Download or read book Searching for Identity The Russian Idea in the Soviet and Post Soviet Fantastika Film Adaptation written by Jesse Brown O'Dell and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of sociocultural history in the evolution of national identity? How is the worldview of Russian citizens reflected in contemporary art and popular culture? My dissertation, which examines narratives of national identity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, approaches these questions and others through an historical analysis of Russian fantastika film adaptations and the literary works upon which they are based. Illustrating transitions in perceptions of Russian identity as they are reflected in over thirty examples of Soviet and post-Soviet fantastika, this project provides a critical reconsideration of historical theories on the "Russian idea" and offers new perspectives on what it means to be Russian in the twenty-first century. My study employs a synthesis of approaches from the fields of cultural history, literature, film, and gender studies. The primary hypothesis is that it is possible, through an historical analysis of fantastika film adaptations (and their corresponding literary sources), to obtain a fundamental understanding of post-Soviet culture by examining crucial transformations in the Russian worldview over the course of a century; namely, from 1917 to 2017. These transformations, viewed through the lens of sociocultural history, provide insight into the essential features of national identity in contemporary Russia. Fantastika, a genre which includes science fiction, fantasy, gothic horror, and other works involving fantastical elements, is a highly influential force in the Russian literary and cinematic traditions. Particularly during periods of severe censorship, fantastika played an integral role in the dissemination of novel (or "unofficial") worldviews. Employing alien planets, outer space, and other fantastical settings, Soviet authors and directors developed fictional macrocosms with which to juxtapose contemporary reality and provide commentary on issues relevant to modern society. In the post-Soviet period, techniques borrowed from their predecessors have enabled artists to continue in this tradition, allowing them to offer fresh perspectives on Russia and its place in global society. Russian national identity has been a subject of international debate for at least three centuries. This dissertation reconsiders models promoted by Russian intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (including Petr Chaadaev, Sergei Uvarov, Nikolai Berdiaev, and Vladimir Bibler) and employs techniques developed by contemporary Western observers (including Birgit Beumers, Eliot Borenstein, and Stephen Norris) to offer a revised assessment of Russian national identity in the twenty-first century. It advances, reframes, and challenges some of the conclusions drawn by these figures by analyzing fantastika film adaptations in the context of their (for the most part persuasive) theories. My hope is that this project will be considered a meaningful contribution to the study of Russian culture in the modern age.
Download or read book History on Screen Shaping National Identity in Mikhalkov s Cinema written by Robert Stolt and published by . This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Film Science, grade: 1,4, University of St Andrews, language: English, abstract: With the dissolution of the Soviet state and the breakdown of Soviet ideologies the question about Russian national identity became a central issue in post-Soviet Russian culture (Horton 2001: 218). By promoting specific values of traditional Soviet ideals, Mikhalkov, in Burnt by the Sun [Mikhalkov, 1994], revives a national ideology and aims to re-establish the Russian national identity in post-Soviet Russia. The film recalls the idea of a distinctive Russian fate that has, admittedly, time and again resulted in political catastrophes, but nevertheless has become the basis of Russian culture having unique status and thus is crucial in forming a contemporary Russian cultural identity (Anemone 2001: 143). By reminding of past traditions and values, the film is devoted to explore what being Russian means (Larson 2003:492). The major attention in this essay lies in exploring the utopian world created by Mikhalkov to establish an illusionistic past with the focus on the national hero. Modern nation-states often feel the need to create a myth of national identity. By doing so it is crucial to have a heroic figure at hand that represents the strengths and potencies of the nation and that people can aspire to and look up to. Such an ideal, however, cannot exist in real life which is why Mikhalkov creates an illusionistic world within reality to allow his heroic figure to flourish. By recalling a heroic Russian past, specifically a Soviet one, Mikhalkov demonstrates his affection to Socialist ideas and his endeavour to bring about a 'new hero of our time' (Larsen 2003: 493); just one as post-Soviet Russia with its national identity being unsettled and uncertain was lacking. Therefore, the second chapter of this essay is dedicated to explore the effects of Mikhalkov's film making that forms a polarity between utopia and reality, with a focus on th
Download or read book Tales of Russianness written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this study, I explore contemporary popular film and television representations of Russian cultural identity after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. My corpus includes two blockbusters: Brother (Brat, dir. Aleksei Balabanov, 1997) and Brother-2 (Brat-2, dir. Aleksei Balabanov, 2000); two comic television series: The Enchanted District (Zakoldovannyi uchastok, dir. Aleksandr Baranov, 2006) and Real-Life Lads (Real'nye patsany, dir. Jeanna Kadnikova, 2010 - present); and, finally, two melodramas: The Man of No Return (Chelovek bezvozvratnyi, dir. Ekaterina Grokhovskaia, 2006) and Gromozeka (dir. Vladimir Kott, 2010). Along with radical political and economic changes, the decomposition of the communist order inaugurated the unravelling of state ideology and the dismantling of existing social norms, conventions and interdependencies. However, these altered historical conditions did not automatically create new mechanisms of identification, nor did they cause the irrevocable erasure of the old identificatory benchmarks. The main title of this study, "Tales of Russianness," aphoristically expresses the core of my argument. Through detailed analyses of the chosen films and television series I show that identity is not only at all times constructed and asserted through acts of narrativization, but that these narratives come into being through the invocation and reworking of existing popular cultural tropes, such as the myths of patriarchal authority and brotherhood, the fantasy of the antagonistic other, the idyll of the countryside community and, especially, the family metaphor."--Samenvatting auteur.
Download or read book Post New Wave Cinema in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe written by Daniel J. Goulding and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Growing Out of Communism written by Kelly Herold and published by Brill Schoningh. This book was released on 2021-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book We Modern People written by Anindita Banerjee and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How science fiction forged a unique Russian vision of modernity distinct from Western models Science fiction emerged in Russia considerably earlier than its English version and instantly became the hallmark of Russian modernity. We Modern People investigates why science fiction appeared here, on the margins of Europe, before the genre had even been named, and what it meant for people who lived under conditions that Leon Trotsky famously described as "combined and uneven development." Russian science fiction was embraced not only in literary circles and popular culture, but also by scientists, engineers, philosophers, and political visionaries. Anindita Banerjee explores the handful of well-known early practitioners, such as Briusov, Bogdanov, and Zamyatin, within a much larger continuum of new archival material comprised of journalism, scientific papers, popular science texts, advertisements, and independent manifestos on social transformation. In documenting the unusual relationship between Russian science fiction and Russian modernity, this book offers a new critical perspective on the relationship between science, technology, the fictional imagination, and the consciousness of being modern.
Download or read book A History of Russian Cinema written by Birgit Beumers and published by Berg Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film emerged in pre-Revolutionary Russia to become the 'most important of all arts' for the new Bolshevik regime and its propaganda machine. This text is a complete history from the beginning of film onwards and presents an engaging narrative of both the industry and its key films in the context of Russia's social and political history.
Download or read book Red Star written by Alexander Bogdanov and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1984-06-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An Earth-man’s journey to the planet Mars, where he is treated to a wondrous vision of a communist future, complete with flying cars and 3D color movies.” —Wonders & Marvels A communist society on Mars, the Russian revolution, and class struggle on two planets is the subject of this arresting science fiction novel by Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), one of the early organizers and prophets of the Russian Bolshevik party. The red star is Mars, but it is also the dream set to paper of the society that could emerge on earth after the dual victory of the socialist and scientific-technical revolutions. While portraying a harmonious and rational socialist society, Bogdanov sketches out the problems that will face industrialized nations, whether socialist or capitalist. “[A] surprisingly moving story.” —The New Yorker “The contemporary reader will marvel at [Bogdanov’s] foresight: nuclear fusion and propulsion, atomic weaponry and fallout, computers, blood transfusions, and (almost) unisexuality.” —Choice “Bogdanov’s novels reveal a great deal about their fascinating author, about his time and, ironically, ours, and about the genre of utopia as well as his contribution to it.” —Slavic Review
Download or read book Overkill written by Eliot Borenstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-02 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perestroika and the end of the Soviet Union transformed every aspect of life in Russia, and as hope began to give way to pessimism, popular culture came to reflect the anxiety and despair felt by more and more Russians. Free from censorship for the first time in Russia's history, the popular culture industry (publishing, film, and television) began to disseminate works that featured increasingly explicit images and descriptions of sex and violence. In Overkill, Eliot Borenstein explores this lurid and often-disturbing cultural landscape in close, imaginative readings of such works as You're Just a Slut, My Dear! (Ty prosto shliukha, dorogaia!), a novel about sexual slavery and illegal organ harvesting; the Nympho trilogy of books featuring a Chechen-fighting sex addict; and the Mad Dog and Antikiller series of books and films recounting, respectively, the exploits of the Russian Rambo and an assassin killing in the cause of justice. Borenstein argues that the popular cultural products consumed in the post-perestroika era were more than just diversions; they allowed Russians to indulge their despair over economic woes and everyday threats. At the same time, they built a notion of nationalism or heroism that could be maintained even under the most miserable of social conditions, when consumers felt most powerless. For Borenstein, the myriad depictions of deviance in pornographic and also detectiv fiction, with their patently excessive and appalling details of social and moral decay, represented the popular culture industry's response to the otherwise unimaginable scale of Russia's national collapse. "The full sense of collapse," he writes, "required a panoptic view that only the media and culture industry were eager to provide, amalgamating national collapse into one master narrative that would then be readily available to most individuals as a framework for understanding their own suffering and their own fears."
Download or read book Spaceman of Bohemia written by Jaroslav Kalfar and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intergalactic odyssey of love, ambition, and self-discovery. Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Prochv°zka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown. But in so doing, he leaves behind his devoted wife, Lenka, whose love, he realizes too late, he has sacrificed on the altar of his ambitions. Alone in Deep Space, Jakub discovers a possibly imaginary giant alien spider, who becomes his unlikely companion. Over philosophical conversations about the nature of love, life and death, and the deliciousness of bacon, the pair form an intense and emotional bond. Will it be enough to see Jakub through a clash with secret Russian rivals and return him safely to Earth for a second chance with Lenka? Rich with warmth and suspense and surprise, Spaceman of Bohemia is an exuberant delight from start to finish. Very seldom has a novel this profound taken readers on a journey of such boundless entertainment and sheer fun. "A frenetically imaginative first effort, booming with vitality and originality . . . Kalfar's voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks."-Jennifer Senior, New York Times
Download or read book Blockbuster History in the New Russia written by Stephen M. Norris and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-19 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking to rebuild the Russian film industry after its post-Soviet collapse, directors and producers sparked a revival of nationalist and patriotic sentiment by applying Hollywood techniques to themes drawn from Russian history. Unsettled by the government's move toward market capitalism, Russians embraced these historical blockbusters, packing the American-style multiplexes that sprouted across the country. Stephen M. Norris examines the connections among cinema, politics, economics, history, and patriotism in the creation of "blockbuster history"—the adaptation of an American cinematic style to Russian historical epics.
Download or read book The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature written by Tomasz Bilczewski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature offers an introduction to Polish literature through thirty-three case studies, covering works from the Middle Ages up to the present day. Each chapter draws on a text or body of work, examining its historical context, as well as its international reception and position within world literature. The book presents a dual perspective on Polish literature, combining original readings of key texts with discussions of their two-way connections with other literatures across the globe. With a detailed introduction offering a narrative overview, the book is divided into six sections offering a chronological pathway through the material. Contributors from around the world examine the various cultural exchanges at play, with each chapter including: Definitions of key terms and brief overviews of historical and political events, literary eras, trends, movements, groups, and institutions for those new to the area Analysis and notes on translations, including their hidden dimensions and potential Textual focus on poetics, such as strategies of composition, style, and genre A range of historical, sociological, political, and economic contexts From medieval song through to the contemporary novel, this book offers an interpretive history of Polish literature, while also positioning its significance within world literature. The detailed introductions make it accessible to beginners in the area, while the original analysis and focused case studies will also be of interest to researchers.
Download or read book The Impact of American and Russian Cosmism on the Representation of Space Exploration in 20th Century American and Soviet Space Art written by Kornelia Boczkowska and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Charms of the Cynical Reason written by Mark Naumovich Lipovet͡skiĭ and published by Cultural Revolutions: Russia i. This book was released on 2011 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in soviet and post-soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, contradictions, and by these means, its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s.
Download or read book Science Fiction Literature in East Germany written by Sonja Fritzsche and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2006 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East German science fiction enabled its authors to create a subversive space in another time and place. One of the country's most popular genres, it outlined futures that often went beyond the party's official version. Many utopian stories provided a corrective vision, intended to preserve and improve upon East German communism. This study is an introduction to East German science fiction. The book begins with a chapter on German science fiction before 1949. It then spans the entire existence of the country (1949-1990) and outlines key topics essential to understanding the genre: popular literature, socialist realism, censorship, fandom, and international science fiction. An in-depth discussion addresses notions of high and low literature, elements of the fantastic and utopia as critical narrative strategies, ideology and realism in East German literature, gender, and the relation between literature and science. Through a close textual analysis of three science fiction novels, the author expands East German literary history to include science fiction as a valuable source for developing a multi-faceted understanding of the country's short history. Finally, an epilogue notes new titles and developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Download or read book Tajikistan written by Kirill Nourzhanov and published by ANU E Press. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a historical study of the Tajiks in Central Asia from the ancient times to the post-Soviet period. For millennia, these descendants of the original Aryan settlers were part of many different empires set up by Greek, Arab, Turkic and Russian invaders, as well as their own, most notably during the Middle Ages. The emergence of the modern state of Tajikistan began after 1917 under Soviet rule, and culminated in the promulgation of independence from the moribund USSR in 1991. In the subsequent civil war that raged between 1992 and 1997, Tajikistan came close to becoming a failed state. The legacy of that internal conflict remains critical to understanding politics in Tajikistan a generation later. Exploring the patterns of ethnic identity and the exigencies of state formation, the book argues that despite a strong sense of belonging underpinned by shared history, mythology and cultural traits, the Tajiks have not succeeded in forming a consolidated nation. The politics of the Russian colonial administration, the national-territorial delimitation under Stalin, and the Soviet strategy of socio-economic modernisation contributed to the preservation and reification of sub-ethnic cleavages and regional identities. The book demonstrates the impact of region-based elite clans on Tajikistan’s political trajectory in the twilight years of the Soviet era, and identifies objective and subjective factors that led to the civil war. It concludes with a survey of the process of national reconciliation after 1997, and the formal and informal political actors, including Islamist groups, who compete for influence in Tajik society. “Tajikistan: A Political and Social History is the best source of information on this important country in the English language. Drs Nourzhanov and Bleuer present a comprehensive yet detailed account of the past and prospects of this emerging nation, and have filled one of the major gaps in Central Asian scholarship. This book must be read by those who wish to grasp the vagaries of Central Asia’s evolving political and cultural landscapes.” Reuel Hanks, Professor of Geography, Oklahoma State University, and Editor of the Journal of Central Asian Studies. “If Tajikistan is known outside its region, it is often for the civil war that gravely damaged it. This volume authoritatively provides the longer perspective to the unsettling events of the 1990s and skilfully explains them in terms of history, social structure, and sub-state identities. In addition to highlighting a wealth of local factors, it is insightful on the ways in which antagonists can be transformed into broader ethnic and regional blocs. Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer are erudite guides to an understudied part of Central Asia, while astutely instructing us about larger patterns of state-society relations and their impact on the logic of conflict.” James Piscatori, Professor of International Relations, Durham University.
Download or read book Neonazis Euromaidan written by Stanislav Byshok and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-07-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book describes the development of Ukraine's nationalist groups since 1991 until present day. It focuses on the history of the parliamentary right-wing radical Svoboda party and the nonparliamentary Right Sector movement. The authors study the ideology, psychology and methods of political struggle of these structures. The experts seek to answer the question: how did the radical neo-Nazi groups manage to become the key driving force behind the Ukrainian revolution?
