2016/07/02 by Deirdre Ruscitti Harshman
Social Sciences · #Soviet and Russian History #Urbanization and City Planning
paper · doi:10.1080/09546545.2016.1243616
openalex publication_date 2016/07/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The early Soviet state wanted to re-shape the kitchen. Having declared it a relic of the past and a soon-to-be-casualty of the struggle to create a ‘new everyday life’ (novyi byt), Soviet officials aimed to communalise and even professionalise the space of the kitchen. These campaigns, however, obscure a much longer history of the kitchen. Not only were many urban kitchens already communalised out of necessity, but reformers in the late Imperial period had made earlier attempts to transform the space, using hygienic concerns as justification. This article traces debates over the space of the kitchen across the long revolutionary period, examining how plans to re-design it highlight deep similarities between liberal reformers of the late Imperial period and Soviet activists.