Cultural and Domestic Arrangement of Migrant Kolkhozes and the Daily Life of Settlers in the North Caucasus Region in the Period of Collectivization
Abstract
In the present article based on rare archival materials for the first time used in scientific circulation the author examines the issues of cultural and domestic arrangement of migrant kolkhozes (collective farms) in the North Caucasus region in the period of agriculture collectivization. The author highlights the key activities of regional authorities in the sphere of cultural development within these collective farms. It is stated that cultural arrangement of resettlement of collective farms in the 1930s was far from ideal. But taking into account state importance of the resettlement campaign, the authorities managed to achieve certain positive changes. An integral part of the cultural life of the people of the red army was its political and ideological component, due to the high level of politicization of public life in the USSR in 1930s. The red army collective farms were equipped with schools, nurseries and kindergartens, clubs and cinemas but these institutions were poorly organized. The article points out that labour of the red army settlers had little common features with farms of the local people. Community production activities and everyday leisure are, on the contrary, marked by the similarity of lifestyle. The mass spread of literacy stimulated the reader’s interest – immigrants in their leisure hours read the newspapers, magazines and books, mainly fiction. The author examines the everyday life of immigrants, and it is largely substantiated by their social moods which contributed to the formation of the red army collective farms. The author came to the conclusion that the daily life of settlers was largely due to their social disadvantage. Food and accommodation, working conditions were at a very low level. For most of them, life and work in the Kuban Cossack villages was a daily test of their physical and moral forces and was not much different from the life of the Kuban collective farmers.
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