Download or read book Soviet Hieroglyphics written by Nancy Condee and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [The Russian and American contributors] share a very high level of expertise and an impressive command of their material, which ranges from film to billboards to currency. Everything in this book, including the introduction, is worth reading... consistently fascinating... -- Choice... a lightning rush of images and ideas that constitute inviting material for future speculation. -- Times Literary SupplementThis collection of essays is a fine, even an exhilarating piece of work. Her brilliant analysis surveys a kaleidoscope of breaks and continuities: betweeen literature and non-print media, high culture and popular culture, homo sovieticus and homo russicus. -- Slavic and East European JournalOf interest for scholars in several disciplines, Soviet Hieroglyphics provides many insights into recent Russian visual culture. -- Canadian Slavonic PaperThese incisive essays describe contemporary Russian culture under conditions of social collapse. Focusing on visual culture, the book highlights the recurrent tension between two opposing tendencies in Russia today: the impulse to eradicate the cultural hieroglyphics of the Soviet past and the compulsion to reinscribe those sacred images onto contemporary texts.
Download or read book Soviet and Post Soviet Identities written by Mark Bassin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look at post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia and at the Soviet historical background that shaped the present.
Download or read book Sport in the USSR written by Mike O'Mahony and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2006-06-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sport played a vital role within the social and cultural life of the Soviet Union. The Soviet State sponsored countless programmes to promote sporting activities, and even constructed a new term, fizkultura, to describe sports culture. In Sport in the USSR, Mike O'Mahony asserts that the popular image of fizkultura was as dependent on presentation as it was on actual practice. Images of vigorous Soviet sportsmen and women were evoked in literature, film and popular songs, and adorned stamps and domestic objects, as well as badges and medals. Some major artists even forged their entire careers from representations of sport." "Sport in the USSR explores physical and visual culture from the early years of the Soviet Union to its collapse. It is a fascinating addition to the current debates in the fields of sociology, visual culture and Soviet history."--BOOK JACKET.
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 A Companion to Russian Cinema written by Birgit Beumers and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Russian Cinema provides an exhaustive and carefully organised guide to the cinema of pre-Revolutionary Russia, of the Soviet era, as well as post-Soviet Russian cinema, edited by one of the most established and knowledgeable scholars in Russian cinema studies. The most up-to-date and thorough coverage of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, which also effectively fills gaps in the existing scholarship in the field This is the first volume on Russian cinema to explore specifically the history of movie theatres, studios, and educational institutions The editor is one of the most established and knowledgeable scholars in Russian cinema studies, and contributions come from leading experts in the field of Russian Studies, Film Studies and Visual Culture Chapters consider the arts of scriptwriting, sound, production design, costumes and cinematography Provides five portraits of key figures in Soviet and Russia film history, whose works have been somewhat neglected
Download or read book Imaging Russia 2000 written by Anna M. Lawton and published by New Academia Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2004 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Anna Lawton deftly tells two stories--one about the evolution of Russian film since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the other about Russian life during that same period. She managed to capture a vivid portrait of Moscow of the 1990s, and to remind us that the Soviet past remains omnipresent in the new Russia. Russia 2000: Film and Facts is a must read for anyone who cares about Russia, or about film."Blair Ruble, Director, The Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Download or read book Russia on Reels written by Birgit Beumers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1999-12-31 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to deal exclusively with Russian cinema of the 1990s. It introduces readers to the currents and common interests of contemporary Russian cinema, offers close studies of the work of filmmakers like Sokurov, Muratova and Astrakhan, reviews the Russian film industry in a period of massive economic transformation, and assesses cinema's function as a definer of Russia's new identity.
Download or read book Stalin s Final Films written by Claire Knight and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stalin's Final Films explores a neglected period in the history of Soviet cinema, breathing new life into a body of films long considered moribund as the pinnacle of Stalinism. While film censorship reached its apogee in this period and fewer films were made, film attendance also peaked as Soviet audiences voted with their seats and distinguished a clearly popular postwar cinema. Claire Knight examines the tensions between official ideology and audience engagement, and between education and entertainment, inherent in these popular films, as well as the financial considerations that shaped and constrained them. She explores how the Soviet regime used films to address the major challenges faced by the USSR after the Great Patriotic War (World War II), showing how war dramas, spy thrillers, Stalin epics, and rural comedies alike were mobilized to consolidate an official narrative of the war, reestablish Stalinist orthodoxy, and dramatize the rebuilding of socialist society. Yet, Knight also highlights how these same films were used by filmmakers more experimentally, exploring a diverse range of responses to the ideological crisis that lay at the heart of Soviet postwar culture, as a victorious people were denied the fruits of their sacrificial labor. After the war, new heroes were demanded by both the regime and Soviet audiences, and filmmakers sought to provide them, with at times surprising results. Stalin's Final Films mines Soviet cinema as an invaluable resource for understanding the unique character of postwar Stalinism and the cinema of the most repressive era in Soviet history.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture written by Tatiana Smorodinskaya and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on recent and contemporary Russian culture and history for students, teachers, and researchers across the disciplines.
Download or read book Rethinking Class in Russia written by Suvi Salmenniemi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-à-vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.
Download or read book Pop Culture Russia written by Birgit Beumers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-06-21 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing look at contemporary Russian popular culture, exploring the historical and social influences that make it unique. Pop music is only one aspect of contemporary Russian culture that has taken some unexpected turns in the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. Television and advertising, theater and cinema, athletics and religion, even fashion and food now reflect more exposure to the West, yet remain in essence distinctively Russian. Pop Culture Russia! introduces readers to the fascinating, often surprising, post-Soviet cultural landscape. With chapters on media, the arts, recreation, religion, and consumerism, the book offers an insightful survey of Russian mass culture from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the present, exploring the historical significance of important events and trends, as well as the social and political contexts from which they emerged.
Download or read book Television and Culture in Putin s Russia written by Stephen Hutchings and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines television culture in Russia under the government of Vladimir Putin. In recent years, the growing influx into Russian television of globally mediated genres and formats has coincided with a decline in media freedom and a ratcheting up of government control over the content style of television programmes. All three national channels (First, Russia, NTV) have fallen victim to Putin’s power-obsessed regime. Journalists critical of his Chechnya policy have been subject to harassment and arrest; programmes courting political controversy, such as Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech (Svoboda slova) have been taken off the air; coverage of national holidays like Victory Day has witnessed a return of Soviet-style bombast; and reporting on crises, such as the Beslan tragedy, is severely curtailed. The book demonstrates how broadcasters have been enlisted in support of a transparent effort to install a latter-day version of imperial pride in Russian military achievements at the centre of a national identity project over which, from the depths of the Kremlin, Putin’s government exerts a form of remote control. However, central to the book's argument is the notion that because of the changes wrought upon Russian society after 1985, a blanket return to the totalitarianism of the Soviet media has, notwithstanding the tenor of much western reporting on the issue, not occurred. Despite the fact that television is nominally under state control, that control remains remote and less than wholly effective, as amply demonstrated in the audience research conducted for the book, and in analysis of contradictions at the textual level. Overall, this book provides a fascinating account of the role of television under President Putin, and will be of interest to all those wishing to understand contemporary Russian society.
Download or read book Consumer Culture Branding and Identity in the New Russia written by Graham H.J. Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As shopping has been transformed from a chore into a major source of hedonistic pleasure, a specifically Russian consumer culture has begun to emerge that is unlike any other. This book examines the many different facets of consumption in today’s Russia, including retailing, advertising and social networking. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the inherently visual - not to say spectacular - nature both of consumption generally, and of Russian consumer culture in particular. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which brands, both Russian and foreign, construct categories of identity in order to claim legitimacy for themselves. What emerges is a fascinating picture of how consumer culture is being reinvented in Russia today, in a society which has one, nostalgic eye turned towards the past, and the other, utopian eye, set firmly on the future. Borrowing concepts from both marketing and cultural studies, the approach throughout is interdisciplinary, and will be of considerable interest, to researchers, students and practitioners wishing to gain invaluable insights into one of the most lucrative, and exciting, of today’s emerging markets.
Download or read book The Russian Reading Revolution written by S. Lovell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all of Soviet cultural myths, none was more resilient than the belief that the USSR had the world's greatest readers. This book explains how the 'Russian reading myth' took hold in the 1920s and 1930s, how it was supported by a monopolistic and homogenizing system of book production and distribution, and how it was challenged in the post-Stalin era; first, by the latent expansion and differentiation of the reading public, and then, more dramatically, by the economic and cultural changes of the 1990s.
Download or read book Consuming Russia written by Adele Marie Barker and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely study of the "new Russia" at the end of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Russia and the Cult of State Security written by Julie Fedor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it"--
Download or read book The Soviet Century written by Karl Schlögel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An encyclopedic and richly detailed history of everyday life in the Soviet Union The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel, one of the world’s leading historians of the Soviet Union, presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization. A museum of—and travel guide to—the Soviet past, The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR, from the Gulag, the planned economy, the railway system, and the steel city of Magnitogorsk to cookbooks, military medals, prison camp tattoos, and the ubiquitous perfume Red Moscow. The book examines iconic aspects of Soviet life, including long queues outside shops, cramped communal apartments, parades, and the Lenin mausoleum, as well as less famous but important parts of the USSR, including the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the voice of Radio Moscow, graffiti, and even the typical toilet, which became a pervasive social and cultural topic. Throughout, the book shows how Soviet life simultaneously combined utopian fantasies, humdrum routine, and a pervasive terror symbolized by the Lubyanka, then as now the headquarters of the secret police. Drawing on Schlögel’s decades of travel in the Soviet and post-Soviet world, and featuring more than eighty illustrations, The Soviet Century is vivid, immediate, and grounded in firsthand encounters with the places and objects it describes. The result is an unforgettable account of the Soviet Century.
