The Commissars’ Upright Piano: Property Restitution and Privilege at the Post-Stalin House on the Embankment

• In Event: The Practice and Legacies of Stalinist Repression

Abstract

When the Soviet authorities began the process of posthumously rehabilitating Old Bolsheviks and other leading figures who had been purged in the 1930s property restitution quickly emerged as a leading concern among the survivors of the repressed. Drawing upon appeals written by former residents of Moscow’s storied House on the Embankment and their relatives, along with communiqués between functionaries of the Council of Ministers, this paper explores the nature of ownership under state socialism against the backdrop of one of the earliest contemporary instances of restorative justice. By examining the process through which compensation was made, or denied, this paper foregrounds the central role that material objects and other privileges played in reconstituting identities shattered by state violence, along with the creation of a new entitlement group within Thaw-era Soviet society.

Author

• Samuel Casper, U of Pennsylvania