Social History Commons^™

When Russia Gets Tired Of Them, They Sell Them To Us: The Russian Five, Us Russophobia, & Cold War Rhetoric After 1991, John Elam

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Through a case study of the Russian Five, the five Soviet-born hockey players who joined the Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s, this thesis offers insights into Russophobic beliefs and sentiment based upon historical memory of the Cold War. Through a loose chronological framework, this thesis considers the background of the Soviet hockey system for contextualization, and looks at the experiences of former Soviet hockey players from their arrival in north America in 1989 through the end of the twentieth century. An analysis of television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, and interviews, demonstrates that American citizens continued to promote Russophobic sentiment …