Presentations by Streams

Research on adolescence and teenagehood is an actively developing area, still underrepresented in the history of socialist states. Scholars in this field have primarily focused on children or young adults, with insufficient attention paid to the experiences and practices of the transitional period between these socially recognised states. Our panel aims to, at least partially, fill this gap and explore coming-of-age experiences in socialist societies, focusing on the Soviet Union in the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods. In our presentations, we are going to dwell on the ideologies surrounding adolescence in the USSR, as well as the diaries of Soviet teenagers and the discursive tools and cultural concepts they used in their life-writing to navigate their journey to adulthood.