Chewing Gum in the Life World of Soviet Children in the 1960s–80s (Reconstruction Based on Modern Memories)

Abstract

Among the few niches left by isolated but fundamental studies of chewing gum in the everyday life of Soviet children (works by K. A. Bogdanov, V. V. Golovin, A.V. Kudryashev), ideas about the specifi c role of this confectionery product, depending on the child’s place of residence, his gender and social environment, deserve special attention. An attempt to clarify the boundaries of the application of the fetishization construct to the interpretation of the role of chewing gum in the life world of a Soviet child was carried out on the basis of 50 semi-structured narrative-oriented interviews conducted in Kostroma, Krasnodar, Moscow, Ryazan in 2020, and memoirs about childhood in the USSR by six authors. The results of the study confirm the exceptional subjective significance of chewing gum, its functioning as an object of commodity exchange. At the same time, there is a more widespread practice of gratuitous donation of this confectionery by children. Adventurous practices of criminal acquisition of delicacies in the 1960s–70s were localized in the cities becoming the centers of international tourism and seaports of the USSR; in Moscow, teenage boys who already had a marginal status were involved in these practices. A significant part of Moscow schoolchildren distanced themselves from adventurous entrepreneurship out of conviction or out of fear. For children who lived far from the territories covered by international communications, fetishization was significantly limited by the unavailability of chewing gum – the lack of children’s ability to purchase it independently.