Semiotyka ubioru mieszkańców czerwonej Rosji na podstawie polskich relacji podróżniczych z lat trzydziestych XX wieku

Abstract

The article discusses the theme of attire of the inhabitants of Soviet Russia (and especially Moscow), which is present in the descriptions by Polish travellers in the 1930s. The author is interested in the method of Russian semioticians, who proposed a symbolic definition of culture. Importantly, this also includes the culture relating to the ‘sub-linguistic’ field – that is, the everyday world of things and human behaviours. For Polish reporters, observations of a ‘dressed’ red Russia are the basis for identifying the effects of post-revolutionary transformations, while the Soviet ‘clothing stock’ is presented in relation to the Western ‘fashion system’. The aim of the text is to portray the ways in which the descriptions of garments articulate metaphorically the important ‘non-attire’ issues.

Keywords

• Polish reports from travels to Soviet Russia (1930s)
• fashion system
• semiotics and rhetoric of Soviet citizens’ attire