Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism PDF Author: Edmund Griffiths
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783838269634
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Aleksandr Prokhanov (born 1938) is a prizewinning novelist and also, as editor of the weekly newspaper Zavtra, a leading figure in Russian 'imperial patriotism'. Ever since 1991, when he signed (and reputedly wrote) the manifesto for the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, he has been an influential voice in Russian political culture--helping to turn the 'irreconcilable opposition' of the 1990s towards Empire, grappling with the difficult question of whether to endorse Vladimir Putin as a savior or expose him as a fraud, and promulgating a bewildering series of 'conspiracy theories' in which Russian and international affairs are explained in the most extravagant terms. He has also been a remarkably prolific writer, and the best of his novels are real works of literature, at once muck-raking and lyrical, with Moscow scandal interwoven so tightly with the mystical yearnings of 'cosmism' that the reader can hardly prise them apart. The same themes flow backwards and forwards between Prokhanov's fiction and his non-fiction: World conspiracies, space exploration, the resurrection of the dead, Stalin as a supernatural redeemer--these and other preoccupations recur again and again in his leading articles as well as in his novels.This book does not seek either to justify Prokhanov or to denounce him: It seeks to understand him as perhaps the most eminent representative of a school of thought that is here defined as 'post-Soviet esotericism'. Esotericist ideas, some of them strikingly reminiscent of beliefs that flourished in the early Christian centuries, have acquired wide resonance in Russia since the collapse of the USSR. Post-Soviet esotericism thus represents a rare and valuable opportunity to examine a belief system of this nature in the process of its emergence. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with modern Russian literature or politics, and also more broadly to descriptive logicians and students of negative esotericism.

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism PDF Author: Edmund Griffiths
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783838269634
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Aleksandr Prokhanov (born 1938) is a prizewinning novelist and also, as editor of the weekly newspaper Zavtra, a leading figure in Russian 'imperial patriotism'. Ever since 1991, when he signed (and reputedly wrote) the manifesto for the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, he has been an influential voice in Russian political culture--helping to turn the 'irreconcilable opposition' of the 1990s towards Empire, grappling with the difficult question of whether to endorse Vladimir Putin as a savior or expose him as a fraud, and promulgating a bewildering series of 'conspiracy theories' in which Russian and international affairs are explained in the most extravagant terms. He has also been a remarkably prolific writer, and the best of his novels are real works of literature, at once muck-raking and lyrical, with Moscow scandal interwoven so tightly with the mystical yearnings of 'cosmism' that the reader can hardly prise them apart. The same themes flow backwards and forwards between Prokhanov's fiction and his non-fiction: World conspiracies, space exploration, the resurrection of the dead, Stalin as a supernatural redeemer--these and other preoccupations recur again and again in his leading articles as well as in his novels.This book does not seek either to justify Prokhanov or to denounce him: It seeks to understand him as perhaps the most eminent representative of a school of thought that is here defined as 'post-Soviet esotericism'. Esotericist ideas, some of them strikingly reminiscent of beliefs that flourished in the early Christian centuries, have acquired wide resonance in Russia since the collapse of the USSR. Post-Soviet esotericism thus represents a rare and valuable opportunity to examine a belief system of this nature in the process of its emergence. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with modern Russian literature or politics, and also more broadly to descriptive logicians and students of negative esotericism.

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism PDF Author: Edmund Griffiths
Publisher: Ibidem Press
ISBN: 9783838209630
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Aleksandr Prokhanov (born 1938) is a prize-winning novelist and also, as editor of the weekly newspaper Zavtra, a leading figure in Russian ‘imperial patriotism’. Ever since 1991, when he signed (and reputedly wrote) the manifesto for the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, he has been an influential voice in Russian political culture—helping to turn the ‘irreconcilable opposition’ of the 1990s towards Empire, grappling with whether to endorse Vladimir Putin as a savior or expose him as a fraud, and promulgating a bewildering series of ‘conspiracy theories’ in which Russian and international affairs are explained in the most extravagant terms. He has also been a remarkably prolific writer; and the best of his novels are real works of literature, at once muckraking and lyrical, interweaving Moscow scandal so tightly with the mystical yearnings of ‘cosmism’ that the reader can hardly prize them apart. The same themes flow backwards and forwards between Prokhanov’s fiction and his non-fiction. World conspiracies, space exploration, the resurrection of the dead, Stalin as a supernatural redeemer—these and other preoccupations recur again and again, in his leading articles as well as in his novels. This book, the first on Prokhanov, offers an account of his writing and of the ‘red-brown’ esotericism he expounds. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with modern Russian literature or politics, and also to students of ‘conspiracy theories’, esoteric belief systems, or the conspiracy novel.--Provided by publisher.

Post-Soviet Secessionism

Post-Soviet Secessionism PDF Author: Daria Minakov, Mikhail Sasse, Gwendolyn Minakov, Mikhail Isachenko
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838215389
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The USSR’s dissolution resulted in the creation of not only fifteen recognized states but also of four non-recognized statelets: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria. Their polities comprise networks with state-like elements. Since the early 1990s, the four pseudo-states have been continously dependent on their sponsor countries (Russia, Armenia), and contesting the territorial integrity of their parental nation-states Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. In 2014, the outburst of Russia-backed separatism in Eastern Ukraine led to the creation of two more para-states, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), whose leaders used the experience of older de facto states. In 2020, this growing network of de facto states counted an overall population of more than 4 million people. The essays collected in this volume address such questions as: How do post-Soviet de facto states survive and continue to grow? Is there anything specific about the political ecology of Eastern Europe that provides secessionism with the possibility to launch state-making processes in spite of international sanctions and counteractions of their parental states? How do secessionist movements become embedded in wider networks of separatism in Eastern and Western Europe? What is the impact of secessionism and war on the parental states? The contributors are Jan Claas Behrends, Petra Colmorgen, Bruno Coppieters, Nataliia Kasianenko, Alice Lackner, Mikhail Minakov, and Gwendolyn Sasse.

Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm

Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm PDF Author: Steven Bottlik, Zsolt Berki, Marton Jobbitt
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838213998
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Cold War’s bipolar world order, Soviet successor states on the Russian periphery found themselves in a geopolitical vacuum, and gradually evolved into a specific buffer zone throughout the 1990s. The establishment of a new system of relations became evident in the wake of the Baltic States’ accession to the European Union in 2004, resulting in the fragmentation of this buffer zone. In addition to the nations that are more directly connected to Zwischeneuropa (i.e. ‘In-Between Europe’) historically and culturally (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine), countries beyond the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia), as well as the states of former Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan) have also become characterized by particular developmental pathways. Focusing on these areas of the post-Soviet realm, this collected volume examines how they have faced multidimensional challenges while pursuing both geopolitics and their place in the world economy. From a conceptual point of view, the chapters pay close attention not only to issues of ethnicity (which are literally intertwined with a number of social problems in these regions), but also to the various socio-spatial contexts of ethnic processes. Having emerged after the collapse of Soviet authority, the so-called ‘post-Soviet realm’ might serve as a crucial testing ground for such studies, as the specific social and regional patterns of ethnicity are widely recognized here. Accordingly, the phenomena covered in the volume are rather diverse. The first section reviews the fundamental elements of the formation of national identity in light of the geopolitical situation both past and present. This includes an examination of the relative strength and shifting dynamics of statehood, the impacts of imperial nationalism, and the changes in language use from the early-modern period onwards. The second section examines the (trans)formation of the identities of small nations living at the forefront of Tsarist Russian geopolitical expansion, in particular in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Southern Steppe. Finally, in the third section, the contributors discuss the fate of groups whose settlement space was divided by the external boundaries of the Soviet Union, a reality that resulted in the diverging developmental trajectories of the otherwise culturally similar communities on both sides of the border. In these imperial peripheries, Soviet authority gave rise to specifically Soviet national identities amongst groups such as the Azeris, Tajiks, Karelians, Moldavians, and others. The book also includes more than 30 primarily original maps, graphs, and tables and will be of great use not only for human geographers (particularly political and cultural geographers) and historians, but also for those interested in contemporary issues in social science.

The Russian Path

The Russian Path PDF Author: Dmitry Gel'man, Vladimir Marganiya, Otar Travin
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838214218
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The politico-economic reforms launched during the late twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia have led to contradictory and ambiguous results. The new economic environment and mode of governance that emerged have been subjected to serious criticism. What were the causes of these developments? Were they unavoidable for Russia due to specific factors grounded in the country’s previous experiences? Or were they an intended result of actions taken by the leaders of the country during the last few decades? The authors of this book share neither a deterministic approach, which implies that Russia is bound to fail because of the nature of its economic and political evolution, nor a voluntarist approach, which implies that these failures were caused only by the incompetence and/or malicious intentions of its leaders. Instead, this study offers a different framework for the analysis of political and economic developments in present-day Russia. It is based on four ‘i’s—ideas, interests, institutions, and illusions.

Constructing the Limits of Europe

Constructing the Limits of Europe PDF Author: Rumena Filipova
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838216490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
This comparative study harks back to the revolutionary year of 1989 and asks two critical questions about the resulting reconfiguration of Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of communism: Why did Central and East European states display such divergent outcomes of their socio-political transitions? Why did three of those states—Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia—differ so starkly in terms of the pace and extent of their integration into Europe? Rumena Filipova argues that Poland’s, Bulgaria’s, and Russia’s dominating conceptions of national identity have principally shaped these countries’ foreign policy behavior after 1989. Such an explanation of these three nations’ diverging degrees of Europeanization stands in contrast to institutionalist-rationalist, interest-based accounts of democratic transition and international integration in post-communist Europe. She thereby makes a case for the need to include ideational factors into the study of International Relations and demonstrates that identities are not easily malleable and may not be as fluid as often assumed. She proposes a theoretical “middle-ground” argument that calls for “qualified post-positivism” as an integrated perspective that combines positivist and post-positivist orientations in the study of IR.

The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture

The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture PDF Author: Mark Lipovetsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197508219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1081

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture is the first comprehensive English-language volume covering a history of Soviet artistic and literary underground. In forty-four chapters, an international group of leading scholars introduce readers to a web of subcultures within the underground, highlight the culture achievements of the Soviet underground from the 1930s through the 1980s, emphasize the multimediality of this cultural phenomenon, and situate the study of underground literary texts and artworks into their broader theoretical, ideological, and political contexts.

On the Verge of History

On the Verge of History PDF Author: Izabella Agardi
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838216024
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
Rural women have not had a formative role in the public histories of Central Eastern Europe. Izabella Agárdi aims to correct that by concentrating on their life stories and their connections to general histories. She investigates how Hungarian-speaking, ordinary women in rural contexts born in the 1920s and 1930s remember and talk about the twentieth century they have experienced, and how, through their stories, they articulate historical change and construct themselves as historical subjects. In her analysis, Izabella Agárdi traces the interactions between micro- and macro- narratives as well as the specific tools women of this generation appropriate to talk about personal memories of their often traumatic past. From these stories, a particular mnemonic community emerges, one that speaks from a highly precarious position 'on the verge of history'. It is up to future generations whether these women's experiences will be remembered or forgotten.

Embodied Differences

Embodied Differences PDF Author: Henrietta Mondry
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644694875
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
This book analyzes the ways in which literary works and cultural discourses employ the construct of the Jew’s body in relation to the material world in order either to establish and reinforce, or to subvert and challenge, dominant cultural norms and stereotypes. It examines the use of physical characteristics, embodied practices, tacit knowledge and senses to define the body taxonomically as normative, different, abject or mimetically desired. Starting from the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky through to contemporary Russian-Jewish women’s writing, broadening the scope to examining the role of objects, museum displays and the politics of heritage food, the book argues that materiality can embody fictional constructions that should be approached on a culture-specific basis.

The Years of Great Silence

The Years of Great Silence PDF Author: Jonathan Otto Pohl
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 383821630X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war. J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.