Abstract
“The Soviet passport,” reads the blurb on the back cover of this original and valuable new book, “is not only a document. The fate of a person, the trajectory of his/her life depended on its presence or lack thereof and on what information it contained.” Despite its exceptional significance as the quintessential “super” document of Soviet power, scholars have devoted remarkably little attention to understanding the passport’s role in historical time. Taking a panoramic view and exploiting a wide array of sources, Al’bert Baiburin of the European University at St. Petersburg, a prolific author of works of ethnography, anthropology, and history and editor-in-chief of Anthropological Forum (Antropologicheskii forum), published in the Russian capital of the north, has produced a remarkably comprehensive book on the Soviet passport and the system surrounding it, which may well be the most multifaceted work on the subject to date. It is an essential starting point for anyone interested in the topic. DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2019-11-1-182-185
Highlights
The author poses—and answers—some critical questions: Why did the passport take on such importance? Why did the Bolsheviks abolish the passport system when they came to power only to reintroduce it in 1932? Why did the living, or residential, permit (propiska) become such a defining feature of Soviet life? What is the meaning of the term “passport regime” and of the 101-kilometer rule? Why didn’t Soviet peasants receive passports until the 1970s? How did people contrive to sidestep the rules to obtain a living permit and passport? How and why did the physical appearance of the passport and its content change over time? Why did nationality, which at first was determined by the applicant, later become determined by the nationality of their parents? What distinguishes the passport photo from others? What motivated some religious communities to reject the passport altogether?
Adding a personal and human dimension to the Soviet and post-Soviet passport systems, part 3 makes effective use of oral history and memoirs to suggest the myriad ways in which passport owners ascribed meaning to them and to their use
What one did before and after 1917, one’s “social position”— in effect, class— determined everything. Because they fell outside the passport system, Soviet peasants were the big losers
Summary
The author poses—and answers—some critical questions: Why did the passport take on such importance? Why did the Bolsheviks abolish the passport system when they came to power only to reintroduce it in 1932? Why did the living, or residential, permit (propiska) become such a defining feature of Soviet life? What is the meaning of the term “passport regime” and of the 101-kilometer rule? Why didn’t Soviet peasants receive passports until the 1970s? How did people contrive to sidestep the rules to obtain a living permit and passport? How and why did the physical appearance of the passport and its content change over time? Why did nationality, which at first was determined by the applicant, later become determined by the nationality of their parents? What distinguishes the passport photo from others? What motivated some religious communities to reject the passport altogether?. In part 2 Baiburin taps archival sources and instructions aimed at officials to interrogate the document as a bureaucratic construction of immense propaganda value that constrained and enabled its owner’s identity.
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