Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920

Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 PDF Author: James Von Geldern
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520076907
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In the early years of the USSR, socialist festivals--events entailing enormous expense and the deployment of thousands of people--were inaugurated by the Bolsheviks. Avant-garde canvases decorated the streets, workers marched, and elaborate mass spectacles were staged. Why, with a civil war raging and an economy in ruins, did the regime sponsor such spectacles? In this first comprehensive investigation of the way festivals helped build a new political culture, James von Geldern examines the mass spectacles that captured the Bolsheviks' historical vision. Spectacle directors borrowed from a tradition that included tsarist pomp, avant-garde theater, and popular celebrations. They transformed the ideology of revolution into a mythologized sequence of events that provided new foundations for the Bolsheviks' claim to power. In the early years of the USSR, socialist festivals--events entailing enormous expense and the deployment of thousands of people--were inaugurated by the Bolsheviks. Avant-garde canvases decorated the streets, workers marched, and elaborate mass spectacles were staged. Why, with a civil war raging and an economy in ruins, did the regime sponsor such spectacles? In this first comprehensive investigation of the way festivals helped build a new political culture, James von Geldern examines the mass spectacles that captured the Bolsheviks' historical vision. Spectacle directors borrowed from a tradition that included tsarist pomp, avant-garde theater, and popular celebrations. They transformed the ideology of revolution into a mythologized sequence of events that provided new foundations for the Bolsheviks' claim to power.

Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920

Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 PDF Author: James Von Geldern
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520076907
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In the early years of the USSR, socialist festivals--events entailing enormous expense and the deployment of thousands of people--were inaugurated by the Bolsheviks. Avant-garde canvases decorated the streets, workers marched, and elaborate mass spectacles were staged. Why, with a civil war raging and an economy in ruins, did the regime sponsor such spectacles? In this first comprehensive investigation of the way festivals helped build a new political culture, James von Geldern examines the mass spectacles that captured the Bolsheviks' historical vision. Spectacle directors borrowed from a tradition that included tsarist pomp, avant-garde theater, and popular celebrations. They transformed the ideology of revolution into a mythologized sequence of events that provided new foundations for the Bolsheviks' claim to power. In the early years of the USSR, socialist festivals--events entailing enormous expense and the deployment of thousands of people--were inaugurated by the Bolsheviks. Avant-garde canvases decorated the streets, workers marched, and elaborate mass spectacles were staged. Why, with a civil war raging and an economy in ruins, did the regime sponsor such spectacles? In this first comprehensive investigation of the way festivals helped build a new political culture, James von Geldern examines the mass spectacles that captured the Bolsheviks' historical vision. Spectacle directors borrowed from a tradition that included tsarist pomp, avant-garde theater, and popular celebrations. They transformed the ideology of revolution into a mythologized sequence of events that provided new foundations for the Bolsheviks' claim to power.

Art for the Workers

Art for the Workers PDF Author: Natalia Murray
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004355685
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Art for the workers explores the mythology and reality of post-revolutionary proletarian art in Russia as well as its expression in the festive decorations of Petrograd between 1917 and 1920. It covers this brief period chronologically, and so permits a close inspection of the development of artistic policies in Russia under the Provisional Government followed by the Bolsheviks. Specifically, this book focuses on the pre-and post-revolutionary debate about the nature of proletarian art and its role in the new Socialist society, particularly focusing on festive decorations, parades and mass performances as expressions of proletarian art and forms of propaganda.

The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 PDF Author: Jonathan Smele
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441119922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
The Russian Revolution and Civil War in the years 1917 to 1921 is one of the most widely studied periods in history. It is also somewhat inevitably one that has generated a huge flow of literature in the decades that have passed since the events themselves. However, until now, historians of the revolution have had no dedicated bibliography of the period and little claim to bibliographical control over the literature. The Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921offers for the first time a comprehensive bibliographical guide to this crucial and fascinating period of history. The Bibliography focuses on the key years of 1917 to 1921, starting with the February Revolution of 1917 and concluding with the 10th Party Congress of March 1921, and covers all the key events of the intervening years. As such it identifies these crucial years as something more than simply the creation of a communist state.

The Firebird and the Fox

The Firebird and the Fox PDF Author: Jeffrey Brooks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108484468
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.

From Communism to Anti-Communism

From Communism to Anti-Communism PDF Author: Collectif
Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications
ISBN: 2940503974
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Boris Souvarine moved from communism, in the first years of the Soviet régime, to anti-communism by the 1930s and throughout the rest of his long life. This book gives us a new and original perspective on the period that runs from the Russian Revolution to the 1950s and allows us to better understand that era. The documents come from the Boris Souvarine Collection consisting of his working notes, press clippings, and documentation concerning East-West relations collected by Souvarine.

The Red Flag

The Red Flag PDF Author: David Priestland
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802189792
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
“The best and the most accessible one-volume history of communism now available . . . A far-reaching, vividly written account.” —Foreign Affairs In The Red Flag, Oxford professor David Priestland tells the epic story of a movement that has taken root in dozens of countries across two hundred years, from its birth after the French Revolution to its ideological maturity in nineteenth-century Germany to its rise to dominance (and subsequent fall) in the twentieth century. Beginning with the first modern Communists in the age of Robespierre, Priestland examines the motives of thinkers and leaders including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Che Guevara, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gorbachev, and many others. Priestland also shows how Communism, in all its varieties, appealed to different societies for different reasons, in some as a response to inequalities and in others more out of a desire to catch up with the West. But paradoxically, while destroying one web of inequality, Communist leaders were simultaneously weaving another. It was this dynamic, together with widespread economic failure and an escalating loss of faith in the system, that ultimately destroyed Soviet Communism itself. At a time when global capitalism is in crisis and powerful new political forces have arisen to confront Western democracy, The Red Flag is essential reading if we are to apply the lessons of the past to navigating the future. “Detailed and scholarly but written in lively prose, this is a rich, satisfying account of the most successful utopian political movement in history.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Carnival Culture and the Soviet Modernist Novel

Carnival Culture and the Soviet Modernist Novel PDF Author: Craig Brandist
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349251208
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This book examines the work of five Soviet prose writers - Olesha, Platonov, Kharms, Bulgakov and Vaginov - in the light of the carnivalesque elements of Russian popular culture. It shows that while Bakhtin's account of carnival culture sheds considerable light on the work of these writers, they need to be considered with reference to both the concrete forms of Russian and Soviet popular culture and the changing institutional framework of Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture

The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture PDF Author: Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801483318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture PDF Author: Jay Bergman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192580361
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious, but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible, universal laws that explained the course of history from beginning to end. Those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient-if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this volume is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility-the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilized them as propaganda-but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics.

Showing Off, Showing Up

Showing Off, Showing Up PDF Author: Laurie Frederik
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472122762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The interdisciplinary essays in Showing Off, Showing Up examine acts of showing, a particular species of performance that relies on competition and judgment, active spectatorship, embodied excess, and exposure of core values and hidden truths. Acts of showing highlight those dimensions of performance that can most manipulate spectators and consumers, often through over-the-top heightening and skewing of presentation. Many forms of showing and of heightened performance, however, operate more enigmatically and covertly while still profoundly affecting the social world, even if our reactions to them are initially flippant or unconcerned because “it’s just a show.” Examining a wide range of examples—from dog shows to competitive dancing to carnivals to striptease, the essays illuminate how such events variously foster competition, exaggerate a characteristic, and reveal hidden truths. There is as much to be learned about the power of showing through subtlety and underlying intentionality as through overt display. The book’s theoretical introduction and 12 essays by leading scholars reveal how diverse, particularly efficacious genres of showing are theoretically connected and why they merit more concerted attention, especially in the 21st century.