The Consumer Ideal in the Humorous Discourse in the Soviet Ukraine: Content-analysis of Soviet Anecdotes and the Magazine “Peretz”

Abstract

This paper present results of the comparative discourse analysis of the Soviet Anecdotes and texts of the Ukrainian satirical magazine “Peretz” (“Pepper”). The analysis focuses on the question that how was it possible for the consumer attitude to develop in the Socialist society where consumerism contradicted to the basic moral principles.
So as to answer this question, political jokes collected from various sources (memoirs, diaries, notebooks, personal collections of anecdotes, oral historical materials, published collections of Soviet political jokes, etc., more than a total of 2000 folklore texts) were organized into a relational database and processed with the methods of content- and discourse analysis. The same database was created and analyzed for texts published in the magazine “Peretz”.
The results show that the intention of and practical steps taken to improve the welfare of the population aroused the Soviet citizens’ consumer attitude. Influenced by a consumer disposition, the dichotomy of possessing or not possessing power lost its relevance and was replaced by the new formula of having access or not to material benefits. The official discourse influenced the formation and consolidation of the ideas of Soviet citizens about consumerism to a considerable degree. Even if talking about the consumer ideal with negative connotations, the official discourse facilitated indirectly the formation of the ideas and the system of values of the consumer society in the USSR.