In The Soviet House Of Culture

Author : Bruce Grant
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2020-10-06
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780691219707

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In the Soviet House of Culture by Bruce Grant Pdf

At the outset of the twentieth century, the Nivkhi of Sakhalin Island were a small population of fishermen under Russian dominion and an Asian cultural sway. The turbulence of the decades that followed would transform them dramatically. While Russian missionaries hounded them for their pagan ways, Lenin praised them; while Stalin routed them in purges, Khrushchev gave them respite; and while Brezhnev organized complex resettlement campaigns, Gorbachev pronounced that they were free to resume a traditional life. But what is tradition after seven decades of building a Soviet world? Based on years of research in the former Soviet Union, Bruce Grant's book draws upon Nivkh interviews, newly opened archives, and rarely translated Soviet ethnographic texts to examine the effects of this remarkable state venture in the construction of identity. With a keen sensitivity, Grant explores the often paradoxical participation by Nivkhi in these shifting waves of Sovietization and poses questions about how cultural identity is constituted and reconstituted, restructured and dismantled. Part chronicle of modernization, part saga of memory and forgetting, In the Soviet House of Culture is an interpretive ethnography of one people's attempts to recapture the past as they look toward the future. This is a book that will appeal to anthropologists and historians alike, as well as to anyone who is interested in the people and politics of the former Soviet Union.

Author : Brian Donahoe,Joachim Otto Habeck
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2011-11-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780857452764

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Reconstructing the House of Culture by Brian Donahoe,Joachim Otto Habeck Pdf

Notions of culture, rituals and their meanings, the workings of ideology in everyday life, public representations of tradition and ethnicity, and the social consequences of economic transition- these are critical issues in the social anthropology of Russia and other postsocialist countries. Engaged in the negotiation of all these is the House of Culture, which was the key institution for cultural activities and implementation of state cultural policies in all socialist states. The House of Culture was officially responsible for cultural enlightenment, moral edification, and personal cultivation-in short, for implementing the socialist state's program of "bringing culture to the masses." Surprisingly, little is known about its past and present condition. This collection of ethnographically rich accounts examines the social significance and everyday performance of Houses of Culture and how they have changed in recent decades. In the years immediately following the end of the Soviet Union, they underwent a deep economic and symbolic crisis, and many closed. Recently, however, there have been signs of a revitalization of the Houses of Culture and a re-orientation of their missions and programs. The contributions to this volume investigate the changing functions and meanings of these vital institutions for the communities that they serve.

Author : Katerina Clark,Evgeniĭ Aleksandrovich Dobrenko
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2007-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300106466

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Soviet Culture and Power by Katerina Clark,Evgeniĭ Aleksandrovich Dobrenko Pdf

Leaders of the Soviet Union, Stalin chief among them, well understood the power of art, and their response was to attempt to control and direct it in every way possible. This book examines Soviet cultural politics from the Revolution to Stalin’s death in 1953. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, the book provides remarkable insight on relations between Gorky, Pasternak, Babel, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, Eisenstein, and many other intellectuals, and the Soviet leadership. Stalin’s role in directing these relations, and his literary judgments and personal biases, will astonish many. The documents presented in this volume reflect the progression of Party control in the arts. They include decisions of the Politburo, Stalin’s correspondence with individual intellectuals, his responses to particular plays, novels, and movie scripts, petitions to leaders from intellectuals, and secret police reports on intellectuals under surveillance. Introductions, explanatory materials, and a biographical index accompany the documents.

Author : Graham H. Roberts
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2020-05-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000181746

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Material Culture in Russia and the USSR by Graham H. Roberts Pdf

Material Culture in Russia and the USSR comprises some of the most cutting-edge scholarship across anthropology, history and material and cultural studies relating to Russia and the Soviet Union, from Peter the Great to Putin.Material culture in Russia and the USSR holds a particularly important role, as the distinction between private and public spheres has at times developed in radically different ways than in many places in the more commonly studied West. With case studies covering alcohol, fashion, cinema, advertising and photography among other topics, this wide-ranging collection offers an unparalleled survey of material culture in Russia and the USSR and addresses core questions such as: what makes Russian and Soviet material culture distinctive; who produces it; what values it portrays; and how it relates to 'high culture' and consumer culture.

Author : Bruce Grant
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501702860

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The Captive and the Gift by Bruce Grant Pdf

The Caucasus region of Eurasia, wedged in between the Black and Caspian Seas, encompasses the modern territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as well as the troubled republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. A site of invasion, conquest, and resistance since the onset of historical record, it has earned a reputation for fearsome violence and isolated mountain redoubts closed to outsiders. Over extended efforts to control the Caucasus area, Russians have long mythologized stories of their countrymen taken captive by bands of mountain brigands.In The Captive and the Gift, the anthropologist Bruce Grant explores the long relationship between Russia and the Caucasus and the means by which sovereignty has been exercised in this contested area. Taking his lead from Aleksandr Pushkin's 1822 poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus," Grant explores the extraordinary resonances of the themes of violence, captivity, and empire in the Caucasus through mythology, poetry, short stories, ballet, opera, and film. Grant argues that while the recurring Russian captivity narrative reflected a wide range of political positions, it most often and compellingly suggested a vision of Caucasus peoples as thankless, lawless subjects of empire who were unwilling to acknowledge and accept the gifts of civilization and protection extended by Russian leaders.Drawing on years of field and archival research, Grant moves beyond myth and mass culture to suggest how real-life Caucasus practices of exchange, by contrast, aimed to control and diminish rather than unleash and increase violence. The result is a historical anthropology of sovereign forms that underscores how enduring popular narratives and close readings of ritual practices can shed light on the management of pluralism in long-fraught world areas.

Author : Nancy Condee
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : Art
ISBN : 025331402X

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Soviet Hieroglyphics by Nancy Condee Pdf

[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.

Author : Christine Varga-Harris
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2016-02-19
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781501701849

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Stories of House and Home by Christine Varga-Harris Pdf

Stories of House and Home is a social and cultural history of the massive construction campaign that Khrushchev instituted in 1957 to resolve the housing crisis in the Soviet Union and to provide each family its own apartment. Decent housing was deemed the key to a healthy, productive home life, which was essential to the realization of socialist collectivism. Drawing on archival materials, as well as memoirs, fiction, and the Soviet press, Christine Varga-Harris shows how the many aspects of this enormous state initiative—from neighborhood planning to interior design—sought to alleviate crowded, undignified living conditions and sculpt residents into ideal Soviet citizens. She also details how individual interests intersected with official objectives for Soviet society during the Thaw, a period characterized by both liberalization and vigilance in everyday life. Set against the backdrop of the widespread transition from communal to one-family living, Stories of House and Home explores the daily experiences and aspirations of Soviet citizens who were granted new apartments and those who continued to inhabit the old housing stock due to the chronic problems that beset the housing program. Varga-Harris analyzes the contradictions apparent in heroic advances and seemingly inexplicable delays in construction, model apartments boasting modern conveniences and decrepit dwellings, happy housewarmings and disappointing moves, and new residents and individuals requesting to exchange old apartments. She also reveals how Soviet citizens identified with the state and with the broader project of building socialism.

Author : Jason C. Vaughn
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2018-10-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780761870579

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The Russian "House" by Jason C. Vaughn Pdf

This book studies Russian society, culture, and public opinion in terms of what ordinary Russians think about Russia independent of the authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin. This study uses Jason Vaughn’s research and work in Russia to build a new model of how to interpret the Russian political system.

Author : Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 486 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN : 080148331X

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The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal Pdf

A comprehensive account of the influence of occult beliefs and doctrines on intellectual and cultural life in twentieth-century Russia.

Author : Mikhail N. Epstein,Alexander A. Genis,Slobodanka Millicent Vladiv-Glover
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 602 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2015-12-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781782388654

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Russian Postmodernism by Mikhail N. Epstein,Alexander A. Genis,Slobodanka Millicent Vladiv-Glover Pdf

Recent decades have been decisive for Russia not only politically but culturally as well. The end of the Cold War has enabled Russia to take part in the global rise and crystallization of postmodernism. This volume investigates the manifestations of this crucial trend in Russian fiction, poetry, art, and spirituality, demonstrating how Russian postmodernism is its own unique entity. It offers a point of departure and valuable guide to an area of contemporary literary-cultural studies insufficiently represented in English-language scholarship. This second edition includes additional essays on the topic and a new introduction examining the most recent developments.

Author : Nancy Ries
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Language and culture
ISBN : 0801484162

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Russian Talk by Nancy Ries Pdf

As one of the first Western ethnographers working in Moscow, Nancy Ries became convinced that talk is one crucial way in which Russian identity is constructed and reproduced. Listening to the grim stories people used to characterize their lives during perestroika, and encountering the florid pessimism with which Muscovites described the unraveling of Soviet governance, Ries realized that these dire tales played a crucial role in fabricating a sense of shared experience and destiny. While many of the narratives aptly depicted the chaotic social and political events, they also promoted key images of "Russianness" and presented Russian society as an inescapable realm of injustice, absurdity, and suffering. At the height of perestroika in the early 1990s, Moscow residents commonly used the phrase "complete ruin" to refer to the disintegration of Russian society, encompassing in that phrase the escalation of crime, the disappearance of goods from stores, the fall of production, ecological catastrophes, ethnic violence in the Caucasus, the degradation of the arts, and the flood of pornography. Ries argues that such stories became a genre of folklore consistent in their lamenting, portentous tone and their dramatic, culturally poignant details.

Author : Joachim Otto Habeck
Publisher : Open Book Publishers
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2019-11-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781783747207

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Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North by Joachim Otto Habeck Pdf

Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North breaks new ground by exploring the concept of lifestyle from a distinctly anthropological perspective. Showcasing the collective work of ten experienced scholars in the field, the book goes beyond concepts of tradition that have often been the focus of previous research, to explain how political, economic and technological changes in Russia have created a wide range of new possibilities and constraints in the pursuit of different ways of life. Each contribution is drawn from meticulous first-hand field research, and the authors engage with theoretical questions such as whether and how the concept of lifestyle can be extended beyond its conventionally urban, Euro-American context and employed in a markedly different setting. Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North builds on the contributors’ clear commitment to diversifying the field and providing a novel and intimate insight into this vast and dynamic region. This book provides inspiring reading for students and teachers of Anthropology, Sociology and Cultural Studies and for anyone interested in Russia and its regions. By providing ethnographic case studies, it is also a useful basis for teaching anthropological methods and concepts, both at graduate and undergraduate level. Rigorous and innovative, it marks an important contribution to the study of Siberia and the Russian North.

Author : Maxim Gorky
Publisher : The Minerva Group, Inc.
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2001-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780898754360

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Culture and the People by Maxim Gorky Pdf

This collection contains the last essays of Gorky which are related centrally to the theme stated in the title of this book culture and the people. It is a representative selection from the voluminous publicist efforts in which the author was engaged during the last ten years of his life. Together with his bookfull of articles, On Guard for the Soviet Union, the present volume reveals a side of Gorky's writing as necessary to an understanding of his work as his novels, stories, autobiographical volumes and plays. Some of the contributions are slashing polemics; many were written under the pressure of daily journalism, appearing in numerous periodicals, including the leading Soviet papers Pravda and Izvestia; all of them reflect the vigor and depth of Gorky's literary talent.

Author : Anne White
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1990-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0415042445

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De-Stalinization and the House of Culture by Anne White Pdf

Author : Dilyara Suleymanova
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030272456

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Pedagogies of Culture by Dilyara Suleymanova Pdf

Through an ethnographic study of schooling in the Republic of Tatarstan, this book explores how competing notions of nationhood and belonging are constructed, articulated and negotiated within educational spaces. Amidst major political and ideological moves toward centralization in Russia under the Putin presidency, this small provincial town in Tatarstan provides a unique case of local attempts to promote and preserve minority languages and cultures through education and schooling. Ultimately, the study reveals that while schooling can be an effective instrument of the state to transform individuals as well as society as a whole, school also encompasses various spaces where the agency of local actors unfolds and official messages are contested. Looking at what happens inside schools and beyond—in classrooms, hallways and playgrounds to private households or local Islamic schools—Dilyara Suleymanova here offers a detailed ethnographic account of the way centrally devised educational policies are being received, negotiated and contested on the ground.