The Construction and Transformation of Socialist Space in the Planned Cities of Stalinstadt and Sztรกlinvรกros

This dissertation explores and compares the social history of two towns named for Joseph Stalin during the 1950s in Eastern Europe. Stalinstadt in the German Democratic Republic and Sztálinváros in Hungary were new towns built along similar principles in the vicinity of large iron combines. As representational spaces of state socialism and “Stalinism” these towns presented, beside many similarities, a number of distinct features which are the result of different understandings and implementations of socialism throughout the region. Histories of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have acknowledged such distinctions and dismissed the idea of a uniform Soviet bloc as early as the 1970s. However, a comparative social history of these two “socialist cities” named for Joseph Stalin has not yet been written. The study consists of two parts. While the first chapter delves into the official, public and private memory of these two towns, the subsequent four chapters discuss the social history of Stalinstadt (1953 to 1961) and Sztálinváros (1951 to 1961) and explore four major spheres of everyday life under state socialism: the public sphere, the sphere of work, the sphere of leisure and the private sphere. These spheres have acquired new meanings under state socialism: hybrid spheres like public or secret privacy or private(ized) publicity render the public-private dichotomy used to describe Western societies problematic; a heavily politicized sphere of work and an equally ideology-laden sphere of leisure render a reconsideration of the meaning of work and free time under state socialism necessary. This comparative social history of Eisenhüttenstadt and Dunaújváros, as the two towns are named today, is thus also intended to contribute to the further developing of methodological tools used in the analysis of Eastern European socialist societies during the second half of the 20th century.Ph.D.2018-11-30 00:00:0