Consuming and Advertising – Eastern Europe Revisited

Consuming and Advertising – Eastern Europe Revisited

Organizer
Herder-Institut Marburg, Verband der OsteuropahistorikerInnen e.V. (VOH)
Venue
Online
ZIP
35037
Location
Marburg
Country
Germany
From - Until
04.03.2021 - 05.03.2021
By
Heidi Hein-Kircher, Wissenschaftsforum, Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung - Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Joint Conference of Verband der OsteuropahistorikerInnen e.V. (VOH) and Herder Institute (HI) 2021, March, 4th-5th, online. To receive the access link and password to the virtual conference please send an email to: forum@herder-institut.de

Consuming and Advertising – Eastern Europe Revisited

Since the offset of industrialization and intensified urbanization in the 19th century, consumer cultures have developed as a feature of modern societies. In earlier epochs, however, different forms of consumer cultures existed already. Even if consumer cultures are transnational phenomena, we can find different forms “nationalized” by a given society. Consumption in Eastern Europe is often associated with shortage and queuing, but even during socialism consumer cultures have developed as recent studies show. Advertising which for a long time seemed to have been absent under socialism is a related field of study: which forms and media of advertising existed, which open or hidden messages were transported, which functions did advertising have under socialism? Social differentiation, gender and materiality are connected subjects. All in all, consumption and consumer cultures as well as advertising can be seen as indicators for the attitudes and values of a society.

In recent years, consumer cultures have become an important field of historical research on everyday life. Especially with regard to the socialist societies in Eastern Europe, some exciting topics have been analyzed and approaches have been developed. The conference, jointly organized by the Association of Historians of Eastern Europe and the Herder Institute, aims to take up this trend and discuss different forms of consumption and advertising not only during the 20th century but also in a long-term perspective.

Programm

MARCH 4, 2021

2.30–4.30 pm PANEL I: Marketing and Lifestyles in imperial contexts
Chair: Martin Aust (Bonn)

Corinne Geering (Leipzig):
Handmade by Local Artisans: Marketing Home Industry Products from the Late Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires

Daria Sambuk (Halle-Wittenberg):
“Everyone Drinks Tea, but only Few Know How to Do it.” Marking Social and National Identities in 19th-Century Imperial Russia

Agnieszka Jagodzińska (Wrocław):
Advertisement and Identity. Jewish Consumer Culture in Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the 20th Century

3.15–3.30 pm Break

Julia Malitska (Huddinge):
“We Should not Merely Quit Meat but Transform Whole our Life”: Vegetarian Consumption and a Quest for Life-Reform in the Late Russian Empire

Lilija Wedel (Bielefeld):
Reichs- und russlanddeutsche Werbung im späten Zarenreich als Spiegel der Konsumpolitik, Konsumkultur und Kommunikationsnetze

4.00–4.30 pm DISCUSSION
Discussant: Kirsten Bönker (Göttingen)

4.30–4.45 pm Break

4.45–6.00 pm PANEL II: Advertising the “New” in the Interwar Period
Chair: Stefan Rohdewald (Leipzig)

Alexandra Chiriac (Bucharest): Out with the Old, in with the New: Selling Modernity in Interwar Bucharest

Lavinia Popica (Akron): Consuming American Goods in Interwar Romania: Buyers and Sellers

Magdalena Burger (Bamberg): The Role of the Czechoslovak New Woman as a Consumer: The Case of the Women‘s Magazine Eva (1928–1938)

5.30–6.00 pm DISCUSSION
Discussant: Denisa Nešt’aková (Marburg)

6.00–7.00 pm FRITZ T. EPSTEIN AWARD CEREMONY

7.15–8.30 pm Virtual Meet and Greet via wonder.me

MARCH 5, 2021

2.00–4.00 pm PANEL III: Advertising and Consumption “Soviet Style”
Chair: Dietmar Neutatz (Freiburg)

Iryna Skubii (Kingston):
Early Soviet Consumption as a First Battle on the Cultural Front

Alexandra Evdokimova (Berlin):
Soviet Advertisement in the Krushchev Era: Functions, Values and Emotions (A Study of Moscow Cafés and Restaurants Guide from 1958)

Olha Korniienko (Kharkiv):
Under the Western Brand: Official Portrayals of Soviet Fashionistas in the Satirical
Magazine Perets’

2.45–3.00 pm Break

Nataliia Laas (Waltham):
Market Researchers under the Soviet Command Economy from the 1960s to the Early 1970s

Adelina Stefan (Esch-sur-Alzette):
From Socialist Scarcity to ‘Conspicuous Consumption’: Foreign Tourists and Eating-out Practices in Socialist Romania of the 1960 and the 1980

3.30–4.00 DISCUSSION
Discussant: Annina Gagyiova (Prague)

4.00–4.15 pm Break

4.15–6.15 pm PANEL IV: Legacies of Soviet Consumer Cultures
Chair: David Feest (Lüneburg)

Airi Uuna (Tallinn): “Jack of all Trades”: The Many Functions of a Late Soviet Advertising Bureau

Stephanie Weisman (Vienna):
Smells like Socialism? On Sensory Specificities and the Emotional Branding of Perfumes in Polish People’s Republic

Tricia Starks (Fayetteville): Addictive by Design? Tobacco Product Design, Marketing, and Smoking Uptake across the Iron Curtain

5.00–5.15 pm Break

Julia Obertreis (Erlangen): Smoking as a Consumption Practice and Masculinities in the Soviet Union, 1950s–1980s

Leah Valtin-Erwin (Bloomington): The Expansion of Western European Multinational Supermarket Retailers into the Post-Communist Region after 1989

5.45–6.15 pm DISCUSSION
Discussant: Alexey Golubev (Houston)

6.15–7.15 pm CONCLUSION / FINAL DISCUSSION

Summarizing Commentary: Julia Obertreis (Erlangen) and Heidi Hein-Kircher (Marburg)

Contact (announcement)

Heidi.Hein-Kircher@Herder-Institut.de or
forum@herder-institut.de

https://www.herder-institut.de/go/d8-48a8f0