The Vernaculars of Communism

The Vernaculars of Communism PDF Author: Petre Petrov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317647483
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The political revolutions which established state socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were accompanied by revolutions in the word, as the communist project implied not only remaking the world but also renaming it. As new institutions, social roles, rituals and behaviours emerged, so did language practices that designated, articulated and performed these phenomena. This book examines the use of communist language in the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods. It goes beyond characterising this linguistic variety as crude "newspeak", showing how official language was much more complex – the medium through which important political-ideological messages were elaborated, transmitted and also contested, revealing contradictions, discursive cleavages and performative variations. The book examines the subject comparatively across a range of East European countries besides the Soviet Union, and draws on perspectives from a range of scholarly disciplines – sociolinguistics, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, historiography, and translation studies. Petre Petrov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. Lara Ryazanova-Clarke is Head of Russian and Academic Director of the Princess Dashkova Russia Centre in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.

The Vernaculars of Communism

The Vernaculars of Communism PDF Author: Petre Petrov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317647483
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
The political revolutions which established state socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were accompanied by revolutions in the word, as the communist project implied not only remaking the world but also renaming it. As new institutions, social roles, rituals and behaviours emerged, so did language practices that designated, articulated and performed these phenomena. This book examines the use of communist language in the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods. It goes beyond characterising this linguistic variety as crude "newspeak", showing how official language was much more complex – the medium through which important political-ideological messages were elaborated, transmitted and also contested, revealing contradictions, discursive cleavages and performative variations. The book examines the subject comparatively across a range of East European countries besides the Soviet Union, and draws on perspectives from a range of scholarly disciplines – sociolinguistics, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, historiography, and translation studies. Petre Petrov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. Lara Ryazanova-Clarke is Head of Russian and Academic Director of the Princess Dashkova Russia Centre in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.

Israel from the Outside and Inside

Israel from the Outside and Inside PDF Author: Nitza Davidovitch
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527530620
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This book explores Israel’s relations with its friends and foes, in the present and the past, by looking into news media outlets and their effect. There are several international political players involved in Israel’s tough neighborhood of the Middle East, and some of them are portrayed in this book through the dimension of media coverage. Along with this, the volume highlights some of Israel’s leading challenges in the sphere of international relations and public diplomacy. Hence, it integrates research in various topics—international relations, politics, media and Israel studies. With Israel at its center, the book brings together insights drawn from a wide range of scholarly inquiries into current global issues. Thus, a large scope and a uniquely wide perspective is established, enabling researchers to rely on this work. The book is bound to be of interest to specialists and to both advanced and undergraduate students in the field of Israel studies, Middle Eastern studies, scholars of international relations, and researchers of specific countries. However, though academic in nature, this book is also suitable for readers of popular social science who are interested in media and communication, Israel, or in the fascinating sociological forces that influence the regional geopolitics of the Middle East.

The Rhetoric of Pravda Editorials

The Rhetoric of Pravda Editorials PDF Author: Ludmila Pöppel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description


Unlearning the Soviet Tongue

Unlearning the Soviet Tongue PDF Author: Natalia Kovalyova
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739191942
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
How do countries democratize? What route does the way out of totalitarianism take? Students of Russian politics have pursued answers to these questions by surveying Russians on a variety of attitudes, beliefs, norms, and practices. This bookattends to political discourse to demonstrate how it creates and constraints political opportunities. Itexaminesan important period of Russian political history: from Boris Yeltsin’s second presidential election in 1996, when democracy was pronounced victorious, through its gradual slide toward authoritarian practices during Vladimir Putin’s initial two terms in office, and to the election of his protégé Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. This analysis challenges the assertions ofRussian democracy as doomed by the governing rationalities of the elites. Likewise, it refutesthe notion of Russians as an apathetic nation in chronic need of a “strong hand.” It argues that if we are to understand how Russia lives, how it endures, and how it can change, we need to pay attention to the discourses that shape Russian political identities and the nation’s political future.

News from Moscow

News from Moscow PDF Author: Simon Huxtable
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192672193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
News from Moscow is a social and cultural history of Soviet journalism after World War II. Focusing on the youth newspaper Komsomol'skaia Pravda, the study draws on transcripts of behind-the-scenes editorial meetings to chart the changing professional ethos of the Soviet journalist. Simon Huxtable shows how journalists viewed themselves both as propagandists bringing the Party's ideas to the wider public, but also as reformers who tried to implement new ideas that would help usher the country towards Communism. The volume focuses on both aspects of the journalists' role, from propaganda editorials in praise of Comrade Stalin and articles lauding young heroes' exploits in the Virgin Lands, to revolutionary new initiatives, such as the country's first ever polling institute and clubs promoting the virtues of unfettered public debate. Soviet journalism, argues Huxtable, was riven with an unresolvable tension between innovation and conservativism: the more journalists tried to promote new innovations to perfect Soviet society, the more officials grew anxious about the disruptive consequences of reform. By demonstrating the day-to-day conflicts that characterised the press's activity, and by showing that the production of Soviet propaganda involved much more than redrafting orders from above, News from Moscow offers a new perspective on Soviet propaganda that expands our understanding of the possibilities and limits of reform in a period of rapid change.

Totalitarianisms: The Closed Society and Its Friends. A History of Crossed Languages

Totalitarianisms: The Closed Society and Its Friends. A History of Crossed Languages PDF Author: Juan Francisco Fuentes
Publisher: Ed. Universidad de Cantabria
ISBN: 8481028894
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
It is striking that the main political concept coined by the century of democracy has been totalitarianism. Since its birth in fascist Italy in the 1920s, the term has made a long journey throughout different countries and periods. After representing the fascination for dictatorships during the interwar years, totalitarianism became a key concept of the ‘war of words’ waged between democracy and communism until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was ‘a hot word for a Cold War’, as termed by the author of this book to convey the importance of this contest of crossed languages, which also included images, symbols and other forms of ‘senso-propaganda’. The Closed Society and Its Friendshighlights the role played by language in the building of a dystopian civilization conceived as an alternative to the open society created by liberalism. The book analyses the dimension of totalitarianisms, from fascism and Nazism to communism, as political religions with some common features, such as the cult of personality and the conception of society as a community of believers. This fascinating essay on the dark side of the 20th century ends with a disturbing epilogue: ‘Is totalitarianism back?’

American Pravda

American Pravda PDF Author: James O'Keefe
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250154650
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The one real difference between the American press and the Soviet state newspaper Pravda was that the Russian people knew they were being lied to. To expose the lies our media tell us today, controversial journalist James O’Keefe created Project Veritas, an independent news organization whose reporters go where traditional journalists dare not. Their investigative work–equal parts James Bond, Mike Wallace, and Saul Alinsky—has had a consistent and powerful impact on its targets. In American Pravda, the reader is invited to go undercover with these intrepid journalists as they infiltrate political campaigns, unmask dishonest officials and expose voter fraud. A rollicking adventure story on one level, the book also serves as a treatise on modern media, arguing that establishment journalists have a vested interest in keeping the powerful comfortable and the people misinformed. The book not only contests the false narratives frequently put forth by corporate media, it documents the consequences of telling the truth in a world that does not necessarily want to hear it. O’Keefe’s enemies attack with lawsuits, smear campaigns, political prosecutions, and false charges in an effort to shut down Project Veritas. For O’Keefe, every one of these attacks is a sign of success. American Pravda puts the myths and misconceptions surrounding O’Keefe’s activities to rest and will make you rethink every word you hear and read in the so-called mainstream press.

Language and Politics in Post-Soviet Russia

Language and Politics in Post-Soviet Russia PDF Author: N. Koteyko
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137314095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Language and Politics in Post-Soviet Russia critically examines the uses of language in post-Soviet media and political texts between 1998 and 2007. It will be of interest to academics and researchers in the fields of media studies, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, and scholars in Russian Studies.

Socialist Fun

Socialist Fun PDF Author: Gleb Tsipursky
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981254
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Most narratives depict Soviet Cold War cultural activities and youth groups as drab and dreary, militant and politicized. In this study Gleb Tsipursky challenges these stereotypes in a revealing portrayal of Soviet youth and state-sponsored popular culture. The primary local venues for Soviet culture were the tens of thousands of clubs where young people found entertainment, leisure, social life, and romance. Here sports, dance, film, theater, music, lectures, and political meetings became vehicles to disseminate a socialist version of modernity. The Soviet way of life was dutifully presented and perceived as the most progressive and advanced, in an attempt to stave off Western influences. In effect, socialist fun became very serious business. As Tsipursky shows, however, Western culture did infiltrate these activities, particularly at local levels, where participants and organizers deceptively cloaked their offerings to appeal to their own audiences. Thus, Soviet modernity evolved as a complex and multivalent ideological device. Tsipursky provides a fresh and original examination of the Kremlin's paramount effort to shape young lives, consumption, popular culture, and to build an emotional community—all against the backdrop of Cold War struggles to win hearts and minds both at home and abroad.

The Opinions of Mankind

The Opinions of Mankind PDF Author: Richard Lentz
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826272347
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
During the Cold War, the Soviets were quick to publicize any incident of racial hostility in the United States. Since violence by white Americans against minorities was the perfect foil to America’s claim to be defenders of freedom, news of these occurrences was exploited to full advantage by the Russians. But how did the Soviets gain primary knowledge of race riots in small American towns? Certainly, the Soviets had reporters stationed stateside, in big cities like New York, but research reveals that the majority of their information came directly from U.S. media sources. Throughout this period, the American press provided the foreign media with information about racially charged events in the United States. Such news coverage sometimes put Washington at a disadvantage, making it difficult for government officials to assuage foreign reactions to the injustices occurring on U.S. soil. Yet in other instances, the domestic press helped to promote favorable opinions abroad by articulating themes of racial progress. While still acknowledging racial abuses, these press spokesmen asserted that the situation in America was improving. Such paradoxical messages, both aiding and thwarting the efforts of the U.S. government, are the subject of The Opinions of Mankind: Racial Issues, Press, and Propaganda in the Cold War. The study, by scholars Richard Lentz and Karla K. Gower, describes and analyzes the news discourse regarding U.S. racial issues from 1946 to 1965. The Opinions of Mankindnot only delves into the dissemination of race-related news to foreign outlets but also explores the impact foreign perceptions of domestic racism had on the U.S. government and its handling of foreign relations during the period. What emerges is an original, insightful contribution to Cold War studies. While other books examine race and foreign affairs during this period of American history, The Opinions of Mankind is the first to approach the subject from the standpoint of press coverage and its impact on world public opinion. This exhaustively researched and compellingly written volume will appeal to media scholars, political historians, and general readers alike. By taking a unique approach to the study of this period, The Opinions of Mankind presents the workings behind the battles for public opinion that took place between 1946 and 1965.