Without the Banya We Would Perish
A History of the Russian Bathhouse
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
When so much in Russia has changed, the banya remains. For over one thousand years Russians of every economic class, political party, and social strata have treated bathing as a communal activity integrating personal hygiene and public health with rituals, relaxation, conversations, drinking, political intrigue, business, and sex. Communal steam baths have survived the Mongols, Peter the Great, and Soviet communism and remain a central and unifying national custom. Combining the ancient elements of earth, water, and fire, the banya paradoxically cleans bodies and spreads disease, purifies and defiles, creates community and underscores difference.
Here, Ethan Pollock tells the history of this ubiquitous and enduring institution. He explores the bathhouse's role in Russian identity, following public figures (from Catherine the Great to Rasputin to Putin), writers (such as Chekhov and Dostoevsky), foreigners (including Mark Twain and Casanova), and countless other men and women into the banya to discover the meanings they have found there. The story comes up to the present, exploring the continued importance of banyas in Russia and their newfound popularity in cities across the globe. Drawing on sources as diverse as ancient chronicles, government reports, medical books, and popular culture, Pollock shows how the banya has persisted, adapted, and flourished in the everyday lives of Russians throughout wars, political ruptures, modernization, and urbanization.
Through the communal bathhouse, Without the Banya We Would Perish provides a unique perspective on the history of the Russian people.
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In this dense monograph, scholar Pollock (Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars) digs in to the complexities of the Russian bathhouse, offering a survey of the sacred and profane rituals associated with the "banya." From rural wooden steam huts to the concrete urban bath complexes of the Communist era, he calls the Russian bathhouse "a liminal space, between life and death, mixed-sex coupling, same-sex bonding, official ablutions and magic." Bizarre and barbaric in Western eyes the Apostle Andrew used the phrase "voluntary torture" the customs associated with the bathhouse, such as being swatted with branches, reflected Russia's uneasy transition to Christianity in the 11th century and its place at a cultural crossroads where the Turkish hamman, the Jewish mikvah, and other traditions mingled, and where communal as well as corporeal norms were set in steam, aided by birch branches, vodka, pickles, linen towels, and other essential elements. Pollock mines Russian and Soviet art, literature, and film for a huge number of banya references, to bolster his claim that the banya is central to Russian identity and a place of social experimentation. In accessible but detail-heavy prose, he considers the banya from numerous angles, including as potential hot spots for disease transmission. Pollock's history of the Russian bath is fine but slow reading for specialists and the curious alike. Photos.
