Author: Jane Costlow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317099222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Bringing together a team of scholars from the diverse fields of geography, literary studies, and history, this is the first volume to study water as a cultural phenomenon within the Russian/Soviet context. Water in this context is both a cognitive and cultural construct and a geographical and physical phenomenon, representing particular rivers (the Volga, the Chusovaia in the Urals, the Neva) and bodies of water (from Baikal to sacred springs and the flowing water of nineteenth-century estates), but also powerful systems of meaning from traditional cultures and those forged in the radical restructuring undertaken in the 1930s. Individual chapters explore the polyvalence and contestation of meanings, dimensions, and values given to water in various times and spaces in Russian history. The reservoir of symbolic association is tapped by poets and film-makers but also by policy-makers, the popular press, and advertisers seeking to incite reaction or drive sales. The volume's emphasis on the cultural dimensions of water will link material that is often widely disparate in time and space; it will also serve as the methodological framework for the analysis undertaken both within chapters and in the editors' introduction.
Meanings and Values of Water in Russian Culture
Author: Jane Costlow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317099222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Bringing together a team of scholars from the diverse fields of geography, literary studies, and history, this is the first volume to study water as a cultural phenomenon within the Russian/Soviet context. Water in this context is both a cognitive and cultural construct and a geographical and physical phenomenon, representing particular rivers (the Volga, the Chusovaia in the Urals, the Neva) and bodies of water (from Baikal to sacred springs and the flowing water of nineteenth-century estates), but also powerful systems of meaning from traditional cultures and those forged in the radical restructuring undertaken in the 1930s. Individual chapters explore the polyvalence and contestation of meanings, dimensions, and values given to water in various times and spaces in Russian history. The reservoir of symbolic association is tapped by poets and film-makers but also by policy-makers, the popular press, and advertisers seeking to incite reaction or drive sales. The volume's emphasis on the cultural dimensions of water will link material that is often widely disparate in time and space; it will also serve as the methodological framework for the analysis undertaken both within chapters and in the editors' introduction.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317099222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Bringing together a team of scholars from the diverse fields of geography, literary studies, and history, this is the first volume to study water as a cultural phenomenon within the Russian/Soviet context. Water in this context is both a cognitive and cultural construct and a geographical and physical phenomenon, representing particular rivers (the Volga, the Chusovaia in the Urals, the Neva) and bodies of water (from Baikal to sacred springs and the flowing water of nineteenth-century estates), but also powerful systems of meaning from traditional cultures and those forged in the radical restructuring undertaken in the 1930s. Individual chapters explore the polyvalence and contestation of meanings, dimensions, and values given to water in various times and spaces in Russian history. The reservoir of symbolic association is tapped by poets and film-makers but also by policy-makers, the popular press, and advertisers seeking to incite reaction or drive sales. The volume's emphasis on the cultural dimensions of water will link material that is often widely disparate in time and space; it will also serve as the methodological framework for the analysis undertaken both within chapters and in the editors' introduction.
Water in Social Imagination
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004333444
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Water in Social Imagination considers how human communities have known, imagined and shaped water – and how water has shaped both material culture and the imagination. Essays from diverse perspectives offer histories of water at different scales – from community water wells and sacred springs to Siberian rivers and the regulated space of the Baltic Sea. From early modernization through Soviet style technological optimism to contemporary environmentalism, water’s ideological uses are multiple. With sustained attention not just to state policy and the technologies of high modernity, but to creative resistance to utilitarian imaginations, these essays insist on fluidities of meaning, ambiguities that derive both from water’s physical mutability and from its dual nature as life necessity and agent of destruction.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004333444
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Water in Social Imagination considers how human communities have known, imagined and shaped water – and how water has shaped both material culture and the imagination. Essays from diverse perspectives offer histories of water at different scales – from community water wells and sacred springs to Siberian rivers and the regulated space of the Baltic Sea. From early modernization through Soviet style technological optimism to contemporary environmentalism, water’s ideological uses are multiple. With sustained attention not just to state policy and the technologies of high modernity, but to creative resistance to utilitarian imaginations, these essays insist on fluidities of meaning, ambiguities that derive both from water’s physical mutability and from its dual nature as life necessity and agent of destruction.
Cold Waters
Author: Markku Lehtimäki
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031101499
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
This book addresses the Arctic and the northern regions by exploring cold waters and northern seascapes. It focuses on cultural discourses and artistic representations concerning the human experience and imagination of how the Arctic Ocean has been explored and used. It aims to assess what is specific to the northern waters vis-à-vis other sea and water areas in the world. The contextual background is provided by the fundamental shift from terra-based thinking towards aqua-based thinking, including the histories of the northern waters and the innovative ocean studies of the last decades. This book will be of interest to readers in Arctic studies and Sea and Ocean studies (including those with interests in literature, history, cultural and film studies, anthropology and politics), Environmental History and Cultural studies as well as in Russian studies. The book has been assembled with a view towards upper-level undergraduate and post-graduate students and scholars and will also be appropriate for courses in the fields mentioned above. The book will be of interest to specialists working in and with Arctic environmental issues. There is a broad array of international academic networks, environmental, governance and cultural associations outside academia whose members may also find the book of interest.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031101499
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
This book addresses the Arctic and the northern regions by exploring cold waters and northern seascapes. It focuses on cultural discourses and artistic representations concerning the human experience and imagination of how the Arctic Ocean has been explored and used. It aims to assess what is specific to the northern waters vis-à-vis other sea and water areas in the world. The contextual background is provided by the fundamental shift from terra-based thinking towards aqua-based thinking, including the histories of the northern waters and the innovative ocean studies of the last decades. This book will be of interest to readers in Arctic studies and Sea and Ocean studies (including those with interests in literature, history, cultural and film studies, anthropology and politics), Environmental History and Cultural studies as well as in Russian studies. The book has been assembled with a view towards upper-level undergraduate and post-graduate students and scholars and will also be appropriate for courses in the fields mentioned above. The book will be of interest to specialists working in and with Arctic environmental issues. There is a broad array of international academic networks, environmental, governance and cultural associations outside academia whose members may also find the book of interest.
The Volga
Author: Janet M. Hartley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300245645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga--the first to fully reveal its vital place in Russian history The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation--and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300245645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga--the first to fully reveal its vital place in Russian history The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation--and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.
Rivers in Russian Literature
Author: Margaret Ziolkowski
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 164453195X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Rivers in Russian Literature focuses on the Russian literary and folkloric treatment of five rivers—the Dnieper, Volga, Neva, Don, and Angara. Each chapter traces, within a geographical and historical context, the evolution of the literary representation of one river. Imagination may endow a river with aesthetic or spiritual qualities; ethnic, national, or racial associations; or commercial or agricultural symbolism of many kinds. Russian literary responses to these five rivers have much to tell us about the society that produced them as well as the rivers they treat. Distributed for UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE PRESS
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 164453195X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Rivers in Russian Literature focuses on the Russian literary and folkloric treatment of five rivers—the Dnieper, Volga, Neva, Don, and Angara. Each chapter traces, within a geographical and historical context, the evolution of the literary representation of one river. Imagination may endow a river with aesthetic or spiritual qualities; ethnic, national, or racial associations; or commercial or agricultural symbolism of many kinds. Russian literary responses to these five rivers have much to tell us about the society that produced them as well as the rivers they treat. Distributed for UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE PRESS
Visual Representations of the Arctic
Author: Markku Lehtimäki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000366332
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Privileging the visual as the main method of communication and meaning-making, this book responds critically to the worldwide discussion about the Arctic and the North, addressing the interrelated issues of climate change, ethics and geopolitics. A multi-disciplinary, multi-modal exploration of the Arctic, it supplies an original conceptualization of the Arctic as a visual world encompassing an array of representations, imaginings, and constructions. By examining a broad range of visual forms, media and forms such as art, film, graphic novels, maps, media, and photography, the book advances current debates about visual culture. The book enriches contemporary theories of the visual taking the Arctic as a spatial entity and also as a mode of exploring contemporary and historical visual practices, including imaginary constructions of the North. Original contributions include case studies from all the countries along the Arctic shore, with Russian material occupying a large section due to the country’s impact on the region
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000366332
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Privileging the visual as the main method of communication and meaning-making, this book responds critically to the worldwide discussion about the Arctic and the North, addressing the interrelated issues of climate change, ethics and geopolitics. A multi-disciplinary, multi-modal exploration of the Arctic, it supplies an original conceptualization of the Arctic as a visual world encompassing an array of representations, imaginings, and constructions. By examining a broad range of visual forms, media and forms such as art, film, graphic novels, maps, media, and photography, the book advances current debates about visual culture. The book enriches contemporary theories of the visual taking the Arctic as a spatial entity and also as a mode of exploring contemporary and historical visual practices, including imaginary constructions of the North. Original contributions include case studies from all the countries along the Arctic shore, with Russian material occupying a large section due to the country’s impact on the region
On Russian Soil
Author: Mieka Erley
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501755706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Blending close readings of literature, films, and other artworks with analysis of texts of political philosophy, science, and social theory, Mieka Erley offers an interdisciplinary perspective on attitudes to soil in Russia and the Soviet Union from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. As Erley shows in On Russian Soil, the earth has inspired utopian dreams, reactionary ideologies, social theories, and durable myths about the relationship between nation and nature. In this period of modernization, soil was understood as the collective body of the nation, sitting at the crux of all economic and social problems. The "soil question" was debated by nationalists and radical materialists, Slavophiles and Westernizers, poets and scientists. On Russian Soil highlights a selection of key myths at the intersection of cultural and material history that show how soil served as a natural, national, and symbolic resource from Fedor Dostoevsky's native soil movement to Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign at the Soviet periphery in the 1960s. Providing an original contribution to ecocriticism and environmental humanities, Erley expands our understanding of how cultural processes write nature and how nature inspires culture. On Russian Soil brings Slavic studies into new conversations in the environmental humanities, generating fresh interpretations of literary and cultural movements and innovative readings of major writers.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501755706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Blending close readings of literature, films, and other artworks with analysis of texts of political philosophy, science, and social theory, Mieka Erley offers an interdisciplinary perspective on attitudes to soil in Russia and the Soviet Union from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. As Erley shows in On Russian Soil, the earth has inspired utopian dreams, reactionary ideologies, social theories, and durable myths about the relationship between nation and nature. In this period of modernization, soil was understood as the collective body of the nation, sitting at the crux of all economic and social problems. The "soil question" was debated by nationalists and radical materialists, Slavophiles and Westernizers, poets and scientists. On Russian Soil highlights a selection of key myths at the intersection of cultural and material history that show how soil served as a natural, national, and symbolic resource from Fedor Dostoevsky's native soil movement to Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign at the Soviet periphery in the 1960s. Providing an original contribution to ecocriticism and environmental humanities, Erley expands our understanding of how cultural processes write nature and how nature inspires culture. On Russian Soil brings Slavic studies into new conversations in the environmental humanities, generating fresh interpretations of literary and cultural movements and innovative readings of major writers.
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.
Women Writing Intimate Spaces
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004527451
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The messy and multi-layered issue of intimacy in connection with transnationality and spatiality is the topic of this volume on women’s writing in the long nineteenth century. A series of intimacies are dealt with through case studies from a wide range of countries situated on the European fringes. Within the field of feminist literary studies, the volume thus differs from other publications with a narrower scope, such as Western Europe or specific regions. More broadly, the chapters in this volume offer a variety of approaches to intimacy and generous bibliographical references for researchers in humanities and cultural studies.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004527451
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The messy and multi-layered issue of intimacy in connection with transnationality and spatiality is the topic of this volume on women’s writing in the long nineteenth century. A series of intimacies are dealt with through case studies from a wide range of countries situated on the European fringes. Within the field of feminist literary studies, the volume thus differs from other publications with a narrower scope, such as Western Europe or specific regions. More broadly, the chapters in this volume offer a variety of approaches to intimacy and generous bibliographical references for researchers in humanities and cultural studies.
Russian Symbolism in Search of Transcendental Liquescence
Author: Anastasia Kostetskaya
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498591833
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 138
Book Description
The book examines Russian symbolist texts and turns the focus from their traditional historic-cultural interpretations to analyze the symbolist cognitive aesthetics—aesthetics that govern links between poetry, art, and cinema and the sensory-emotional imagery they evoke. This aesthetics inextricably map mystical transcendence to a spiritual world—a realibus ad realiora—through fluid transmutation. Anastasia Kostetskaya presents an innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of iconicity—a relationship of resemblance between the artistic form and its meaning, the possibilities of which symbolist artists explored to create sublime emotional experiences for the reader or viewer. She challenges the strictly dualistic and hierarchical terms of traditional symbolist concepts. This study demonstrates that this counterdualistic tendency cognitively extends from liquescence—a perception of fluid continuity between people and water. This analysis of interconnected symbolist media shows how symbolists rely on blending in their attempts to engender emotional flux through the pliable form. Fusing cognitivist and historic-cultural approaches in fluidly connected art modes, this book represents chronological, conceptual, and aesthetic continuity from poetry by Konstantin Bal'mont (1867–1942), paintings by Viktor Borisov-Musatov (1870–1905), and cinematography by Evgenii Bauer (1865–1917).
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498591833
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 138
Book Description
The book examines Russian symbolist texts and turns the focus from their traditional historic-cultural interpretations to analyze the symbolist cognitive aesthetics—aesthetics that govern links between poetry, art, and cinema and the sensory-emotional imagery they evoke. This aesthetics inextricably map mystical transcendence to a spiritual world—a realibus ad realiora—through fluid transmutation. Anastasia Kostetskaya presents an innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of iconicity—a relationship of resemblance between the artistic form and its meaning, the possibilities of which symbolist artists explored to create sublime emotional experiences for the reader or viewer. She challenges the strictly dualistic and hierarchical terms of traditional symbolist concepts. This study demonstrates that this counterdualistic tendency cognitively extends from liquescence—a perception of fluid continuity between people and water. This analysis of interconnected symbolist media shows how symbolists rely on blending in their attempts to engender emotional flux through the pliable form. Fusing cognitivist and historic-cultural approaches in fluidly connected art modes, this book represents chronological, conceptual, and aesthetic continuity from poetry by Konstantin Bal'mont (1867–1942), paintings by Viktor Borisov-Musatov (1870–1905), and cinematography by Evgenii Bauer (1865–1917).