There’s a fascinating sound object from the People’s Republic of Poland: the “sound postcard.” These flimsy, colorful, plastic rectangles could be mailed to loved-ones and friends just like any other postcard. Except they came with a bonus. Etched on the card was a poor quality recording of a popular song, and even sometimes with a personalized vocal greeting. These were produced by the state. But overtime, they were also manufactured in people’s apartments and sold hand-to-hand at markets and stalls of the grey economy. What does the sound postcard tell us about recording, listening, and circulation under state socialism? As a memory or an object of nostalgia? In part three of the Eurasian Knot series, “The Sound of Socialism,” Sean talked to Andrea Bohlman about her research into the sound postcard and what it says about everyday life in socialist Poland. Guest: Andrea Bohlman is an Associate Professor in the Music Department at the University of North Carolina. She studies the political stakes of music making and sound in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She’s the author of Musical Solidarities: Political Action and Music in Late Twentieth-Century Poland. She recently published, “Sounding Plastic: The ‘Great Career’ of the Felxidisc in Socialist Poland” in the Winter 2023 issue of the Slavic Review.