Abstract
This article explores how blinded Soviet Second World War veterans faced the problem of social reintegration and adjustment to peacetime civilian life. Their suddenly acquired blindness compelled these men to craft new subjectivities. To give legitimacy to their desires for inclusion and equality, many blind veterans advocated integration through labour. While these men chose to operate within the hegemonic discourses of labour and ability, their status as blind veterans also altered the Soviet idiom of productive work and exemplary subjectivity. Using the highly scripted genre of autobiography, disabled individuals engaged with the standards of fitness promoted by the socialist culture of labour, but also reconceived work as a source of happiness and proposed an alternative model of Soviet subjectivity.
Published Version
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