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Author: Jonathan Brunstedt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-07-15
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 1108498752
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProvides a bold new interpretation of the origins and development of World War II's remembrance in the USSR.
Author: Kathleen E. Smith
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9780801439636
DOWNLOAD EBOOKKathleen E. Smith examines the use of collective memories in Russian politics during the Yeltsin years, surveying the various issues that became battlegrounds for contending notions of what it means to be Russian.
Author: Vicky Davis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-11-30
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 1786732734
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe 1943 battle to free the Soviet Black Sea port of Novorossiisk from German occupation was fought from the beach head of Malaia zemlia, where the young Colonel Leonid Brezhnev saw action. Despite widespread scepticism of the state's appropriation and inflation of this historical event, the heroes of the campaign are still commemorated in Novorossiisk today by an amalgam of memoir, monuments and ritual. Through the prism of this provincial Russian town, Vicky Davis sheds light on the character of Brezhnev as perceived by his people, and on the process of memory for the ordinary Russian citizen. Davis analyses the construction and propagation of the local war myth to link the individual citizens of Novorossiisk with evolving state policy since World War II and examines the resultant social and political connotations. Her compelling new interdisciplinary evidence reveals the complexity of myth and memory, challenging existing assumptions to show that there is still scope for the local community - and even the individual - in memory construction in an authoritarian environment. This book represents a much-needed departure from the study of myth and memory in larger cities of the former Soviet Union, adding nuance to the existing portrait of Brezhnev and demonstrating the continued importance of war memory in Russia today.
Author: Slava Gerovitch
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2015-06-18
Total Pages: 355
ISBN-13: 0822980967
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom the start, the Soviet human space program had an identity crisis. Were cosmonauts heroic pilots steering their craft through the dangers of space, or were they mere passengers riding safely aboard fully automated machines? Tensions between Soviet cosmonauts and space engineers were reflected not only in the internal development of the space program but also in Soviet propaganda that wavered between praising daring heroes and flawless technologies. Soviet Space Mythologies explores the history of the Soviet human space program within a political and cultural context, giving particular attention to the two professional groups—space engineers and cosmonauts—who secretly built and publicly represented the program. Drawing on recent scholarship on memory and identity formation, this book shows how both the myths of Soviet official history and privately circulating counter-myths have served as instruments of collective memory and professional identity. These practices shaped the evolving cultural image of the space age in popular Soviet imagination. Soviet Space Mythologies provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of space history, history of technology, and Soviet (and post-Soviet) history.
Author: Yegor Gaidar
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2010-01-01
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 0815731159
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"My goal is to show the reader that the Soviet political and economic system was unstable by its very nature. It was just a question of when and how it would collapse...." —From the Introduction to Collapse of an Empire The Soviet Union was an empire in many senses of the word—a vast mix of far-flung regions and accidental citizens by way of conquest or annexation. Typical of such empires, it was built on shaky foundations. That instability made its demise inevitable, asserts Yegor Gaidar, former prime minister of Russia and architect of the "shock therapy" economic reforms of the 1990s. Yet a growing desire to return to the glory days of empire is pushing today's Russia backward into many of the same traps that made the Soviet Union untenable. In this important new book, Gaidar clearly illustrates why Russian nostalgia for empire is dangerous and ill-fated: "Dreams of returning to another era are illusory. Attempts to do so will lead to defeat." Gaidar uses world history, the Soviet experience, and economic analysis to demonstrate why swimming against this tide of history would be a huge mistake. The USSR sowed the seeds of its own economic destruction, and Gaidar worries that Russia is repeating some of those mistakes. Once again, for example, the nation is putting too many eggs into one basket, leaving the nation vulnerable to fluctuations in the energy market. The Soviets had used revenues from energy sales to prop up struggling sectors such as agriculture, which was so thoroughly ravaged by hyperindustrialization that the Soviet Union became a net importer of food. When oil prices dropped in the 1980s, that revenue stream diminished, and dependent sectors suffered heavily. Although strategies requiring austerity or sacrifice can be politically difficult, Russia needs to prepare for such downturns and restrain spending during prosperous times. Collapse of an Empire shows why it is imperative to fix the roof before it starts to rain, and why so
Author: Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal
Publisher: Penn State Press
Published: 2010-11-01
Total Pages: 484
ISBN-13: 9780271046587
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Nazis' use and misuse of Nietzsche is well known. In this pioneering book, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal excavates the trail of long-obscured Nietzschean ideas that took root in late Imperial Russia, intertwining with other elements in the culture to become a vital ingredient of Bolshevism and Stalinism.
Author: Veljko Vujačić
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-03-26
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 1107074088
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book examines the role of Russian and Serbian nationalism in dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1991.
Author: G. Diment
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2016-04-30
Total Pages: 282
ISBN-13: 1137089148
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSiberia has no history of independent political existence, no claim to a separate ethnic identity, and no clear borders. Yet, it could be said that the elusive country 'behind the Urals' is the most real and the most durable part of the Russian landscape. For centuries, Siberia has been represented as Russia's alter ego,as the heavenly or infernal antithesis to the perceived complexity or shallowness of Russian life. It has been both the frightening heart of darkness and a fabulous land of plenty; the 'House of the Dead' and the realm of utter freedom; a frozen wasteland and a colourful frontier; a dumping ground for Russia's rejects and the last refuge of its lost innocence. The contributors to Between Heaven and Hell examine the origin, nature, and implications of these images from historical, literary, geographical, anthropological, and linguistic perspectives. They create a striking, fascinating picture of this enormous and mysterious land.
Author: Serhii Plokhy
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-10-10
Total Pages: 470
ISBN-13: 0465097391
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine -- only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation's history. Spanning over 500 years, from the end of the Mongol rule to the present day, Plokhy shows how leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin exploited existing forms of identity, warfare, and territorial expansion to achieve imperial supremacy. An authoritative and masterful account of Russian nationalism, Lost Kingdom chronicles the story behind Russia's belligerent empire-building quest.
Author: John McCannon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 255
ISBN-13: 0195114361
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMcCannon also exposes the reality behind these exploits: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the GULAG as the dominant force in the North.
