“So that in the dirt, in the dust, disease cannot eat us up”: scenes and modalities of early Soviet sanitary propaganda

Through an examination of the specific technologies of Soviet propaganda, the paper analyses the places and modalities of sanitation education in the USSR during the 1920s. Following Stefan Plagenborg's approach, the paper places analytical emphasis on the modality of sanitation propaganda. From this perspective, the propaganda technology used to educate Soviet citizens about sanitation is seen as a manifestation of contemporary trends in the 1920s that aligned with the new norms of the modern state. The text analyses four main venues for the implementation of sanitary propaganda: sanitary education houses with their lecture work, agit-trains and their travelling exhibitions, theatre stages with hygienic productions and special sanitary courts, and public reading houses and their sanitary work. The author examines the reasons for the successes and failures of these different modes of sanitation education. Depending on the place and form chosen, different linguistic and imaginative techniques were used in the method of health promotion, shifting the focus from theoretical reflection to understanding health practices in everyday human activities. The study demonstrates how a holistic system of effective sanitation and hygiene education technologies was gradually built up during the early Soviet era, drawing on different practices of medicalization of the population, performative and creative methods, and various prior experiences of socio-political information. The forms of sanitation propaganda and the various repertoires of sanitation education allowed Soviet workers to become involved in the processes of medicalizing society and to take an independent interest in protecting their health.