Here Nobody Is Naked, There Is No Need for Shame

Abstract

During and after the Second World War, the older idea of the banya as a center of communal identity and a place to restore vitality re-emerged in parallel to the state’s continued emphasis on the utilitarian purpose of banyas. The state still built and maintained banyas to clean people and keep people healthy. And it still fell far short of its goals. But soldiers in battle and citizens in war-torn communities spoke of the banya, especially the rural banya, as a special place, conducive to close personal contact and Russian communal identities. Older notions of the banya as a place of transgressions and defilement re-emerged in the middle of the twentieth century as well, particularly in depictions of the Gulag banya.