The authors of the book, themselves being witnesses to the 60ies, have succeeded in creating a perfect tableau of the Soviet time. The book has a certain time framework – it opens with the 22nd Congress of CPSU in 1961 and ends with the Soviet army’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
During these years, the Soviet civilization developed in a manner that later became inherent to it. A particular type of ‘a man of the 60ies’, so often recalled today, was developed. Even more – these were the years when deep changes into the Soviet social ideology took place.
Authors make extensive use of the mass culture evidence of that time – press, books, movies, television broadcasts, songs, jokes. The evidence proves the fact that the official sources of information not only misrepresent the reality, but also form it.
The book reflects the atmosphere, morals, lifestyle, widespread ideas, style and the special mode of thinking characteristic to the Soviet people.
From the authors:
„Aiming to hold the objective observers’ ground, we keep in mind that, as the ‘children of the Thaw’, we often view the 60ies uncritically. Nothing doing – even our fallacies are characteristic to the time.
We aim at a rather wide readership – people that witnessed the ideological deviations or ideological fashions. This intelligentsia, taking active interest in social problems, might be called subscribers of the ‘thick periodicals’”.
