Russian Culture 1985-93

Mon Aug 17 16:03:08 UTC 2009

Dear Mr. Chandler,

A large and complex topic!  I've been playing around with the subject headings and keywords that could potentially access the kinds of articles and books that discuss this topic and none are very precise.  However, if your friend has access to various databases through the Russian National Library (SPb), The Russian State Library, the Rudomino Foreign Literature Library (Moscow), etc., I would suggest using the following as formal subject headings or keywords in any database searches:

Politics and culture-Russia (Federation)

Arts and society-Russia (Federation)

Popular culture-Soviet Union

Popular culture-Russia (Federation)

Socialism and culture

Communism and culture

Russia (Federation)-Intellectual life

Soviet Union-Intellectual life

Russia (Federation)-Cultural policy

Social change-Russia (Federation)

Political culture-Russia (Federation)

Since the time period of interest spans the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, using both "Soviet Union" and "Russia (Federation)" as geographic indicators is necessary to pull up pertinent citations.  In some databases, the "Federation" wouldn't be needed.  "Popular culture" as part of a subject heading is interpreted more broadly than what we might generally think of as pop culture, so might be a particularly useful subject heading-most of the books I've cited below have "Popular culture-Russia (Federation)" as one of their subject headings.

Below are some random citations that I discovered while playing around with the topic--for the most part, I did not include any Russian language citations--there are many more books in Russian on the specific topic than in English or other western European languages (Kul'turnaia politika sovremennoi Rossii").

1.     "Studies in 20th Century Literature", v. 24, no. 1 (Winter 2000) = Special issue on: Russian Culture of the 1990s.

2.     Coas, Dominique. "The Politics orf National Cultural Identity: Case Studies. Russian Culturalist Arguments Against the Relevance of Democracy for Russia."  In: Culture, Politics, and Nationalism in the Age of Globalization. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

3.     Mikheev, Dmitrii. Russia Transformed. Indianapolis: Hudson Institute, 1996. 288p.  [includes chapters: "A Social Portrait of Russia in 1995" and "The Evolving Russian Culture."]

4.     The Post-Soviet Russian Media: Conflicting Signals. London; NY: Routledge, 2009. 245p.

5.     Ionin, L.G. Rossiiskie metamorfozy: kul'turnaia transformatsiia i sotsial'nye izmeneniia = Russian Metamorphoses: Cultural Transformations and Social Changes. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. 426p.

6.     White, Nijole. The New Russia: Readings on Russian Culture. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2000. 158p.

7.     Beumers, Birgit. Pop Culture Russia! Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005. 399p.   [With chapters on media, the arts, recreation, religion, and consumerism, the book offers an insightful survey of Russian mass culture from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the present, exploring the historical significance of important events and trends, as well as the social and political contexts from which they emerged.]

8.     Dawisha, Karen, and Bruce Parrott. "Political Culture and Civil Society." In:  Dawisha, Karen, and Bruce Parrott.  Russia and the New States of Eurasia: the Politics of Upheaval. Cambridge; NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

9.     Smith, Gordon B. Soviet Politics: Continuity and Contradiction. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1988.  [includes chapters on Russian Political Culture and The Politics of Culture]

10.                        Russian Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Ed. by Catriona Kelly and David Shepherd. Oxford; NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. 438p.

[Contents: Introduction: why cultural studies? / Catriona Kelly ... [et al.] -- 'Revolutionary' models for high literature: resisting poetics / Peter Kenez, David Shepherd/ Culture and crisis: the intelligentsia and literature after 1953 / Stephen Lovell, Rosalind Marsh - Performing culture theatre / Birgit Beumers -- Music in the Socialist state / Anna Ferenc -- Soviet music after the death of Stalin: the legacy of Shostakovich / Gerard McBurney -- Building a new reality: the visual arts, 1921-1953 / Catriona Kelly, Robin Milner-Gulland -- The art of the political poster / Stephen White -- Cinema / Julian Graffy -- The media as social engineer / Frank Ellis -- Creating a consumer: advertising and commercialization / Catriona Kelly -- The retreat from dogmatism: populism under Khrushchev and Brezhnev / Catriona Kelly -- Religion and orthodoxy / Jane Ellis - Russian culture and emigration, 1921-1953 / Catriona Kelly -- Sexuality / Mark Banting, Catriona Kelly, James Riordan -- Gender angst in  Russian society and cinema in the post-Stalin era / Lynne Attwood -- 'The future is ours': youth culture in Russia, 1953 to the present / Hilary Pilkington -- Conclusion: towards post-Soviet pluralism? postmodernism and beyond / Catriona Kelly, David Shepherd, Stephen White.]

11.                        Senokosov, Yuri. "Russian Culture and Integration into the West."  In: Russia's Engagement with the West: Transformation and Integration in the Twenty-First Century. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005.

12.                        Epstein, Mikhail; Genis, Aleksandr; Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture. NY: Berghahn Books, 1999. 528p.

13.                        Orlov, Dmitrii. "The New Russian Age and Sovereign Democracy." In: Russian Politics and Law 46, 5 (2008): 72-76.

[The author responds to the speech, "Russian Political Culture: The View from Utopia," delivered by Vladislav Surkov, the deputy head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, in June 2007. Orlov argues that Surkov's definition of sovereign democracy has much in common with Francis Fukuyama's recent pronouncements on the subject. According to Orlov, "with specific reference to the term 'sovereign democracy,' Fukuyama said: 'The positive meaning contained in it is that Russia will seek its own path to democratic change'.... Surkov's lecture 'Russian Political Culture: The View from Utopia' and Fukuyama's 'Russian benefit' really are similar in at least one respect: deliberations concerning universal human values give way to analysis of national cultural factors that will play the decisive role in the development of sovereign states"]

14.                        Jarvik, Laurence. "Cultural Challenges to Democratization in Russia." In: Orbis 50, 1 (2006): 167-86.

15.                        Oushakine, Serguei Alex. "The State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Lacking the Symbolic." In: Anthropology of East Europe Review 18,2 (2000): 53-59.

[Oushakine conducted almost two hundred surveys and interviews with young Russians about their sense of national and gender identity. On the basis of this research, he argues that in post-Soviet Russian society, a "fundamental lack of mediating cultural structures--or a metalanguage--makes [it] hard for the individual to assume a certain subject vis-a-vis social changes.... the post-Soviet asymbolia correlates with the post-Soviet anomie: the loss of words with loss of self" (58). This symbolic void is then filled by nostalgia.]

16.                        Nalimov, Vasily. "A Critique of the Historical Era: The Inevitable Cultural Changes in the 21st Century."  In: Social Sciences: A Quarterly Review of the Russian Academy of Sciences 28,3 (1997): 84-96.

17.                        Podoprigora, Vladimir N. and Krasnopevtseva, Tatiana. "Russian Cultural Values and their Effect on Domestic and Foreign Policy."  In: Demokratizatsiya  3, 2 (1995): 166-76.

18.                        Gasratian, K. "Problems of Cultural Development in Russia." In: Problems of Economic Transition 47,4 (2004): 46-61.

19.                        Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2006. 365p. [includes chapters: Introduction: theorizing the politics of cultural identities in Russia and Ukraine / Dominique Arel -- The saliency of cultural cleavages. Theorizing nationalist separatism in Russia / Elise Giuliano.]

Hope this helps a bit.

Best,

June Farris

_________________

June Pachuta Farris

Bibliographer for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

Room 263 Regenstein Library

University of Chicago

1100 E. 57th Street

Chicago, IL  60637

jpf3 at uchicago.edu

1-773-702-8456 (phone)

1-773-702-6623 (fax)

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 8:49 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian Culture 1985-93

Dear all,

I have received this message from a young postgraduate I know in Moscow.  I

can't think how to respond.  Does anyone have any thoughts?  If so, please

address them to me, on- or off-line, and I will forward them.

Best Wishes,

Robert

' My friend is working on a rather

complicated subject  ³Political potential of Russian cultural sphere

in 1985 - 1993². His task is to depict how deep that potential was,

what were it¹s components and how it was being realized.  The problem

is that he cannot compose a broad enough bibliography. Though the

question about the place of culture and its links with politics was

being raised rather often in post-Soviet Russia it has never got more

or less efficient solution or even description in different

researches. But we guess that the problem could have been highlighted

abroad, because interest of foreign scholars towards political and

cultural changes in the late USSR was considerable. The difficulty 

is how to obtain any information about that body of literature. A trip

abroad would be too expensive for him.  Could you please tell me how

such problems can be solved in general? And may be you know someone

who for payment could look for some books and articles (generally

speaking for the material) in British libraries. If there is someone

ready to assist I¹ll give his contacts to my friend (he speaks English

fluently)and they could agree on all details. If the help of someone

else is not needed in this case, and there is another way, I would be

very obliged to you for some advise. If you need some additional

information (may be a precise specification of the subject of

researches my friend wants to obtain) please tell me.'

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