Philatelists in Perm 1960s-1980s (based on the ego documents)

This article reconstructs postage stamp collecting, 1960-1980 in Perm, a large industrial center, on the basis of ego documents. The author uses the historical and anthropological approach formulated for the study of late socialism in the works of Golubev. The main data sources are the oral histories recorded by the author in 2021-2023 in Perm. The article discusses the history of the regional philatelic society in the 1960s and 1970s; the self-determination of philatelists in the urban community; and public and private collecting practices. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Society of Philatelists in Perm was the organizational core of collecting, but it did not include all collectors or all types of collecting. The community of collectors takes the form of a kind of male union including two main groups, divided along institutional lines. In collecting, there is a blurring of the lines between public (i.e. officially approved) actions and private exchange and other ways of realizing commercial interests. The history of the Perm philatelic society shows one aspect of the erosion of Soviet society during the stage of late socialism.