Author: Keith Livers
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739135260
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Constructing the Stalinist Body brings together contemporary body theory with studies on Stalinist ideology and cultural mythology in order to elucidate the complex problem of individual authorship within the context of Stalinist ideology of the 1930s and '40s. Author Keith A. Livers examines the ways in which Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Lev Kassil' and other authors used corporeal imagery as a means of both resisting and furthering the idea of a Stalinist utopia and the ideologically purified body politic it aspired to produce. The final chapter of the book looks at collective and popular representations of the Moscow subway (completed in 1935), which was one of the most important construction projects of the 1930s and was at the same time portrayed as a microcosm of the ideal world of Socialism to come.
Constructing the Stalinist Body
Author: Keith Livers
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739135260
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Constructing the Stalinist Body brings together contemporary body theory with studies on Stalinist ideology and cultural mythology in order to elucidate the complex problem of individual authorship within the context of Stalinist ideology of the 1930s and '40s. Author Keith A. Livers examines the ways in which Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Lev Kassil' and other authors used corporeal imagery as a means of both resisting and furthering the idea of a Stalinist utopia and the ideologically purified body politic it aspired to produce. The final chapter of the book looks at collective and popular representations of the Moscow subway (completed in 1935), which was one of the most important construction projects of the 1930s and was at the same time portrayed as a microcosm of the ideal world of Socialism to come.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739135260
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Constructing the Stalinist Body brings together contemporary body theory with studies on Stalinist ideology and cultural mythology in order to elucidate the complex problem of individual authorship within the context of Stalinist ideology of the 1930s and '40s. Author Keith A. Livers examines the ways in which Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Lev Kassil' and other authors used corporeal imagery as a means of both resisting and furthering the idea of a Stalinist utopia and the ideologically purified body politic it aspired to produce. The final chapter of the book looks at collective and popular representations of the Moscow subway (completed in 1935), which was one of the most important construction projects of the 1930s and was at the same time portrayed as a microcosm of the ideal world of Socialism to come.
The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953
Author: Anita Pisch
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 176046063X
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
From 1929 until 1953, Iosif Stalin’s image became a central symbol in Soviet propaganda. Touched up images of an omniscient Stalin appeared everywhere: emblazoned across buildings and lining the streets; carried in parades and woven into carpets; and saturating the media of socialist realist painting, statuary, monumental architecture, friezes, banners, and posters. From the beginning of the Soviet regime, posters were seen as a vitally important medium for communicating with the population of the vast territories of the USSR. Stalin’s image became a symbol of Bolshevik values and the personification of a revolutionary new type of society. The persona created for Stalin in propaganda posters reflects how the state saw itself or, at the very least, how it wished to appear in the eyes of the people. The ‘Stalin’ who was celebrated in posters bore but scant resemblance to the man Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, whose humble origins, criminal past, penchant for violent solutions and unprepossessing appearance made him an unlikely recipient of uncritical charismatic adulation. The Bolsheviks needed a wise, nurturing and authoritative figure to embody their revolutionary vision and to legitimate their hold on power. This leader would come to embody the sacred and archetypal qualities of the wise Teacher, the Father of the nation, the great Warrior and military strategist, and the Saviour of first the Russian land, and then the whole world. This book is the first dedicated study on the marketing of Stalin in Soviet propaganda posters. Drawing on the archives of libraries and museums throughout Russia, hundreds of previously unpublished posters are examined, with more than 130 reproduced in full colour. The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953 is a unique and valuable contribution to the discourse in Stalinist studies across a number of disciplines.
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 176046063X
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
From 1929 until 1953, Iosif Stalin’s image became a central symbol in Soviet propaganda. Touched up images of an omniscient Stalin appeared everywhere: emblazoned across buildings and lining the streets; carried in parades and woven into carpets; and saturating the media of socialist realist painting, statuary, monumental architecture, friezes, banners, and posters. From the beginning of the Soviet regime, posters were seen as a vitally important medium for communicating with the population of the vast territories of the USSR. Stalin’s image became a symbol of Bolshevik values and the personification of a revolutionary new type of society. The persona created for Stalin in propaganda posters reflects how the state saw itself or, at the very least, how it wished to appear in the eyes of the people. The ‘Stalin’ who was celebrated in posters bore but scant resemblance to the man Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, whose humble origins, criminal past, penchant for violent solutions and unprepossessing appearance made him an unlikely recipient of uncritical charismatic adulation. The Bolsheviks needed a wise, nurturing and authoritative figure to embody their revolutionary vision and to legitimate their hold on power. This leader would come to embody the sacred and archetypal qualities of the wise Teacher, the Father of the nation, the great Warrior and military strategist, and the Saviour of first the Russian land, and then the whole world. This book is the first dedicated study on the marketing of Stalin in Soviet propaganda posters. Drawing on the archives of libraries and museums throughout Russia, hundreds of previously unpublished posters are examined, with more than 130 reproduced in full colour. The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953 is a unique and valuable contribution to the discourse in Stalinist studies across a number of disciplines.
The Stalinist Era
Author: David L. Hoffmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.
How the Soviet Man Was Unmade
Author: Lilya Kaganovsky
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 9780822973430
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
In Stalinist Russia, the idealized Soviet man projected an image of strength, virility, and unyielding drive in his desire to build a powerful socialist state. In monuments, posters, and other tools of cultural production, he became the demigod of Communist ideology. But beneath the surface of this fantasy, between the lines of texts and in film, lurked another figure: the wounded body of the heroic invalid, the second version of Stalin's New Man. In How the Soviet Man Was Unmade, Lilya Kaganovsky exposes the paradox behind the myth of the indestructible Stalinist-era male. In her analysis of social-realist literature and cinema, she examines the recurring theme of the mutilated male body, which appears with startling frequency. Kaganovsky views this representation as a thinly veiled statement about the emasculated male condition during the Stalinist era. Because the communist state was "full of heroes," a man could only truly distinguish himself and attain hero status through bodily sacrifice-yet in his wounding, he was forever reminded that he would be limited in what he could achieve, and was expected to remain in a state of continued subservience to Stalin and the party.Kaganovsky provides an insightful reevaluation of classic works of the period, including the novels of Nikolai Ostrovskii (How Steel Was Tempered) and Boris Polevoi (A Story About a Real Man), and films such as Ivan Pyr'ev's The Party Card, Eduard Pentslin's The Fighter Pilots, and Mikhail Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin, among others. The symbolism of wounding and dismemberment in these works acts as a fissure in the facade of Stalinist cultural production through which we can view the consequences of historic and political trauma.
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 9780822973430
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
In Stalinist Russia, the idealized Soviet man projected an image of strength, virility, and unyielding drive in his desire to build a powerful socialist state. In monuments, posters, and other tools of cultural production, he became the demigod of Communist ideology. But beneath the surface of this fantasy, between the lines of texts and in film, lurked another figure: the wounded body of the heroic invalid, the second version of Stalin's New Man. In How the Soviet Man Was Unmade, Lilya Kaganovsky exposes the paradox behind the myth of the indestructible Stalinist-era male. In her analysis of social-realist literature and cinema, she examines the recurring theme of the mutilated male body, which appears with startling frequency. Kaganovsky views this representation as a thinly veiled statement about the emasculated male condition during the Stalinist era. Because the communist state was "full of heroes," a man could only truly distinguish himself and attain hero status through bodily sacrifice-yet in his wounding, he was forever reminded that he would be limited in what he could achieve, and was expected to remain in a state of continued subservience to Stalin and the party.Kaganovsky provides an insightful reevaluation of classic works of the period, including the novels of Nikolai Ostrovskii (How Steel Was Tempered) and Boris Polevoi (A Story About a Real Man), and films such as Ivan Pyr'ev's The Party Card, Eduard Pentslin's The Fighter Pilots, and Mikhail Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin, among others. The symbolism of wounding and dismemberment in these works acts as a fissure in the facade of Stalinist cultural production through which we can view the consequences of historic and political trauma.
Writers at Work
Author: Mary A. Nicholas
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 0838757391
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
The cost of constructing Envy: Iurii Olesha and the Soviet production novel -- How she worked on Hydrocentral: Marietta Shaginian and the changing Soviet author -- Building "Novye Vaiuki": Ilf and Petrov map the production novel -- (Re)constructing the production novel: Boris Pilniak, Mahogany, and The Volga Falls to the Caspian Sea -- Finding space in Time, forward! Kataev and writers at work -- Deconstructing Soviet work: Andrei Platonov and the end of the production novel.
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 0838757391
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
The cost of constructing Envy: Iurii Olesha and the Soviet production novel -- How she worked on Hydrocentral: Marietta Shaginian and the changing Soviet author -- Building "Novye Vaiuki": Ilf and Petrov map the production novel -- (Re)constructing the production novel: Boris Pilniak, Mahogany, and The Volga Falls to the Caspian Sea -- Finding space in Time, forward! Kataev and writers at work -- Deconstructing Soviet work: Andrei Platonov and the end of the production novel.
Stalin's Curse
Author: Robert Gellately
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307962350
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those years—and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West—set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin’s Kremlin.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307962350
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those years—and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West—set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin’s Kremlin.
Building Stalinism
Author: Cynthia A. Ruder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786733560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Today the 80-mile-long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualise a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews and contemporary documentary materials these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analysing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered. This is essential reading for all scholars working on the all-pervasive nature of Stalinism and its complex afterlife in Russia today.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786733560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Today the 80-mile-long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualise a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews and contemporary documentary materials these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analysing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered. This is essential reading for all scholars working on the all-pervasive nature of Stalinism and its complex afterlife in Russia today.
From Stalin to Mao
Author: Elidor Mëhilli
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501712233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
Elidor Mëhilli has produced a groundbreaking history of communist Albania that illuminates one of Europe’s longest but least understood dictatorships. From Stalin to Mao, which is informed throughout by Mëhilli’s unprecedented access to previously restricted archives, captures the powerful globalism of post-1945 socialism, as well as the unintended consequences of cross-border exchanges from the Mediterranean to East Asia. After a decade of vigorous borrowing from the Soviet Union—advisers, factories, school textbooks, urban plans—Albania’s party clique switched allegiance to China during the 1960s Sino-Soviet conflict, seeing in Mao’s patronage an opportunity to keep Stalinism alive. Mëhilli shows how socialism created a shared transnational material and mental culture—still evident today around Eurasia—but it failed to generate political unity. Combining an analysis of ideology with a sharp sense of geopolitics, he brings into view Fascist Italy’s involvement in Albania, then explores the country’s Eastern bloc entanglements, the profound fascination with the Soviets, and the contradictions of the dramatic anti-Soviet turn. Richly illustrated with never-before-published photographs, From Stalin to Mao draws on a wealth of Albanian, Russian, German, British, Italian, Czech, and American archival sources, in addition to fiction, interviews, and memoirs. Mëhilli’s fresh perspective on the Soviet-Chinese battle for the soul of revolution in the global Cold War also illuminates the paradoxes of state planning in the twentieth century.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501712233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
Elidor Mëhilli has produced a groundbreaking history of communist Albania that illuminates one of Europe’s longest but least understood dictatorships. From Stalin to Mao, which is informed throughout by Mëhilli’s unprecedented access to previously restricted archives, captures the powerful globalism of post-1945 socialism, as well as the unintended consequences of cross-border exchanges from the Mediterranean to East Asia. After a decade of vigorous borrowing from the Soviet Union—advisers, factories, school textbooks, urban plans—Albania’s party clique switched allegiance to China during the 1960s Sino-Soviet conflict, seeing in Mao’s patronage an opportunity to keep Stalinism alive. Mëhilli shows how socialism created a shared transnational material and mental culture—still evident today around Eurasia—but it failed to generate political unity. Combining an analysis of ideology with a sharp sense of geopolitics, he brings into view Fascist Italy’s involvement in Albania, then explores the country’s Eastern bloc entanglements, the profound fascination with the Soviets, and the contradictions of the dramatic anti-Soviet turn. Richly illustrated with never-before-published photographs, From Stalin to Mao draws on a wealth of Albanian, Russian, German, British, Italian, Czech, and American archival sources, in addition to fiction, interviews, and memoirs. Mëhilli’s fresh perspective on the Soviet-Chinese battle for the soul of revolution in the global Cold War also illuminates the paradoxes of state planning in the twentieth century.
The Stalin Cult
Author: Jan Plamper
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300169523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, one of the most persuasive personality cults of all times saturated Soviet public space with images of Stalin. A torrent of portraits, posters, statues, films, plays, songs, and poems galvanized the Soviet population and inspired leftist activists around the world. In the first book to examine the cultural products and production methods of the Stalin cult, Jan Plamper reconstructs a hidden history linking artists, party patrons, state functionaries, and ultimately Stalin himself in the alchemical project that transformed a pock-marked Georgian into the embodiment of global communism. Departing from interpretations of the Stalin cult as an outgrowth of Russian mysticism or Stalin's psychopathology, Plamper establishes the cult's context within a broader international history of modern personality cults constructed around Napoleon III, Mussolini, Hitler, and Mao. Drawing upon evidence from previously inaccessible Russian archives, Plamper's lavishly illustrated and accessibly written study will appeal to anyone interested in twentieth-century history, visual studies, the politics of representation, dictator biography, socialist realism, and real socialism.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300169523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, one of the most persuasive personality cults of all times saturated Soviet public space with images of Stalin. A torrent of portraits, posters, statues, films, plays, songs, and poems galvanized the Soviet population and inspired leftist activists around the world. In the first book to examine the cultural products and production methods of the Stalin cult, Jan Plamper reconstructs a hidden history linking artists, party patrons, state functionaries, and ultimately Stalin himself in the alchemical project that transformed a pock-marked Georgian into the embodiment of global communism. Departing from interpretations of the Stalin cult as an outgrowth of Russian mysticism or Stalin's psychopathology, Plamper establishes the cult's context within a broader international history of modern personality cults constructed around Napoleon III, Mussolini, Hitler, and Mao. Drawing upon evidence from previously inaccessible Russian archives, Plamper's lavishly illustrated and accessibly written study will appeal to anyone interested in twentieth-century history, visual studies, the politics of representation, dictator biography, socialist realism, and real socialism.
The Total Art of Stalinism
Author: Boris Groys
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678091
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 145
Book Description
From the ruins of communism, Boris Groys emerges to provoke our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists’ goal of producing world-transformative art. In this new edition, Groys revisits the debate that the book has stimulated since its first publication.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678091
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 145
Book Description
From the ruins of communism, Boris Groys emerges to provoke our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists’ goal of producing world-transformative art. In this new edition, Groys revisits the debate that the book has stimulated since its first publication.