a greater number are carried away by
small caravans to Bórnu and Núpe
than on the direct road to Ghát and
Fezzán. Altogether, I do not think that
the number of slaves annually
exported from Kanó exceeds five
thousand; but of course a
considerable number are sold into
domestic slavery either to the
inhabitants of the province itself, or to
those of the adjoining districts. The
value of this trade, of which only a
small percentage falls to the profit of
the Kanáwa, besides the tax which is
levied in the market, may altogether amount to from a hundred and
fifty to two hundred millions of kurdí per annum.
Another important branch of the commerce of Kanó is the transit of
natron from Bórnu to Núpe or Nýffi, which here always passes into
other hands, and in so doing leaves a considerable profit in the
place. The merchandise is very cheap; but the quantity is great, and
it employs a great many persons, as I shall have ample occasion to
illustrate in the course of my proceedings. Twenty thousand loads, at
the very least, between pack-oxen, sumpter-horses, and asses, of
natron must annually pass through the market of Kanó; which, at five
hundred kurdí per load, merely for passage-money, would give ten
millions of kurdí.
I here also mention the salt-trade, which is entirely an import one,
the salt being almost all consumed in the province. Of the three
thousand camel-loads of salt which I have above computed as
comprising the aïri with which I reached Kátsena, we may suppose
one-third to be sold in the province of Kanó; and therefore that
hereby a value of from fifty to eighty millions annually is drained from
the country. But we must not forget that the money which is paid for
this requisite (and not only for that consumed in Kanó, but also in
other provinces) is entirely laid out by the sellers in buying the
produce of Kanó; viz. cloth and corn. Here, therefore, is an absolute
balance—a real exchange of necessaries and wants.
As for ivory, at present it does not form a very important branch of
the commerce of Kanó; and I scarcely believe that more than one
hundred kantárs pass through this place. The lowest price of the
kantár is in general thirty dollars, or seventy-five thousand kurdí; but
it often rises to forty dollars, or one hundred thousand kurdí, and
even more, though I have seen it bought with ready money for
twenty-five dollars.
Of European goods the greatest proportion is still imported by the
northern road, while the natural road, by way of the great eastern
branch of the so-called Niger, will and must, in the course of events,
be soon opened.
But I must here speak about a point of very great importance for
the English, both as regards their honour and their commercial
activity. The final opening of the lower course of the Kwára has been
one of the most glorious achievements of English discovery, bought
with the lives of so many enterprising men. But it seems that the
English are more apt to perform a great deed than to follow up its
consequences. After they have opened this noble river to the
knowledge of Europe, frightened by the sacrifice of a few lives,
instead of using it themselves for the benefit of the nations of the
interior, they have allowed it to fall into the hands of the American
slave-dealers, who have opened a regular annual slave-trade with
those very regions, while the English seem not to have even the
slightest idea of such a traffic going on. Thus American produce,
brought in large quantities to the market of Núpe, has begun to
inundate Central Africa, to the great damage of the commerce and
the most unqualified scandal of the Arabs, who think that the
English, if they would, could easily prevent it. For this is not a
legitimate commerce; it is nothing but slave-traffic on a large scale,
the Americans taking nothing in return for their merchandise and
their dollars but slaves, besides a small quantity of natron. On this
painful subject I have written repeatedly to H.M.’s consul in Tripoli,
and to H.M.’s Government, and I have spoken energetically about it
to Lord Palmerston since my return. I principally regret in this respect
the death of Mr. Richardson, who, in his eloquent language, would
have dealt worthily with this question. But even from his unfinished
journals as they have been published, it is clear that during his short
stay in the country before he was doomed to succumb, he became
well aware of what was going on.[30]
The principal European goods brought to the market of Kanó are
bleached and unbleached calicoes, and cotton prints from
Manchester; French silks and sugar; red cloth from Saxony and
other parts of Europe; beads from Venice and Trieste; a very coarse
kind of silk from Trieste; common paper with the sign of three moons,
looking-glasses, needles, and small ware, from Nuremberg; sword
blades from Solingen; razors from Styria. It is very remarkable that
so little English merchandise is seen in this great emporium of
Negroland, which lies so near to the two branches of “the Great
River” of Western Africa, calico and muslins (or tanjips, as they are
called by the merchants) being almost the only English articles.
Calico certainly is not the thing most wanted in a country where
home-made cloth is produced at so cheap a rate, and of so excellent
a quality; indeed the unbleached calico has a very poor chance in

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Consumption and Advertising in

Eastern Europe and Russia in the

Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern

Mass Shootings in Central and Eastern Europe Alexei

Healthy Minds In The Twentieth Century: In And Beyond

The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century

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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 &

1, My own quarters in Dalá. During my second stay in Kanó, I also resided in

Now a busy “máriná,” an open terrace of clay, with a number of

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