Mythmaking in the New Russia

Mythmaking in the New Russia
Author: Kathleen E. Smith
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2018-05-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501717960

After the collapse of Communist rule in 1991, those loyal to the old regime tried to salvage their political dreams by rejecting some aspects of their history and embracing others. Yeltsin and the democrats, although initially hesitant to rely on the patriotic mythmaking they associated with Communist propaganda, also turned to the national past in times of crisis, realizing they needed not only to create new institutions, but also to encourage popular support for them.Kathleen E. Smith examines the use of collective memories in Russian politics during the Yeltsin years, surveying the various issues that became battlegrounds for contending notions of what it means to be Russian. Both the new establishment and its opponents have struggled to shape versions of past events into symbolic political capital. What parts of the Communist past, Smith asks, have proved useful for interpreting political options? Which versions of their history have Russians chosen to cling to, and which Soviet memories have they deliberately tried to forget? What symbols do they hold up as truly Russian? Which will help define the attitudes shaping Russian policy for decades to come?Smith illustrates the potency of memory debates across a broad range of fields—law, politics, art, and architecture. Her case studies include the changing interpretations of the attempted coups of 1991 and 1993, the recasting of the holiday calendar, the controversy over the national anthem, the status of "trophy art" brought to Russia at the end of World War II, and the partisan use of historical symbols in elections.

Mythmaking in the New Russia

Mythmaking in the New Russia
Author: Kathleen E. Smith
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801439636

Kathleen E. Smith examines the use of collective memories in Russian politics during the Yeltsin years, surveying the various issues that became battlegrounds for contending notions of what it means to be Russian.

The Soviet Myth of World War II

The Soviet Myth of World War II
Author: Jonathan Brunstedt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2021-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108498752

Provides a bold new interpretation of the origins and development of World War II's remembrance in the USSR.

Literature, History and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia, 1991-2006

Literature, History and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia, 1991-2006
Author: Rosalind J. Marsh
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9783039110698

"The aim of this book is to explore some of the main pre-occupations of literature, culture and criticism dealing with historical themes in post-Soviet Russia, focusing mainly on literature in the years 1991 to 2006." --introd.

What is Soviet Now?

What is Soviet Now?
Author: Thomas Lahusen
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2008
Genre: Former Soviet republics
ISBN: 3825806405

Economists and political scientists wrestle with the challenges faced by Russian officials and public alike in adapting to a market economy and democracy, including the fragility of property rights and elections still rooted in old institutional structures. This book examines the reforms of health and welfare, and the hierarchy of privilege and access, and consider how Putin's statist approach to mythmaking compares to that of previous Soviet and post-Soviet regimes. Historians and anthropologists explore the issue of nostalgia, gender, punishment, belief, and how history itself is being created and perceived today. The book concludes with a journey through the ruined landscape of real socialism.

The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw

The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw
Author: Stephen V. Bittner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801446061

Bittner explores how the neighborhood changed during the period of ideological relaxation under Khrushchev that came to be known as the thaw.

Soviet Space Mythologies

Soviet Space Mythologies
Author: Slava Gerovitch
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2015-06-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0822980967

From the start, the Soviet human space program had an identity crisis. Were cosmonauts heroic pilots steering their craft through the dangers of space, or were they mere passengers riding safely aboard fully automated machines? Tensions between Soviet cosmonauts and space engineers were reflected not only in the internal development of the space program but also in Soviet propaganda that wavered between praising daring heroes and flawless technologies. Soviet Space Mythologies explores the history of the Soviet human space program within a political and cultural context, giving particular attention to the two professional groups—space engineers and cosmonauts—who secretly built and publicly represented the program. Drawing on recent scholarship on memory and identity formation, this book shows how both the myths of Soviet official history and privately circulating counter-myths have served as instruments of collective memory and professional identity. These practices shaped the evolving cultural image of the space age in popular Soviet imagination. Soviet Space Mythologies provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of space history, history of technology, and Soviet (and post-Soviet) history.

Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia

Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia
Author: Vicky Davis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2017-11-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786732734

The 1943 battle to free the Soviet Black Sea port of Novorossiisk from German occupation was fought from the beach head of Malaia zemlia, where the young Colonel Leonid Brezhnev saw action. Despite widespread scepticism of the state's appropriation and inflation of this historical event, the heroes of the campaign are still commemorated in Novorossiisk today by an amalgam of memoir, monuments and ritual. Through the prism of this provincial Russian town, Vicky Davis sheds light on the character of Brezhnev as perceived by his people, and on the process of memory for the ordinary Russian citizen. Davis analyses the construction and propagation of the local war myth to link the individual citizens of Novorossiisk with evolving state policy since World War II and examines the resultant social and political connotations. Her compelling new interdisciplinary evidence reveals the complexity of myth and memory, challenging existing assumptions to show that there is still scope for the local community - and even the individual - in memory construction in an authoritarian environment. This book represents a much-needed departure from the study of myth and memory in larger cities of the former Soviet Union, adding nuance to the existing portrait of Brezhnev and demonstrating the continued importance of war memory in Russia today.

The Invention of Mikhail Lomonosov

The Invention of Mikhail Lomonosov
Author: Steven Usitalo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781618111951

This study explores the evolution of Lomonosov's imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the closing years of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the intersection in Russian culture of attitudes towards the meaning and significance of science, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity, of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. Idealized depictions of Lomonosov were employed by Russian scientists, historians, and poets, among others, in efforts to affirm to their countrymen and to the state the pragmatic advantages of science to a modernizing nation. In setting forth this assumption, Usitalo notes that no sharply drawn division can be upheld between the utilization of the myth of Lomonosov during the Soviet period of Russian history and that which characterized earlier views. The main elements that formed the mythology were laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Soviet scholars simply added more exaggerated layers to existing representations.