The Fear of being exposed: urban legends about French villainy and soviet shame

Abstract

According to the Soviet urban folklore, in the late 1950s some famous French singer or movie actor, either Yves Montand or Gérard Philipe or Alain Delon (the details vary depending on the speaker) was so shocked by Soviet underwear that he bought it in large quantities and exposed this private collection in Paris. The French celebrity allegedly did it to make his friends laugh at the misery of Soviet fashion and Soviet women’s lack of elegance. In the paper, the emergence of this legend is explained by some specific Soviet fears, particularly, by the “fear of shame” that Soviet people felt when finding themselves, finding themselves in front of the eyes of a foreigner. Although the whole system of foreign tourism in the USSR was designed to control foreigners’ view and make Soviet people feel proud of their country, there was a fear that a foreigner would see something shameful and miserable in Soviet reality. The legend about the French exhibition of Soviet underwear articulated this fear