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Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …

The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev

Russian Culture

The most effective definition of "the intelligentsia" might read: “Russian intellectuals who are generally opposed to the government.” But even Russia’s traditionally powerful government has collapsed at times, leaving a vacuum of authority. This was precisely the historical situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. It made an indelible impression both upon thinkers, such as Rozanov, and on politicians, such as Lenin.

The Art Of Criticism? Criticism As Art!, Natalia Ivanova

Russian Culture

The study of Russian-Soviet and post-Soviet literary criticism in the second half of the twentieth century (henceforth denoted in the text as RLC) has been largely based on the chronological principle.

By way of introduction, I will begin with a brief overview of the RLC phenomenon-its origins, fundamental characteristics, and processes of change.

Colonizing Chaos: Russian Literature At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Alexander Genis

Russian Culture

Culture sets the parameters of our reality, defines its boundaries, gives each of us a system of values and reference points and, most important, provides our subconscious with the materials necessary for an awareness of chaos and the universe, space and time, cause and effect. Beginning my essay with these broadest categories, I will attempt to sketch the coordinates of that landscape in which the stormy drama of post-Soviet literature is played out. This will be followed by an analysis of the literary situation in the period directly preceding our own. Coming next will be some brief sketches of nine …

Rethinking The Canon: Nonconformist Soviet Classics In Post-Soviet Perspective, Alexander Zholkovsky

Russian Culture

In the four-plus decades since Stalin's death, the Soviet literary canon has undergone a series of changes. Thus, Fedor Dostoyevsky, Konstantin Leontiev, and Apollon Grigoriev, seen in all their complexity, gradually resumed their pride of place in nineteenth-century literary history, while Gogol was allowed to be more of a conservative thinker and modernist stylist than during the period of High Stalinism. Twentieth-century literature welcomed back the early Vladimir Maiakovsky, then all of Aleksandr Blok (previously represented in the Soviet canon only by his The Twelve), and finally the entire Silver Age. The list of writers now rehabilitated, republished, and "recognized" …

The Aesthetic Code Of Russian Postmodernism, Mark Lipovetsky

Russian Culture

Postmodernist discourse has become central to literary criticism in the 1990s. Unlike many other literary discourses, it was never formally announced, yet beginning in the late 1980s (with Mikhail Epstein’s articles) it took over almost all literary publications and effectively led to a new polarization of literary forces. If, during the first years of Perestroika, literary and cultural factions were divided primarily along political lines, with Western liberal sympathizers and anti-Communists on one side, and nationalist defenders of Communism on the other, then by the middle of the 1990s debate about postmodernism had split the liberals into those who sided …

Russian Literature In The Christian Context, Boris Paramonov

Russian Culture

In examining Russia’s cultural history one encounters an incontestable fact: the literary nature of its spirituality. At the same time, Russian literature is distinguished by its high caliber. If one examines Russia’s cultural significance in the context of the Western world, or generally attempts to evaluate the nation’s achievements on a Western European scale, one finds that Russian literature stands out with particular distinction. The West places Leo Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky on a par with Shakespeare, while Chekhov’s plays enjoy a popularity comparable with the Bard’s in the sheer number of theatrical performances, even in England, where Chekhov’s Western renown …

Russian Art In The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century, Ekaterina Dyogot

Russian Culture

This essay concerns Russian art in the second half of the twentieth century, yet any such description requires constant reference to the Russian avant-garde and the Soviet art system. The country's isolation made Soviet art such a specific, aesthetic, and particularly institutional phenomenon that it becomes critical to any understanding of art in the post-Stalinist period.

The Russian Cinematic Culture, Oksana Bulgakova

Russian Culture

The cinema has always been subject to keen scrutiny by Russia's rulers. As early as the beginning of this century Russia's last czar, Nikolai Romanov, attempted to nationalize this new and, in his view, threatening medium: "I have always insisted that these cinema-booths are dangerous institutions. Any number of bandits could commit God knows what crimes there, yet they say the people go in droves to watch all kinds of rubbish; I don't know what to do about these places." The plan for a government monopoly over cinema, which would ensure control of production and consumption and thereby protect the …

Russian Architecture Between Anorexia And Bulimia, Vladimir Paperny

Russian Culture

The Russian visual sensibilities (if there is such thing) are formed by two contrasting influences. On the one hand, there is a natural attraction to decorative surfaces, to richness of colors and shapes. Historians tell us that in the 10 th century Prince Vladimir decided to convert to Christianity mainly because of the visual experience his emissaries had had in Constantinople: “The Greeks led us to the building where they worship their God,” they wrote to the Prince, “and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such …

The Art Of Dissent: Parody, Travesty And Irony In Late Soviet Culture, Dmitri N. Shalin

Russian Culture

Irony is the favorite tool of Russian postmodernists fighting discourse totalitarianism. They wield it like a crowbar to pry open in the simulacrum, to tear down the Potemkin portable villages built by forced discursive labor. Every new blow the ironist strikes against the official reality reaffirms his intonational freedom amidst the most coercive discourse. An ultimate weapon of the spiritual proletariat, irony proves to the intellectual that he is a subject rather than an object of discourse. Alas, ironic vigil takes its toll. The self busily disclaiming identity with itself loses track of what it really is. It knows not …

Russian Spirituality And The Theology Of Negation, Mikhail Epstein

Russian Culture

Toward the end of the twentieth century Russian culture found itself at a crossroads which cannot be ascribed to any political election but which rather presupposed a radical change in its religious and social orientation. Two somewhat opposing theses will be developed in this article. First I will discuss the processes of secularization in Russian culture and the necessity of a third, neutral zone between the "sacred" and the "profane." Next, the dangers of social neutralization in culture and the necessity of retaining elements of the dual model along with the introduction of intermediate elements will be presented. We will …

Changing The Way We Work, Cory K. Lampert

Library Faculty Research

Changing the Way We Work, Boule’s resource-packed Library Technology Report, contains a thoughtful discussion of technology-enhanced work presented with concrete examples, lessons learned, and specific technology resources for library evaluation. The book’s first chapter highlights five case studies that distill the experiences of early adopters who have utilized technology tools on major projects.

Unlv Magazine, Cate Weeks, Shane Bevell, Erin O'Donnell, Eric Leake, Lori Bachand, David G. Schwartz, David Ashley

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.