“In the USSR, Philately Will Either Be Accessible to the Masses or Will Not Exist at All”: The Genesis of Soviet Mass Collecting in the 1920s–1930s

The article presents the results of the study of the discourse of collecting in the pages of thematic magazines in the RSFSR/USSR in the period between 1922 and 1932. The source base of the research includes magazines that were published in different regions of the country. Special attention is paid to the establishment of a monopoly on collecting and to the activities of the founders of Soviet collecting (F. Chuchin, Commissioner of the Central Commission for Famine Relief under the VTsIK on Philately and Notaphily, and M. Syuzyumov, an expert in Byzantine history). The study of literature on the topic made it possible to systematize historiography and to offer an explanatory model of Soviet collecting, which was based on political (ideological), economic, social, and cultural aspects. The analysis of literature and sources allows us to conclude that, firstly, legal collecting during that period narrowed down to philately and other forms of collecting, and secondly, from being non-partisan and apolitical, it evolved into a multifactorial auxiliary means of educating Soviet citizens within leisure practices. Contrary to the well-established in historiography thesis, mass collecting in the USSR did not cease to exist at that stage, but it became a widespread children’s leisure practice in the institutions that had been created earlier.

Bogdanov, K.A. “K istorii filatelii v SSSR. Obzor tem i issledovatel’skikh kontekstov” [On the history of philately in the USSR. A review of topics and research contexts]. Acta Slavica Iaponica, vol. 40 (2020): 19–41. (In Russian)
Dmitriev, A.N. “‘Akademicheskii marksizm’ 1920–1930-kh gg. i istoriya akademii: sluchai A.N. Shebunina” [“Academic Marxism” of the 1920s–1930s and the history of the academy: the case of A.N. Shebunin]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 54 (2002). Accessed December 28, 2022. https://textarchive.ru/c-2054388-pall.html (In Russian)
Grant, J. “The Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 37, iss. 3 (1995): 476–93. Ignat'eva, O.V. “Sovetskoe kollektsionirovanie v kontekste kul'turnoi revolyutsii” [Soviet collecting in the context of the cultural revolution]. Gumanitarnye issledovaniya v Vostochnoi Sibiri i na Dal'nem Vostoke, no. 4 (50) (2019): 80–89. (In Russian) Nemchikova, Z.M. Sluzhenie velikomu delu. O revolyutsionere F.G. Chuchine [Serving a great cause. About revolutionary F.G. Chuchin]. Vologda: Severo-Zapadnoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1974. (In Russian) Nemchikova, Z.M. “U istokov sovetskoi filatelii” [The dawn of Soviet philately]. Filateliya SSSR, no. 4 (105) (1975): 26–28. (In Russian) Ovsyannikova, S.A. “Chastnoe kollektsionirovanie v Rossii v poreformennuyu epokhu (1861–1917 gg.)” [Private collecting in Russia in the post-reform era (1861–1917)]. In Ocherki istorii muzeinogo dela v Rossii [Essays on the history of museology in Russia], edited by G.A. Novitskii, iss. 2, 66–144. Moscow: Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1960. (In Russian) Plaggenborg, St. Revolyutsiya i kul'tura: Kul'turnye orientiry v period mezhdu Oktyabr'skoi revolyutsiei i epokhoi stalinizma [Revolution and culture: images of man between the October Revolution and the age of Stalinism], translated from German by I. Kartasheva. St Petersburg: Zhurnal “Neva”, 2000. (In Russian) Polyakovskaya, M.A. “Uchenyi i vremya: k 100-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya M.Ya. Syuzyumova” [The scientist and time: to the 100th anniversary of M.Ya. Syuzyumov]. Elektronnyi nauchnyi arkhiv UrFU [Electronic scholarly archive of the South Ural Federal University]. Accessed December 23, 2022. https://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/4608/2/polyakovskaya_1993_1.pdf (In Russian) Rybak, K.E. Teoriya i praktika komplektovaniya muzeinykh fondov: analiz metodologicheskoi i normativnoi bazy (1917–1991) [Theory and practice of expanding museum collections: an analysis of the methodological and regulatory framework (1917–1991)]. Moscow: Institut Naslediya, 2021. (In Russian) Sashanov, V.V. “‘Integral'nyi kollektsioner’, ili prervannyi put' v nauku: M.Ya. Syuzyumov v 1920–1930-e gg.” [“An integral collector”, or an interrupted path to science: M.Ya. Syuzyumov in the 1920s–1930s]. Ural'skii istoricheskii vestnik, no. 4 (49) (2015): 139–45. (In Russian) Smirnov, V.F. “Organizatsiya v Taganroge obshchestva kollektsionerov” [Organization of a society of collectors in Taganrog]. Filateliya, no. 8 (1995): 27–28. (In Russian) Stal'baum, B. “Lenin. Deti. Filateliya” [Lenin. Children. Philately]. Sovetskii kollektsioner, no. 8 (1970): 3–22. (In Russian) Yakub, A.V. “Gosudarstvo i filateliya v Sovetskoi Rossii nachala 1920-kh gg.: normativno-pravovaya baza” [State and philately in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s: legal framework]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Istoriya, no. 66 (2020): 75–78. (In Russian) Yakub, A.V. “Stanovlenie sovetskogo filatelisticheskogo dvizheniya v 1917–1941 gg.: identifikatsiya ‘svoi’ i ‘chuzhie’ glazami sovremennikov” [Formation of the Soviet philatelic movement in 1917–1941: identification of ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ through the eyes of contemporaries]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 459 (2020): 178–86. (In Russian)
Yakub A.V., and N.V. Yakub. “Kollektsionerskaya i filatelisticheskaya pressa v RSFSR/SSSR v pervoi polovine 20-kh godov XX veka: ot plyuralizma k monopolizmu” [Collector and philatelic press in the RSFSR/USSR during the first half of the 1920s: from pluralism to monopolism]. Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo universiteta. Seriya: Gumanitarnye nauki, vol. 162, bk. 6 (2020): 210–26. (In Russian) Yakub A.V., and N.V. Yakub. “Zhurnal ‘Sovetskii kollektsioner’ kak istochnik po sovetsko-afganskim otnosheniyam pervoi poloviny 1920-kh gg.: ‘filatelisticheskii proekt’ professora B.M. Popova” [Sovetskii kollektsioner magazine as a source on Soviet-Afghan relations in the first half of the 1920s: “Philatelic Project” by Professor B.M. Popov]. Vestnik Omskogo universiteta. Seriya: Istoricheskie nauki, vol. 7, no. 2 (26) (2020): 86–93. (In Russian) Yakub, N.V. “Vizualizatsiya i memorializatsiya obrazov sovetskogo i partiinogo rukovodstva RSFSR/SSSR v pervoi polovine 1920-kh gg.: pochta i filateliya” [Visualization and memorialization of images of the Soviet and party leadership of the RSFSR / USSR in the first half of the 1920s: mail and philately]. Vestnik Omskogo universiteta. Seriya: Istoricheskie nauki, vol. 8, no. 3 (31) (2021): 54–59. (In Russian)