Anti-kitsch, or how to make a socialist doily: DIY, folk art, and “open” materialities in late-socialist Slovakia

Journal article

This article explores the promotion of amateur “folk art” production in the Slovak Normalization-era, lifestyle magazines Dorka and Linia. Scholarship on socialist-era DIY, consumption, and material culture shows that socialist modernity was characterized by a culture of making and repair which relied on the knowledge, skill, and labour of citizens. I argue that the amateur production of “folk art” was an integral part of this culture in late-socialist Slovakia, forming a specific type of material practice which deserves to be studied in its own right. Focusing on projects of vernacular embroidery in Dorka and Linia, I show how the Normalization-era authorities promoted the physical recreation of vernacular culture as an ideologically correct way of incorporating pre-socialist rural traditions into modern socialist interiors and lifestyles. Such projects constituted a type of socialist “aesthetic education,” teaching women how to distinguish “good taste” from kitsch. This official valorization of amateur “folk art” production was accompanied by a particular idea of gendered citizenship, and broader ideological lessons in materialist thinking which encourage socialist citizens to engage in the self-conscious creation of their material environment.

Authors: Makovicky, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Journal: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 31-45
• Publication date: 2025-03-11
• Acceptance date: 2024-08-01
• DOI: 10.1080/25739638.2025.2476859
• EISSN: 2573-9646
• ISSN: 2573-9638
• Language: English
• Keywords: DIY; folk art; kitsch; materiality; normalization; Slovakia