Download or read book Russia in a Box written by Andrew L. Jenks and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to be Russian as the imperial era gave way to Soviet rule? Andrew Jenks turns to a unique art form produced in the village of Palekh to investigate how artists and craftsmen helped to reshape Russian national identity. Russia in a Box follows the development of Palekh art over two centuries as it adapted to dramatic changes in the Russian nation. As early as the sixteenth century, the peasant "masters" of Palekh painted religious icons. It was not until Russia's victory over Napoleon in 1814, however, that the village gained widespread recognition for its artistic contributions. That same year, the poet Goethe's discovery of the works of Palekh artists and craftsmen spurred interest in preserving the sacred art. The religious icons produced by Palekh masters in the nineteenth century became a source of Russian national pride. By the 1880s, some artists began to foresee their future as secular artists-a trend that was ensured by the Bolshevik Revolution. Tolerated and sometimes even encouraged by the new regime, the Palekh artists began to create finely decorated lacquered boxes that portray themes from fairy tales and idealized Russian history in exquisite miniatures. A new medium with new subject matter, these lacquered boxes became a new symbol of Russian identity during the 1920s. Palekh art endured varying levels of acceptance, denial, state control, and reliance on market-driven forces. What began as the art form of religious iconic painting, enduring for more than two centuries, was abruptly changed by the revolutionaries. Throughout the twentieth century the fate of Palekh art remained in question as Russia's political and cultural entities struggled for dominance. Ultimately capitalism and the Palekhian masters were victorious, and the famed lacquer boxes continue to be a source of Russian identity and pride.
Download or read book Russia in a Box the Production of Russian and Socialist Identity 1814 2001 written by Andrew Leslie Jenks and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 1186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Picturing Russia written by Valerie Ann Kivelson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can Russian images and objects—a tsar’s crown, a provincial watercolor album, the Soviet Pioneer Palace—tell us about the Russian people and their culture? This wide-ranging book is the first to explore the visual culture of Russia over the entire span of Russian history, from ancient Kiev to contemporary, post-Soviet society. Illustrated with more than one hundred diverse and fascinating images, the book examines the ways that Russians have represented themselves visually, understood their visual environment, and used visual images in social and political contexts. Expert contributors discuss images and objects from all over the Russian/Soviet empire, including consumer goods, architectural monuments, religious icons, portraits, news and art photography, popular prints, films, folk art, and more. Each of the concise and accessible essays in the volume offers a fresh interpretation of Russian cultural history. Putting visuality itself in focus as never before, Picturing Russia adds an entirely new dimension to the study of Russian literature, history, art, and culture. The book enriches our understanding of visual documents and shows the variety of ways they serve as far more than mere illustration.
Download or read book Black Square written by Sophie Pinkham and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘When I first lived in Ukraine, I was preoccupied with its ideas of the past and future. Once Maidan started, there was nothing but the present; every hour held the possibility of transformation, and of terrible violence...’ After leaving university in 2004, Sophie Pinkham moved to Siberia to volunteer for the Red Cross, tackling the rising AIDS crisis by folding origami tulips. Over the next decade, she travelled and worked across the post-Soviet world, from Lake Baikal to the Black Sea, at a time when the young countries of the region were struggling to define their new identities. Black Square is a multidimensional portrait of a period of tumultuous change, and of a generation that came of age after the fall of the USSR, only to see protestors shot on Kiev’s main square, Crimea annexed by Russia, and a bitter war in eastern Ukraine. We meet a charismatic doctor fighting the AIDS epidemic even as he struggles with his own drug addiction; an iconoclastic artist with a penchant for public nudity; and a Russian-Jewish clarinettist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. With a deep knowledge of the literature and legends of the region, and a keen outsider’s eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Black Square delivers an indelible impression of a region, and a world, on the brink.
Download or read book Inside Out written by Glenn Williamson and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Inside Out, author Glenn Williamson explains the award-winning development of St. Petersburg's first modern Class A office/retail center by a multinational team of Americans, Russians, Brits, Turks, and Finns. Inside Out provides a fascinating memoir of his experiences working as a developer in Russia in the 1990s while balancing a home life with a new baby son. With unique and astute anecdotes, it offers insights into Russia, its people, and its culture. Inside Out, funny and serious, sincere and sarcastic, narrates the anatomy of a real estate deal. Now, at a time when America and Russia consider ways to reset their relations, Williamson's story shows how actual players on all sides of a complex business and personal adventure looked for, and ultimately found, a common language.
Download or read book Putinomics written by Chris Miller and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Vladimir Putin first took power in 1999, he was a little-known figure ruling a country that was reeling from a decade and a half of crisis. In the years since, he has reestablished Russia as a great power. How did he do it? What principles have guided Putin's economic policies? What patterns can be discerned? In this new analysis of Putin's Russia, Chris Miller examines its economic policy and the tools Russia's elite have used to achieve its goals. Miller argues that despite Russia's corruption, cronyism, and overdependence on oil as an economic driver, Putin's economic strategy has been surprisingly successful. Explaining the economic policies that underwrote Putin's two-decades-long rule, Miller shows how, at every juncture, Putinomics has served Putin's needs by guaranteeing economic stability and supporting his accumulation of power. Even in the face of Western financial sanctions and low oil prices, Putin has never been more relevant on the world stage.
Download or read book Russians in Alaska 1732 1867 written by Lydia Black and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive work, the crown jewel in the distinguished career of Russian America scholar Lydia T. Black, presents a comprehensive overview of the Russian presence in Alaska. Drawing on extensive archival research and employing documents only recently made available to scholars, Black shows how Russian expansion was the culmination of centuries of social and economic change. Black s work challenges the standard perspective on the Russian period in Alaska as a time of unbridled exploitation of Native inhabitants and natural resources. Without glossing over the harsher aspects of the period, Black acknowledges the complexity of relations between Russians and Native peoples. She chronicles the lives of ordinary men and women the merchants and naval officers, laborers and clergy who established Russian outposts in Alaska. These early colonists carried with them the Orthodox faith and the Russian language; their legacy endures in architecture and place names from Baranof Island to the Pribilofs. This deluxe volume features fold-out maps and color illustrations of rare paintings and sketches from Russian, American, Japanese, and European sources many have never before been published. An invaluable source for historians and anthropologists, this accessible volume brings to life a dynamic period in Russian and Alaskan history. A tribute to Black s life as a scholar and educator, "Russians in Alaska" will become a classic in the field."
Download or read book The Songs of St Petersburg written by Amor Towles and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility. 'A comic masterpiece.' The Times 'Winning . . . gorgeous . . . satisfying . . . Towles is a craftsman.' New York Times Book Review 'A work of great charm, intelligence and insight.' Sunday Times 'Everything a novel should be: charming, witty, poetic and generous. An absolute delight.' Mail on Sunday 'If we do a better book than this one on the book club this year we will be very very lucky.' Matt Williams, Radio 2 Book Club 'Abundant in humour, history and humanity' Sunday Telegraph 'Wistful, whimsical and wry.' Sunday Express On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.
Download or read book Russian at a Glance written by Thomas R. Beyer Jr. and published by Barrons Educational Services. This book was released on 2008-02-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great companion for international travelers to Russia, this handy, pocket-size bilingual At a Glance phrasebook is designed for tourists and business travelers who lack time to learn Russian but need common words and phrases to help them get around in an Russia. The phrasebook holds more than 1500 expressions that travelers need for making themselves understood in hotels, airports, train stations, restaurants, and other places they're likely to visit. The book also contains an additional 2,000-word bilingual dictionary, plus travel tips, driving tips, simplified maps of major cities, and more. Barron's publishes At a Glance phrasebooks in nine different languages.
Download or read book Bears in the Streets written by Lisa Dickey and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **One of Bustle's 17 of the Best Nonfiction Books Coming in January 2017 and Men's Journal's 7 Best Books of January** "Brilliant, real and readable." —former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright **A USA Today "New and Noteworthy" Book** Lisa Dickey traveled across the whole of Russia three times—in 1995, 2005 and 2015—making friends in eleven different cities, then coming back again and again to see how their lives had changed. Like the acclaimed British documentary series Seven Up!, she traces the ups and downs of ordinary people’s lives, in the process painting a deeply nuanced portrait of modern Russia. From the caretakers of a lighthouse in Vladivostok, to the Jewish community of Birobidzhan, to a farmer in Buryatia, to a group of gay friends in Novosibirsk, to a wealthy family in Chelyabinsk, to a rap star in Moscow, Dickey profiles a wide cross-section of people in one of the most fascinating, dynamic and important countries on Earth. Along the way, she explores dramatic changes in everything from technology to social norms, drinks copious amounts of vodka, and learns firsthand how the Russians really feel about Vladimir Putin. Including powerful photographs of people and places over time, and filled with wacky travel stories, unexpected twists, and keen insights, Bears in the Streets offers an unprecedented on-the-ground view of Russia today.
Download or read book The Red Web written by Andrei Soldatov and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Library Journal Best Book of 2015 A NPR Great Read of 2015 The Internet in Russia is either the most efficient totalitarian tool or the device by which totalitarianism will be overthrown. Perhaps both. On the eighth floor of an ordinary-looking building in an otherwise residential district of southwest Moscow, in a room occupied by the Federal Security Service (FSB), is a box the size of a VHS player marked SORM. The Russian government's front line in the battle for the future of the Internet, SORM is the world's most intrusive listening device, monitoring e-mails, Internet usage, Skype, and all social networks. But for every hacker subcontracted by the FSB to interfere with Russia's antagonists abroad -- such as those who, in a massive denial-of-service attack, overwhelmed the entire Internet in neighboring Estonia -- there is a radical or an opportunist who is using the web to chip away at the power of the state at home. Drawing from scores of interviews personally conducted with numerous prominent officials in the Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan peel back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. From research laboratories in Soviet-era labor camps, to the legalization of government monitoring of all telephone and Internet communications in the 1990s, to the present day, their incisive and alarming investigation into the Kremlin's massive online-surveillance state exposes just how easily a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare. Dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world's most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world of The Red Web.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Russia written by Neil Robinson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book explores Russia's political development since the collapse of the USSR and how inextricably it has been bound up with economic change. Assessing the legacies of the Soviet period, leading scholars trace the evolution of Russia's political economy and how it may develop as bitter battles continue to be waged over property and state revenues, the development of private agriculture, and welfare. This book puts these domestic issues in international and comparative perspective by considering Russia's position in the global economy and its growing role as a major energy producer. Focusing especially on the nature and future of Russian capitalism, the contributors weigh the political problems that confront Russia in its ongoing struggle to modernize and develop its economy.
Download or read book Accidental Czar written by Andrew S. Weiss and published by First Second Books. This book was released on 2022-11-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This riveting graphic novel biography chronicles Vladimir Putin's rise from a mid-level KGB officer to the autocratic leader of Russia and reveals the truth behind the strongman persona he has spent his career cultivating. In the West’s collective imagination, Vladimir Putin is a devious cartoon villain, constantly plotting and scheming to destroy his enemies around the globe and in Ukraine. But how did an undistinguished mid-level KGB officer become one of the most powerful leaders in Russian history? And how much of Putin’s tough-guy persona is a calculated performance? In Accidental Czar, Andrew S. Weiss, a former White House Russia expert, and Brian “Box” Brown show how Putin has successfully cast himself as a cunning, larger-than-life political mastermind—and how the rest of the world has played into the Kremlin’s hands by treating him as one. They shatter all of these myths and expose the man behind the façade.
Download or read book Opera and Drama in Russia as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s written by Richard Taruskin and published by Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Research Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Russian Conservatism written by Paul Robinson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian Conservatism examines the history of Russian conservative thought from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. Robinson charts the contributions made by philosophers, politicians, and others during the Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods. Looking at cultural, political, and social-economic conservatism in Russia, Russian Conservatism demonstrates that such ideas are helpful in interpreting Russia's present as well as its past and will be influential in shaping Russia's future, for better or for worse, in the years to come.
Download or read book Russia Of The Tsars written by Peter Waldron and published by Thames and Hudson. This book was released on 2011-04-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the seventeenth century and the 1917 revolution, the Russian Tsars became absolute rulers of the largest and most diverse empire in the world. The splendor of their court and their capital city, St. Petersburg, was extraordinary, but this imperial edifice was supported by the toil of millions of serfs tied to the land and brutally repressed. The vast majority of the people were uneducated, yet Russia produced writers, artists, and composers of world importance. The Tsars created a mighty army, but it failed them in the Crimea and in World War I. This empire of contradictions was to have a profound influence on both Europe and Asia. Peter Waldron tells the stories of all the Russians, exploring how the vastness of the empire and its extremes of climate affected the lives of rulers and peasants alike. He recounts how Peter the Great and later Tsars built the empire, and describes some of the individuals who worked for and against social change in Russia. Box features on specific people, places, and events and many quotations from Russian sources bring this saga vividly to life. The ten facsimile documents include a 1710 map of St. Petersburg, a newspaper report on the Crimean War, and the announcement of Nicholas II’s abdication in 1917.
Download or read book The Russian Bureau written by Linda Killen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American position on Russia during the First World War was defined by the same idealism that guided our relations with other countries. Woodrow Wilson and American leaders had hailed the Revolution of March 1917 as an expression of the true spirit of Russia, a harbinger of democracy. The Bolshevik revolt and the civil war that followed were, in their eyes, only temporary disturbances. Still, the growth of the new democracy would only prosper if the Russians could restore order to their beleaguered land. In this book Linda Killen examines a hitherto neglected instrument of American policy in Russia-the Russian Bureau of the War Trade Board. With support from the administration, the bureau was established by Congress in October 1918 as a public corporation with a fund of $5 million to facilitate trade between Russia and America, for government and business leaders thought that the Russians could be helped to resolve their problems with the income from trade. The bureau was also to assist in two areas essential to trade, stabilizing the currency and restoring the transportation system. With the signing of the peace treaty, however, the bureau as a wartime agency was dissolved in June 1919 and its work assigned to the State Department. As one of the first American attempts at foreign aid, the bureau's program was necessarily tentative, but Linda Killen shows that, as a specific case, the bureau offers an instructive example. It reveals a widespread ignorance of Russian affairs both in government and in business circles. More importantly, it demonstrates the fatal weakness of an idealistic policy that was blind to political realities. Perhaps, the bureau's most tangible "accomplishment" came when its $5 million were finally transferred to the Trans-Siberian Railroad to purchase new equipment. Yet, ironically, it was the hated Bolsheviks who benefitted from this aid when they seized Siberia and used the new equipment to restore the rail line to efficient operation. This detailed study of the Russian Bureau sheds new light on a turbulent and tragic area of American diplomacy. Unfortunately, the democratic Russia that Wilson sought to help may never have existed except in his mind and never came to be.
