Without the Banya We Would Perish by Ethan Pollock

Author:Ethan Pollock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

There was no predicament, however, when it came to extoling the benefits of the banya to the population. Propaganda posters clarified the degree to which state agencies saw banyas as a crucial feature of cultured living and an essential element in the fight against disease. These posters targeted everyone: men and women, rural and urban populations, and ethnic Russians and non-Russians. The most basic poster showed a worker—most likely a miner—with his face covered in soot and a sponge in his hand under the imperative “Go to the Banya.” (This was a play on words: in Russian the phrase can be taken literally or can mean something like “go to hell.”) This poster was widely distributed in Russian and other languages as well. Leaving the image the same, but changing only the language suggested that the poster-makers saw going to the banya as a habit that was easily translatable to all the nationalities of the empire.

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