by Yelena Sherbakov
“Artists from around the world are invited to send drawings,
paintings and collages, inspired by the image of a little Russian girl Alenka”
reads the invitation from Russian artist Ivan Zemtsov calling anyone and
everyone creative to participate in his international mail art project. The
first “Alenka Show”, was exhibited in October 2006 at the Yoshkar-Ola Museum of
Fine Arts, featuring the works of 24 artists, each one representing a different
country, yet this was only a small portion of the collection Zemtsov had come
to gather from individuals across the globe. Not to be mistaken for a national
celebrity or royal heiress, Alenka is perhaps much more than that, for her
immortal ability and eternal youth has come to both precede and outlive the
Socialist experiment, and skip out still smiling. Indeed, Alenka was always
present with me at any celebration, never failing to make a grand entrance at any
special event or occasion: She came accompanied by other presents not as a
surprise but as an eagerly anticipated guest, though nonetheless acting as the
embodiment of every child’s yearning for that “something sweet”. She brought with her love and laughter, as my
parents or grandparents bestowed upon me this eagerly awaited prize; at this
stage the anticipation builds, but unlike with other presents this is not a
wrapper which is hastily torn off and tossed to the side – this is a cherished
friend’s smiling face, perhaps even more so to me as an only child, she is the
symbol of a missing sibling. Even walking past the “Red October” factory in the
heart of Russia, Moscow, is a part of her enchantment: the smell of chocolate
proliferating the suburban air is incentive enough to surrender to Alenka’s
tempting allure. “So, who is she?” I hear you ask.
The chubby-cheeked little girl in a kerchief is perhaps the
most famous product of the Socialist era, and her face continues to adorn the
banners of the famous red-brick building of the Red October factory on the
banks of river Moscow today (Compton, 2011). And it is this image of the girl
from a chocolate wrapper, which since 1966 has become the nation’s favourite
brand for satisfying a sweet tooth (Atanasov, 1997), that has come to occupy
the hearts and minds of Zemtsov and his multitude of following artists as their
muse. Red October’s chocolate occupies eight of the ten top spots in the national
brand-recognition rankings, and it comes as no surprise Alenka triumphs as
number one above them all. A now post-Soviet state, Russia appears to be
fostering a brand based nostalgia for its bygone Soviet goods, or so Alenka’s
story leads us to believe. The question of my dissertation was to discover how
“Alyonka” has not only become an iconic symbol of national pride, but a dearly
beloved (rodnaya) integral member of
Russian families. To this date, there has been no study of this iconic legend,
despite her unrivalled (though often challenged by her multiple imitators and
competitors) status.
 |
| Images from Zemstov’s project |
 |
| (Zemtsov, 2012) |
And so I embarked on my own version of the journey of Alice
in Wonderland: a quest into the depths of Russia’s boreal forest (Taiga) – well known from the surface of
the bird’s eye view to the hovering media aircraft that reported on its
prominence, mass and greatness, but with so many of its hidden treasures yet to
be discovered, to which only those who had touched, lived and breathed the forest,
the old forest keepers knew the secrets that held the gemstones of their
homeland – the people of the nation, those who had truly kept it alive. I took
a deep breath, and dared to be the first to ask, “Alenka, why you”?
Chasing a Wild Rabbit
I’m sure you have heard about the importance of picking a
dissertation topic that interests you: valuable advice! However the temptation
with this is to simultaneously answer a question you have not yet asked,
thereby formulating your “question” and safely securing your comfortable seat
in the ride towards destination degree. But, who would read a book or watch a
film if they already knew the plot and exactly what happens? So my cherry to
the advice cake you’ve no doubt been served would be this: inspiration. Pick a
topic that makes you excited, gets your blood racing and your heart pumping, and
don’t expect that you already have all the answers! As the King in Carroll’s
famous novel said: “begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the
end. Then stop”. In research, one thing often leads to another, and as you grow
“curiouser and curiouser” you might just discover answers to questions you
didn’t know you had. Go on and chase a wild rabbit, and don’t be afraid that
you will fall down a hole, you may find great treasures! It is the journey that
will bring your dissertation to life, keep you interested and you might even add
something new to the field that even scholars have yet to discover.
Perspectives: Growing Big, Shrinking Small and a Mad Tea Party
I had always been fascinated by brands. I loved the study of
how brands acquired their value and meanings, and so Alenka was the muse to my
canvas. Being Russian, I had grown up with this brand playing a major role in
my life as a national identity and treasured gift. So, the central question of
my dissertation was to answer how this Soviet brand had both preceded and
out-lived the Socialist experiment to become a cultural icon and symbol not
only of national pride, but an integral member of every Russian family?
I followed a combined approach: to use the metaphor of the
great Russian forest (Taiga), I flew across
the treetops to obtain the bird’s eye view, examining Alenka’s iconicity by
analysing the brand and her creator, the famous Red October Factory in a
historical context through media and literature, to determine how it has become
integrated into society and culture to become an “iconic brand” (Holt, 2004). I
then used this historical trajectory analysis to determine whether Alenka has
become loaded with utopian and modernist values, as advocated by the Constructivists
(Kiaer, 2005; Margolin, 1997) and later Socialist movements, using Holt’s
(2004) theories of resolving cultural contradictions and Rodchenko’s vision of
objects as comrades (Kiaer, 2005) as contextual frames.
I analysed the collectively constructed character of Alenka
as a persona in her own right to determine the role the brand has come to play
in the lives of ordinary consumers and her status as a dearly beloved (rodnaya) family member, using Miller’s
(2010) theories to understand this through a dialectical relationship between
people and their objects. As the brand’s values are deeply entrenched in its
history, McCracken’s (2005) theories were employed to determine whether this
object has become an instrument which operates through channelling nostalgia,
thereby contributing to its status as a cultural icon (Holt, 2004).
I then plunged the depths of the forest, parachuting my way
into the homes and hearts of its occupants, evoking their memories, capturing their
thoughts and channelling their feelings, and thereby bringing Alenka to life
for those who had never met her. I challenged the literature using qualitative
research in the form of semi-structured, in depth interviews with current and
former Russian citizens, young and old, who had experienced the brand. I had
created my own mad tea party gathering of willing respondents in an attempt to
gain a more objective view. This part really fascinated me, as I was able to
not only communicate the experiences of others into my study and give it
objectivity, but also came to understand why and how the brand had resonated so
deeply in my own sub consciousness.
Brandtopia: A Soviet Never-never land
My historical trajectory analysis suggested that Alenka
could be viewed as a Constructivist object or even persona of everyday
consumption in her own right, aimed at promoting social change and instilling
socialist values. It could have been argued that at the time of her birth and
through the Soviet era, she propagandised the communist ideal of making luxury
goods, like chocolate, available for all as opposed to just the bourgeoisie
(Kravets and Orge, 2010), thereby endorsing collective and utopian values as
upheld by the constructivists (Margolin, 1997). But, due to a lack of
production capacity, this was not reality and such goods failed in their
mission to become stable consumption items of everyday life, falling instead as
unfulfilled promises. However, the Soviet government’s efforts to make these
luxuries available during holidays and celebrations had the effect of making
them associated with good times. And despite the fact that obtaining them, even
on special occasions was a challenge in itself, such hardships paved the way to
the creation of certain rituals and humorous spectacles which would turn into
stories that produced a “folklore of the Soviet times” (Kravets and Orge,
2010).
Interestingly, as my respondents described their idealistic
associations with the brand however, I researched this and found that it bore a
strong resemblance to a different utopia, More’s concept of a literary utopia
(Maclaran et al., 1999), an imaginary world where everything is harmonious
(Murtola, 2011). I found that on a micro level, the brand appears to act as a
tool for individuals to construct their own personal concepts of utopia based
on the context of their environment (Maclaran and Brown, 2001) in the sense of
literary fantasy (Maclaran et al., 1999) and Holt’s (2004) mythical worlds.
Through the accounts of people I spoke to and literary evidence, I realised
that Alenka appears to take on the role of a Soviet version of Peter Pan,
allowing any Russian child to construct their own “Never-never land”, and
further still that the essence of utopia lies not in being satisfied, but in
its function as an element of dreams and desire (Maclaran et al., 1999).
Surprisingly therefore, I found that Alenka’s utopian
meanings appeared to be divided: The historical trajectory showed her to emerge
as an object loaded with Constructivist hopes and acting as an “object as
comrade” (Kiaer, 2005), personifying the values of a collective Soviet utopia.
On the other hand, the interviews suggested that the brand had become saturated
with literary ideals of utopia (Maclaran et al., 1999), conjuring fantasy
realms and fairy-tale worlds of childhood magic which individuals had come to
associate with the brand. Indeed, although the nature of this utopia appears to
have appropriated a different meaning throughout time, Alenka’s ability to
reincarnate and transcend past the time trap many brands fall prey to suggests
that her power lies in being a universal tool through which anyone can
construct their own personal meanings of utopia (Brown and Maclaran, 2001), and
it is this unique ability which makes her timeless, ageless and immortal.
Materiality: Family Member and Friend
At the beginning of this entry, I described Alenka’s
presence at celebrations and the tradition of being given as a gift from
parents and grandparents (and often as a long-awaited gift under the Yolka (Christmas Tree) from Ded Moroz, the Russian version of Santa
Claus known as Grandfather Frost, another aspect reinforcing its utopian and
fantasy associations). When observed from an objective standpoint, it becomes
evident how this ritual encapsulates Miller’s theory of family bonds forming
through material objects: the parents show their love and care for the child
through provision of a product which holds not only nutritional value but sentimental
significance; the child in turn relishes and cherishes their affection. This
practice also correlates with Miller’s idea of “handing down” the generations a
family favourite, a product which serves as a link in the chain between the
generations.
It was often traditional back when I was growing up for
children to collect sweet wrappers, and in this department Alenka was the cream
of the crop, a queen presiding over what were pawns in comparison. If there was
ever a way to have your cake and eat it, here it was – although the chocolate
was gone, Alenka’s smiling face remained to keep you company, whether the
respondents’ I spoke to described her as a friend or family member. This bears
strong likelihood to Miller’s idea of using external objects as grounding to
ascertain one’s own existence, and by doing so quench the thirst for identity
by constructing it through commodities (Elliot and Wattanasuwan, 1998).
My analysis showed that
that Alenka is regarded as a persona in her own right, described with
the qualities of an individual, leading to the conclusion that she is regarded
as a beloved family member or cherished friend, suggesting that she acts as a
mediator of familial relationships (Miller, 2008). There also emerged a
consensus of Alenka being a traditional family gift, handed down through the
generations (Miller, 2008) and thus appropriating the role of a link between
the past present.
Madeleine Object: A Time Travel Machine
For me, this is a brand that does not just bring back
childhood memories, but takes me back to a place that evokes deep
emotions, creating a sense of nostalgia and acting as a symbol of the
relationships with my closest family members. Evidently this is exactly what
happens to Nina with Yantar in
Kravets and Orge’s article – like Nina, I can almost taste the past, but for me
this is the taste of my childhood. Like Druzhba
cheese, Alenka hasn’t changed throughout the decades, she is a symbol of the
times. As eluded by Kravetz and Orge this is another brand which challenges
Holt’s theory that brands live on due to their ability to change, and supports
their theory that in the case of the Soviet Brands they changed due to
remaining unchanged. Thus the brand acts as society’s foundational compass
point, on a macro level an anchor capturing societal erudition and shared
sacraments (Holt, 2004), and on a micro level memories of childhood, an essence
of innocence and purity which cannot be brought back, but a sense of which
nonetheless becomes transcended through this brand (Miller, 2010).
Although there is no such thing as a time machine, the objects we hold dear
come close, a concept known as Madeleine Objects (McCracken, 2005); they have the
power to throw one back in time and teleport them to another place, seizing the
senses and making the present melt away, they act as a chasm through which one
can be transported to another place, to another era. Almost a magical
experience, these forces can awaken nostalgia or rumination, thus they are not
fully understood by scholars (Hackley, 2009). However, their trick is that
these are not the hidden secrets of civilisation, but everyday objects just
like Alenka. Further still, what an object means to one may not be the same
thing it means to another. Indeed, what my study showed is that there is no one
way to capture what Alenka represents for everyone, as this is something different
for each person, which appears to be the essence of her magic: the ability to
not only appeal to everyone in their own way, but to come loaded with deeply
entrenched meanings that each individual forms as unique to them, that can only
be constructed throughout time, and yet to be entirely untouched by time
herself.
Cultural Icon: A National Identity
I used Holt’s theory of iconic brands, that have accumulated
their status through a range of cultural, moral and political values,
underpinned by the work of Kravets and Orge on Soviet brands in a
post-Socialist Russia to determined how such brands become representations of
cherished values and social relations within a particular community, acting as
the sources of cultural ideals, myths, history, aspirations and achievements to
reinforce feelings of unity, belonging and stability, particularly during
periods when traditional cultural symbols fail (Holt, 2004).
Alenka’s history serves as her “identity myth” (Holt, 2004):
born in 1966, Alenka is one variation of a traditional girl’s name, and is one
of a small handful of brands to survive through the pandemonium of the fall of
the USSR and yet emerge not as a ghost of her former self like the majority of
such goods, but as an unaltered symbol goodwill. The story of her birth adds a
further “buttressing” the brand’s identity, when a competition launched to find
the face of the child on the now iconic packaging; unable to decide on a
winner, the company featured several entries in rotation, until the star with
the same name but of a different variation “Elena” was found. In this sense,
the company took on the role of the “author” creating a storyline (Holt, 2004).
Subsequently after the asceticism of the post-war period and the Brezhnev years
(1964-1982) she was welcomed during the beginning of stability and opulence,
thus is remembered as a sign of the good times by former generations. Despite
often being hard to obtain and remaining a wishful promise, she was worth
fighting for. Her immortal ability to not only precede but outlive the Leninist
experiment addressed an acute contradiction within society during the Communist
era.
Alenka brings back the stories of my grandparents and
parents epoch, of how hard she was to obtain back in the days of the Soviet
regime; thus she stands as a symbol of the achievement of my predecessors, of
the victory of breaking free from the communist regime, a prize which they
would have fought for, which was so easy to take for granted yet held so much
more meaning than a token of affection; this is a sign of blood, sweat and
tears, and gave Alenka every right to the well deserved title of what Holt
would proclaim a “cultural icon”.
 |
| The Classic Alenka Chocolate |
 |
| An Image of Lena, the Original Alenka |
The Fifth Element: Immortality
I concluded that Alenka works on both a macro and micro
level in representing cultural and personal significance. Consequently,
although Alenka appears to be a cultural icon (Holt, 2004), each individual
attaches their own story to her history, thereby planting her roots within the
hearts of the nation’s families for generations, who attach their own
traditions and rituals to this persona.
I determined that in unison the four elements discussed give
rise to a fifth element: Alenka’s unique ability to embody the desires of those
she touches, which guarantees her success. Indeed, this study suggests that the
key to a successful national brand lies in creating something which enables
people to create their own ideals and memories, thereby acting as a vehicle
which individuals can permeate with their own meanings, through which she has
acquired her ageless quality and ability to transcend the times.
The analysis showed that although the brand may represent
something different for each individual on a micro level, it also works on a macro
societal level to encompass national ideals, beliefs and values, through a
history of being renowned for addressing the country’s deepest desires and
anxieties. Further still, the brand bears the powers of a “Madeleine object”
which have enabled it to sustain its power living on throughout the
generations, as each individual permeates it with their own interpretation of
an ideal “utopia” (Murtola, 2010; Heilbrunn, 2006; Maclaran et al., 1999). Thus the brand acts as society’s foundational
compass point, an anchor capturing societal erudition and shared sacraments
(Holt, 2004), and on a micro level memories of childhood, an essence of
innocence and purity which cannot be brought back, but a sense of which
nonetheless becomes transcended through this brand (Miller, 2010). And so
Alenka prevails not only as a token of affection and an ignition of the utopian
flame, but as a symbol of the achievements of the country’s predecessors and
the Russian state, untarnished by the times.
