Iurii Dombrovskii
Iurii Dombrovskii

Author: Peter Doyle

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9789057026249

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Conscience is the writer's production tool. If he has not got that, he has not got anything. All the artistic fabric crumbles and frays at the first touch.- Iurii Dombrovskii Iurii Dombrovskii (1909-1978) was a Soviet writer of immense courage and integrity, whose life and literary career were repeatedly disrupted by unjust arrests and long periods of imprisonment. Born and educated in Moscow, he was first detained in 1932, and spent a total of twenty-three years in exile in Alma-Alata and in Siberian labour camps. Even after his rehabilitation in 1956 he was never free from surveillance and harassment by Soviet authorities. Only able to publish infrequently, he was forced to eke out a meagre existence yet produced original works of high quality. This book is the first full-length monograph on Iurii Dombrovskii, widely acclaimed in recent years as a writer of major importance and interest, following the publication in Russia and the West of his last novel The Faculty of Unnecessary Things. The book is based on a thorough study of published materials by and about Dombrovskii and on research into unpublished archive sources, to which no previous Western scholar has had access. Iurii Dombrovskii: Freedom under Totalitarianismprovides a detailed overview of the writer, and lays the foundations for further research. Peter Doyle gives the most substantive account of Dombrovkii's biography yet written, along with detailed interpretive studies of his main prose works, an assessment of his little known poetry, and a comprehensive bibliography.The Faculty of Unnecessary Things. The book is based on a thorough study of published materials by and about Dombrovskii and on research into unpublished archive sources, to which no previous Western scholar has had access. Iurii Dombrovskii: Freedom under Totalitarianismprovides a detailed overview of the writer, and lays the foundations for further research. Peter Doyle gives the most substantive account of Dombrovkii's biography yet written, along with detailed interpretive studies of his main prose works, an assessment of his little known poetry, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Reference Guide to Russian Literature
Reference Guide to Russian Literature

Author: Neil Cornwell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-02

Total Pages: 1013

ISBN-13: 1134260709

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First Published in 1998. This volume will surely be regarded as the standard guide to Russian literature for some considerable time to come... It is therefore confidently recommended for addition to reference libraries, be they academic or public.

Myth, Memory, Trauma
Myth, Memory, Trauma

Author: Polly Jones

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2013-08-27

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 0300187211

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Drawing on newly available materials from the Soviet archives, Polly Jones offers an innovative, comprehensive account of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev eras. Jones traces the authorities' initiation and management of the de-Stalinization process and explores a wide range of popular reactions to the new narratives of Stalinism in party statements and in Soviet literature and historiography. Engaging with the dynamic field of memory studies, this book represents the first sustained comparison of this process with other countries' attempts to rethink their own difficult pasts, and with later Soviet and post-Soviet approaches to Stalinism.

Gulag Fiction
Gulag Fiction

Author: Polly Jones

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-10-17

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1350250406

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This unique exploration of Russian prose fiction about the Soviet labour camp system since the Stalin era compares representations of identity, ethics and memory across the corpus. The Soviet labour camp system, or Gulag, was a highly complex network of different types of penal institutions, scattered across the vast Soviet territory and affecting millions of Soviet citizens directly and indirectly. As Gulag Fiction shows, its legacies remain palpable today, though survivors of the camps are now increasingly scarce, and successive Soviet and post-Soviet leaders have been reluctant to authorise a full working through of the Gulag past. This is the first book to compare Soviet, samizdat and post-Soviet literary prose about the Gulag as penal system, carceral experience and traumatic memory. Polly Jones analyses prose texts from across the 20th and 21st centuries through the prism of key themes in contemporary Soviet historiography and Holocaust literature scholarship: selfhood and survival; perpetration and responsibility; memory and post-memory.

Facets of Russian Irrationalism between Art and Life
Facets of Russian Irrationalism between Art and Life

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 9004311122

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Russia is an enigmatic, mysterious country, situated between East and West not only spatially, but also mentally. Or so it is traditionally perceived in Western Europe and the Anglophone world at large. One of the distinctive features of Russian culture is its irrationalism, which revealed itself diversely in Russian life and thought, literature, music and visual arts, and has survived to the present day. Bridging the gap in existing scholarship, the current volume is an attempt at an integral and multifaceted approach to this phenomenon, and launches the study of Russian irrationalism in philosophy, theology, literature and the arts of the last two hundred years, together with its reflections in Russian reality. Contributors: Tatiana Chumakova, David Gillespie, Arkadii Goldenberg, Kira Gordovich, Rainer Grübel, Elizabeth Harrison, Jeremy Howard, Aleksandr Ivashkin, Elena Kabkova, Sergei Kibalnik, Oleg Kovalov, Alexander McCabe, Barbara Olaszek, Oliver Ready, Oliver Smith, Margarita Odesskaia, Ildikó Mária Rácz, Lyudmila Safronova, Marilyn Schwinn Smith, Henrieke Stahl, Olga Stukalova, Olga Tabachnikova, Christopher John Tooke, and Natalia Vinokurova.

Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia
Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia

Author: Philip Boobbyer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-08-05

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1317571223

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Embracing the political, intellectual, social and cultural history of Soviet Russia, this book provides a useful perspective of Putin’s Russia. Focusing on the ethics in Soviet Russia, it explores the history of moral thinking amongst dissidents, and examines the ethical assumptions of the perestroika era.

Russia’s Uncommon Prophet
Russia’s Uncommon Prophet

Author: Wallace L. Daniel

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2016-04-20

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 1609091949

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This lucidly written biography of Aleksandr Men examines the familial and social context from which Men developed as a Russian Orthodox priest. Wallace Daniel presents a different picture of Russia and the Orthodox Church than the stereotypes found in much of the popular literature. Men offered an alternative to the prescribed ways of thinking imposed by the state and the church. Growing up during the darkest, most oppressive years in the history of the former Soviet Union, he became a parish priest who eschewed fear, who followed Christ's command "to love thy neighbor as thyself," and who attracted large, diverse groups of people in Russian society. How he accomplished those tasks and with what ultimate results are the main themes of this story. Conflict and controversy marked every stage of Men's priesthood. His parish in the vicinity of Moscow attracted the attention of the KGB, especially as it became a haven for members of the intelligentsia. He endured repeated attacks from ultraconservative, anti-Semitic circles inside the Orthodox Church. Fr. Men represented the spiritual vision of an open, non-authoritarian Christianity, and his lectures were extremely popular. He was murdered on September 9, 1990. For years, his work was unavailable in most church bookstores in Russia, and his teachings were excoriated by some both within and outside the church. But his books continue to offer hope to many throughout the world—they have sold millions of copies and are testimony to his continuing relevance and enduring significance. This important biography will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in religion, politics, and global affairs.

Revolution Rekindled
Revolution Rekindled

Author: Polly Jones

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-08-14

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0192526472

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Towards the end of the Khrushchev era, a major Soviet initiative was launched to rekindle popular enthusiasm for the revolution, which eventually gave rise to over 150 biographies and historical novels (The Fiery Revolutionaries/Plamennye revoliutsionery series), authored by many key post-Stalinist writers and published throughout late socialism until the Soviet collapse. What new meanings did revolution take on as it was reimagined by writers, including dissidents, leading historians, and popular historical novelists? How did their millions of readers engage with these highly varied texts? To what extent does this Brezhnev-era publishing phenomenon challenge the notion of late socialism as a time of 'stagnation', and how does it confirm it? By exploring the complex processes of writing, editing, censorship, and reading of late Soviet literature, Revolution Rekindled highlights the dynamic negotiations that continued within Soviet culture well past the apparent turning point of 1968, through to the late Gorbachev era. It also complicates the opposition between 'official' and underground post-Stalinist culture by showing how Soviet writers and readers engaged with both, as they sought answers to key questions of revolutionary history, ethics and ideology. Polly Jones reveals the enormous breadth and vitality of the 'historical turn' amongst the late Soviet population. Revolution Rekindled is the first archival, oral history, and literary study of this unique late socialist publishing experiment, from its beginnings in the early 1960s to its collapse in the early 1990s. It draws on a wide range of previously untapped archives, including those of the publisher Politizdat, of Soviet institutions in charge of propaganda, publishing, and literature, and of many individual writers. It also uses in-depth interviews with Brezhnev-era writers, editors, and publishers, and assesses the generic and stylistic innovations within the series' biographies and novels.

A History of Russian Literature
A History of Russian Literature

Author: Andrew Kahn

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 976

ISBN-13: 0199663947

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Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. A History of Russian Literature provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife with the creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life. The volume proceeds chronologically in five parts, extending from Kievan Rus' in the 11th century to the present day.The coverage strikes a balance between extensive overview and in-depth thematic focus. Parts are organized thematically in chapters, which a number of keywords that are important literary concepts that can serve as connecting motifs and 'case studies', in-depth discussions of writers, institutions, and texts that take the reader up close and. Visual material also underscores the interrelation of the word and image at a number of points, particularly significant in the medieval period and twentieth century. The History addresses major continuities and discontinuities in the history of Russian literature across all periods, and in particular bring out trans-historical features that contribute to the notion of a national literature. The volume's time-range has the merit of identifying from the early modern period a vital set of national stereotypes and popular folklore about boundaries, space, Holy Russia, and the charismatic king that offers culturally relevant material to later writers. This volume delivers a fresh view on a series of key questions about Russia's literary history, by providing new mappings of literary history and a narrative that pursues key concepts (rather more than individual authorial careers). This holistic narrative underscores the ways in which context and text are densely woven in Russian literature, and demonstrates that the most exciting way to understand the canon and the development of tradition is through a discussion of the interrelation of major and minor figures, historical events and literary politics, literary theory and literary innovation.

Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia
Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia

Author: Brian LaPierre

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2012-12-10

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0299287432

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Swearing, drunkenness, promiscuity, playing loud music, brawling—in the Soviet Union these were not merely bad behavior, they were all forms of the crime of "hooliganism." Defined as "rudely violating public order and expressing clear disrespect for society," hooliganism was one of the most common and confusing crimes in the world's first socialist state. Under its shifting, ambiguous, and elastic terms, millions of Soviet citizens were arrested and incarcerated for periods ranging from three days to five years and for everything from swearing at a wife to stabbing a complete stranger. Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia offers the first comprehensive study of how Soviet police, prosecutors, judges, and ordinary citizens during the Khrushchev era (1953–64) understood, fought against, or embraced this catch-all category of criminality. Using a wide range of newly opened archival sources, it portrays the Khrushchev period—usually considered as a time of liberalizing reform and reduced repression—as an era of renewed harassment against a wide range of state-defined undesirables and as a time when policing and persecution were expanded to encompass the mundane aspects of everyday life. In an atmosphere of Cold War competition, foreign cultural penetration, and transatlantic anxiety over "rebels without a cause," hooliganism emerged as a vital tool that post-Stalinist elites used to civilize their uncultured working class, confirm their embattled cultural ideals, and create the right-thinking and right-acting socialist society of their dreams.