Download or read book Building Stalinism written by Cynthia A. Ruder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the 80-mile-long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualise a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews and contemporary documentary materials these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analysing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered. This is essential reading for all scholars working on the all-pervasive nature of Stalinism and its complex afterlife in Russia today.
Download or read book The Landscape of Stalinism written by Evgeny Dobrenko and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging cultural history explores the expression of Bolshevik Party ideology through the lens of landscape, or, more broadly, space. Portrayed in visual images and words, the landscape played a vital role in expressing and promoting ideology in the former Soviet Union during the Stalin years, especially in the 1930s. At the time, the iconoclasm of the immediate postrevolutionary years had given way to nation building and a conscious attempt to create a new Soviet �culture.� In painting, architecture, literature, cinema, and song, images of landscape were enlisted to help mold the masses into joyful, hardworking citizens of a state with a radiant, utopian future -- all under the fatherly guidance of Joseph Stalin. From backgrounds in history, art history, literary studies, and philosophy, the contributors show how Soviet space was sanctified, coded, and �sold� as an ideological product. They explore the ways in which producers of various art forms used space to express what Katerina Clark calls �a cartography of power� -- an organization of the entire country into �a hierarchy of spheres of relative sacredness,� with Moscow at the center. The theme of center versus periphery figures prominently in many of the essays, and the periphery is shown often to be paradoxically central. Examining representations of space in objects as diverse as postage stamps, a hikers� magazine, advertisements, and the Soviet musical, the authors show how cultural producers attempted to naturalize ideological space, to make it an unquestioned part of the worldview. Whether focusing on the new or the centuries-old, whether exploring a built cityscape, a film documentary, or the painting Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, the authors offer a consistently fascinating journey through the landscape of the Soviet ideological imagination. Not all features of Soviet space were entirely novel, and several of the essayists assert continuities with the prerevolutionary past. One example is the importance of the mother image in mass songs of the Stalin period; another is the "boundless longing" inspired in the Russian character by the burden of living amid vast empty spaces. But whether focusing on the new or the centuries-old, whether exploring a built cityscape, a film documentary, or the painting Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, the authors offer a consistently fascinating journey through the landscape of the Soviet ideological imagination.
Download or read book Stalin written by Stephen Kotkin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 1249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Monumental.” —The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin’s obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin’s seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.
Download or read book The Stalinist Era written by David L. Hoffmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.
Download or read book Stalin s Railroad written by Matthew J. Payne and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Turkestano-Siberian Railroad, or Turksib, was one of the great construction projects of the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan. As the major icon to ending the economic "backwardness" of the USSR's minority republics, it stood apart from similar efforts as one of the most potent metaphors for the creation of a unified socialist nation.Built between December 1926 and January 1931 by nearly 50,000 workers and at a cost of more 161 million rubles, Turksib embodied the Bolsheviks' commitment to end ethnic inequality and promote cultural revolution in one the far-flung corners of the old Tsarist Empire, Kazakhstan. Trumpeted as the "forge of the Kazakh proletariat," the railroad was to create a native working class, bringing not only trains to the steppes, but also the Revolution.In the first in-depth study of this grand project, Matthew Payne explores the transformation of its builders in Turksib's crucible of class war, race riots, state purges, and the brutal struggle of everyday life. In the battle for the souls of the nation's engineers, as well as the racial and ethnic conflicts that swirled, far from Moscow, around Stalin's vast campaign of industrialization, he finds a microcosm of the early Soviet Union.
Download or read book Building Stalinism written by Cynthia A. Ruder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the 80-mile-long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualise a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews and contemporary documentary materials these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analysing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered. This is essential reading for all scholars working on the all-pervasive nature of Stalinism and its complex afterlife in Russia today.
Download or read book Building Stalinism 1929 1941 written by Lewis Siegelbaum and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Moscow Monumental written by Katherine Zubovich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An in-depth history of the Stalinist skyscraper"--
Download or read book Building Stalinism written by Cynthia Ann Ruder and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the 80-mile long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic, and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualize a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews, and contemporary documentary materials, these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary, and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analyzing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered. Essential reading for all scholars working on the all-pervasive nature of Stalinism and its complex afterlife in Russia today. --
Download or read book Architecture of the Stalin Era written by Alexei Tarkhanov and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 1992 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Everyday Stalinism written by Sheila Fitzpatrick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on urban areas in the 1930s, this college professor illuminates the ways that Soviet city-dwellers coped with this world, examining such diverse activities as shopping, landing a job, and other acts.
Download or read book Stalinism As a Way of Life written by Lewis H. Siegelbaum and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Maybe some people are shy about writing, but I will write the real truth. . . . Is it really possible that people at the newspaper haven't heard this. . . that we don't want to be on the kolkhoz [collective farm], we work and work, and there's nothing to eat. Really, how can we live?"-a farmer's letter, 1936, from Stalinism as a Way of Life What was life like for ordinary Russian citizens in the 1930s? How did they feel about socialism and the acts committed in its name? This unique book provides English-speaking readers with the responses of those who experienced firsthand the events of the middle-Stalinist period. The book contains 157 documents-mostly letters to authorities from Soviet citizens, but also reports compiled by the secret police and Communist Party functionaries, internal government and party memoranda, and correspondence among party officials. Selected from recently opened Soviet archives, these previously unknown documents illuminate in new ways both the complex social roots of Stalinism and the texture of daily life during a highly traumatic decade of Soviet history. Accompanied by introductory and linking commentary, the documents are organized around such themes as the impact of terror on the citizenry, the childhood experience, the countryside after collectivization, and the role of cadres that were directed to "decide everything." In their own words, peasants and workers, intellectuals and the uneducated, adults and children, men and women, Russians and people from other national groups tell their stories. Their writings reveal how individual lives influenced-and were affected by-the larger events of Soviet history.
Download or read book Life in Stalin s Soviet Union written by Kees Boterbloem and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life in Stalin's Soviet Union is a collaborative work in which some of the leading scholars in the field shed light on various aspects of daily life for Soviet citizens. Split into three parts which focus on 'Food, Health and Leisure', the 'Lived Experience' and 'Religion and Ideology', the book is comprised of chapters covering a range of important subjects, including: * Food * Health and Housing * Sex and Gender * Education * Religion (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) * Sport and Leisure * Festivals There is detailed analysis of urban and rural life, as well as explorations of life in the gulag, life as a peasant, life in the military and what it was like to be disabled in Stalin's Russia. The book also engages with the wider Soviet Union wherever possible to ensure the most in-depth discussion of life, in all its minutiae, under Stalin. This is a vitally important book for any student of Stalin's Russia keen to know more about the human history of this complex period of dictatorship.
Download or read book Magnetic Mountain written by Stephen Kotkin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A kind of archaeological analysis of Soviet life during the momentous years of Stalinist industrialization."—Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University
Download or read book Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization written by David Priestland and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-02 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization' provides a new explanation of the political violence in Stalin's Soviet Union during the late 1930s by examining the thinking of Stalin and his allies, and placing it in the broader context of Bolshevik ideas since 1917.
Download or read book Stalin and Stalinism written by Alan Wood and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Stalin and Stalinism' examines Stalin's ambiguous personal and political legacy, his achievements and his crimes - all the subject of major reappraisal both in the West and in the former Soviet Union.
Download or read book The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters 1929 1953 written by Anita Pisch and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1929 until 1953, Iosif Stalin’s image became a central symbol in Soviet propaganda. Touched up images of an omniscient Stalin appeared everywhere: emblazoned across buildings and lining the streets; carried in parades and woven into carpets; and saturating the media of socialist realist painting, statuary, monumental architecture, friezes, banners, and posters. From the beginning of the Soviet regime, posters were seen as a vitally important medium for communicating with the population of the vast territories of the USSR. Stalin’s image became a symbol of Bolshevik values and the personification of a revolutionary new type of society. The persona created for Stalin in propaganda posters reflects how the state saw itself or, at the very least, how it wished to appear in the eyes of the people. The ‘Stalin’ who was celebrated in posters bore but scant resemblance to the man Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, whose humble origins, criminal past, penchant for violent solutions and unprepossessing appearance made him an unlikely recipient of uncritical charismatic adulation. The Bolsheviks needed a wise, nurturing and authoritative figure to embody their revolutionary vision and to legitimate their hold on power. This leader would come to embody the sacred and archetypal qualities of the wise Teacher, the Father of the nation, the great Warrior and military strategist, and the Saviour of first the Russian land, and then the whole world. This book is the first dedicated study on the marketing of Stalin in Soviet propaganda posters. Drawing on the archives of libraries and museums throughout Russia, hundreds of previously unpublished posters are examined, with more than 130 reproduced in full colour. The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953 is a unique and valuable contribution to the discourse in Stalinist studies across a number of disciplines.
