Though in recent months Putin s popularity has frayed at the edges, the dearth of comparably powerful and experienced political leaders leaves no doubt that he will continue to be a key political figure. During his tenure as Russia s President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended politics, to become the country s major cultural icon. This book examines the nature of his iconic status. It explores his public persona as glamorous hero, endowed with vision, wisdom, moral and physical strength the man uniquely capable of restoring Russia s reputation as a global power. In analysing cultural representations of Putin, the book assesses the role of the media in constructing and disseminating this image and weighs the Russian populace s contribution to the extraordinary acclamation he enjoyed throughout the first decade of the new millennium, challenged only by a tiny minority.

This is the first book to explore the phenomenon of glamour and celebrity in contemporary Russian culture, ranging across media forms, disciplinary boundaries and modes of inquiry, with particular emphasis on the media personality. The book demonstrates how the process of 'celebrification' in Russia coincides with the dizzying pace of social change and economic transformation, the latter enabling an unprecedented fascination with glamour and its requisite extravagance; how in the 1990s and 2000s, celebrities - such as film or television stars - moved away from their home medium to become celebrities straddling various media; and how celebrity is a symbol manipulated by the dominant culture and embraced by the masses. It examines the primacy of the visual in celebrity construction and its dominance over the verbal, alongside the interdisciplinary, cross-media, post-Soviet landscape of today's fame culture. Taking into account both general tendencies and individual celebrities, including pop-diva Alla Pugacheva and ex-President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the book analyses the internal dynamics of the institutions involved in the production, marketing, and maintenance of celebrities, as well as the larger cultural context and the imperatives that drive Russian society's romance with glamour and celebrity.

Though in recent months Putin s popularity has frayed at the edges, the dearth of comparably powerful and experienced political leaders leaves no doubt that he will continue to be a key political figure. During his tenure as Russia s President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended politics, to become the country s major cultural icon. This book examines the nature of his iconic status. It explores his public persona as glamorous hero, endowed with vision, wisdom, moral and physical strength the man uniquely capable of restoring Russia s reputation as a global power. In analysing cultural representations of Putin, the book assesses the role of the media in constructing and disseminating this image and weighs the Russian populace s contribution to the extraordinary acclamation he enjoyed throughout the first decade of the new millennium, challenged only by a tiny minority.

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This study of the work of Tatyana N. Tolstaya initiates the reader into the paradoxes of her fictional universe: a poetic realm ruled by language, to which the mysteries of life, imagination, memory and death are subject.

This study of the work of Tatyana N. Tolstaya initiates the reader into the paradoxes of her fictional universe: a poetic realm ruled by language, to which the mysteries of life, imagination, memory and death are subject.

The 1980s witnessed the ascendency of Russian women in multiple spheres of artistic creation, including literature, film, and painting. This volume may thus be said to engage not only women's artistic production but, indeed, the best and most colourful of recent Russian culture. Treating contemporary Russian women's creativity, it approaches women's texts, films, and canvasses from a range of perspectives, from anti-gendered to feminist. Some of the essays introduce writers not previously well studied, others challenge conventional interpretations and assumptions, while still others yield original viewpoints through novel juxtapositions. In addition to offering insights into the various artists under analysis, the essays map the wide terrain of issues and methodologies proliferating in cultural criticism today, and mirror the diversity that is one of the most appealing features of women's creativity in contemporary Russia.

The 1980s witnessed the ascendency of Russian women in multiple spheres of artistic creation, including literature, film, and painting. This volume may thus be said to engage not only women's artistic production but, indeed, the best and most colourful of recent Russian culture. Treating contemporary Russian women's creativity, it approaches women's texts, films, and canvasses from a range of perspectives, from anti-gendered to feminist. Some of the essays introduce writers not previously well studied, others challenge conventional interpretations and assumptions, while still others yield original viewpoints through novel juxtapositions. In addition to offering insights into the various artists under analysis, the essays map the wide terrain of issues and methodologies proliferating in cultural criticism today, and mirror the diversity that is one of the most appealing features of women's creativity in contemporary Russia.

Among the many successes of the Soviet Union were inaugural space flight-ahead of the United States-and many other triumphs related to aviation. Aviators and cosmonauts enjoyed heroic status in the Soviet Union, and provided supports of the Soviet project with iconic figures which could be used to bolster the regime's visions, self-confidence, and the image of itself as forward looking and futuristic. This book explores how the themes of aviation and space flight have been depicted in film, animation, art, architecture, and digital media. Incorporating many illustrations, the book covers a wide range of subjects, including the representations of heroes, the construction of myths, and the relationship between visual art forms and Soviet/Russian culture and society.

Among the many successes of the Soviet Union were inaugural space flight-ahead of the United States-and many other triumphs related to aviation. Aviators and cosmonauts enjoyed heroic status in the Soviet Union, and provided supports of the Soviet project with iconic figures which could be used to bolster the regime's visions, self-confidence, and the image of itself as forward looking and futuristic. This book explores how the themes of aviation and space flight have been depicted in film, animation, art, architecture, and digital media. Incorporating many illustrations, the book covers a wide range of subjects, including the representations of heroes, the construction of myths, and the relationship between visual art forms and Soviet/Russian culture and society.

This is the first book to explore the phenomenon of glamour and celebrity in contemporary Russian culture, ranging across media forms, disciplinary boundaries and modes of inquiry, with particular emphasis on the media personality. The book demonstrates how the process of 'celebrification' in Russia coincides with the dizzying pace of social change and economic transformation, the latter enabling an unprecedented fascination with glamour and its requisite extravagance; how in the 1990s and 2000s, celebrities - such as film or television stars - moved away from their home medium to become celebrities straddling various media; and how celebrity is a symbol manipulated by the dominant culture and embraced by the masses. It examines the primacy of the visual in celebrity construction and its dominance over the verbal, alongside the interdisciplinary, cross-media, post-Soviet landscape of today's fame culture. Taking into account both general tendencies and individual celebrities, including pop-diva Alla Pugacheva and ex-President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the book analyses the internal dynamics of the institutions involved in the production, marketing, and maintenance of celebrities, as well as the larger cultural context and the imperatives that drive Russian society's romance with glamour and celebrity.

Baba Yaga is an ambiguous and fascinating figure. She appears in traditional Russian folktales as a monstrous and hungry cannibal, or as a canny inquisitor of the adolescent hero or heroine of the tale. In new translations and with an introduction by Sibelan Forrester, "Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales" is a selection of tales that draws from the famous collection of Aleksandr Afanas'ev, but also includes some tales from the lesser-known nineteenth-century collection of Ivan Khudiakov. This new collection includes beloved classics such as "Vasilisa the Beautiful" and "The Frog Princess," as well as a version of the tale that is the basis for the ballet "The Firebird." The preface and introduction place these tales in their traditional context with reference to Baba Yaga's continuing presence in today's culture--the witch appears iconically on tennis shoes, tee shirts, even tattoos. The stories are enriched with many wonderful illustrations of Baba Yaga, some old (traditional "lubok" woodcuts), some classical (the marvelous images from Victor Vasnetsov or Ivan Bilibin), and some quite recent or solicited specifically for this collection

Structured according to key themes, Polish Cinema Today analyzes the remarkable innovations in Polish cinema emerging a decade after the 1989 dissolution of the Soviet bloc, once its film industry had evolved from a socialist state enterprise into a much more accessible system of film production, with growing expertise in distribution and marketing. By the early 2000s, an impressive, diverse cohort of filmmakers broke through the gridlock of a small set of esteemed, aging auteurs as well as the glut of imported Hollywood blockbusters, empowered by the digital revolution and domestic audience appetite for independent work. Polish directors today challenge sacrosanct bromides about national and gender identity, Poland's historical martyrdom, the status of the influential Catholic Church, and the benevolent family, while investigating the phenomena of migration and sexuality in their full complexity. Each thematic chapter places these recent films within a historical/cultural context nationally and transnationally, and designs its analyses of specific works to engage general audiences of film scholars, students, and cinephiles.

Novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya is a crucial cultural figure in contemporary Russia, garnering both literary awards and best-seller status. Engaging with the past to combat the creeping authoritarianism of the Putin era, she has become the latest in a long line of Russian dissident authors championing the values of liberalism and tolerance while critiquing the state. Ludmila Ulitskaya and the Art of Tolerance is the first English-language book about this influential writer, contextualizing her in the shifting landscape of post-Soviet society and culture. Drawing on interviews with Ulitskaya and sources not readily available to Western scholars, Elizabeth A. Skomp and Benjamin M. Sutcliffe explore the ethical ideals that make Ulitskaya's novels resonate in today's Russia-tolerance, sincerity, and diversity-and examine how she uses innovative imagery to personalize history through a focus on body and kinship. This is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Russian literature and society.

Combining concepts and methodologies from anthropology, history, linguistics, literature, music, cultural studies, and film studies, this collection of ten original essays addresses issues crucial to gender and national identity in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 to the present. Prefaced by an introduction on Russian cultural myths grounded in gender difference, the essays shed new light on such topics as national, cultural, and gender identity in the Russian language; typecasting of women revolutionaries; soviet masculinity in Stalin-era film; and prostitution during and after perestroika. Collectively, these interdisciplinary essays explore how traditional gender inequities influenced the social processes of nation building in Russia and how men and women responded to those developments. Gender and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture offers fresh insights to students and scholars in the fields of gender studies, nationhood studies, and Russian history, literature, and culture.

This wide-ranging collection investigates the father/son dynamic in post-Stalinist Soviet cinema and its Russian successor. Contributors analyze complex patterns of identification, disavowal, and displacement in films by such diverse directors as Khutsiev, Motyl, Tarkovsky, Balabanov, Sokurov, Todorovskii, Mashkov, and Bekmambetov. Several chapters focus on the difficulties of fulfilling the paternal function, while others show how vertical and horizontal male bonds are repeatedly strained by the pressure of redefining an embattled masculinity in a shifting political landscape."

For more than three centuries, St. Petersburg, founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as Russia's westward-oriented capital and as a visually stunning showcase of Russia's imperial ambitions, has been the country's most mythologized city. Like a museum piece, it has functioned as a site for preservation, a literal and imaginative place where Russians can commune with idealized pasts. Preserving Petersburg represents a significant departure from traditional representations. By moving beyond the "Petersburg text" created by canonized writers and artists, the contributors to this engrossing volume trace the ways in which St. Petersburg has become a "museum piece," embodying history, nostalgia, and recourse to memories of the past. The essays in this attractively illustrated volume trace a process of preservation that stretches back nearly three centuries, as manifest in the works of noted historians, poets, novelists, artists, architects, filmmakers, and dramatists.

Structured according to key themes, Polish Cinema Today analyzes the remarkable innovations in Polish cinema emerging a decade after the 1989 dissolution of the Soviet bloc, once its film industry had evolved from a socialist state enterprise into a much more accessible system of film production, with growing expertise in distribution and marketing. By the early 2000s, an impressive, diverse cohort of filmmakers broke through the gridlock of a small set of esteemed, aging auteurs as well as the glut of imported Hollywood blockbusters, empowered by the digital revolution and domestic audience appetite for independent work. Polish directors today challenge sacrosanct bromides about national and gender identity, Poland's historical martyrdom, the status of the influential Catholic Church, and the benevolent family, while investigating the phenomena of migration and sexuality in their full complexity. Each thematic chapter places these recent films within a historical/cultural context nationally and transnationally, and designs its analyses of specific works to engage general audiences of film scholars, students, and cinephiles.

Discursive practices during war polarize and politicize gender: they normally require men to fulfill a single, overriding task - destroy the enemy - but impose a series of often contradictory expectations on women. The essays in the book establish links between political ideology, history, psychology, cultural studies, cinema, literature, and gender studies and addresses questions such as - what is the role of women in war or military conflicts beyond the well-studied victimization? Can the often contradictory expectations of women and their traditional roles be (re)thought and (re)constructed? How do cultural representations of women during war times reveal conflicting desires and poke holes in the ideological apparatus of the state and society? Geographically, focuses on the USSR / Russia, Central Europe, and the Balkans; historically, on WWII; the secessionist war(s) in Chechnya (1994 - 96, 1999 - ); and the Bosnia / Croatia / Serbia war (1992 - 95).

Combining concepts and methodologies from anthropology, history, linguistics, literature, music, cultural studies, and film studies, this collection of ten original essays addresses issues crucial to gender and national identity in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 to the present. Prefaced by an introduction on Russian cultural myths grounded in gender difference, the essays shed new light on such topics as national, cultural, and gender identity in the Russian language; typecasting of women revolutionaries; soviet masculinity in Stalin-era film; and prostitution during and after perestroika. Collectively, these interdisciplinary essays explore how traditional gender inequities influenced the social processes of nation building in Russia and how men and women responded to those developments. Gender and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture offers fresh insights to students and scholars in the fields of gender studies, nationhood studies, and Russian history, literature, and culture.

This volume examines areas of cultural production that have offered Russian women new freedoms and have opened commercial and artistic possibilities to them since the 19th century. Key aspects of Russian culture that have been systematically ignored are foregrounded here: Russian women s development of "popular" culture and their ingenious reinventions of "high" literature. The essays analyze women s creativity of every type their products, performances, and collaborative exchanges in sites that range from the bath-house to the ballroom.

Contributors are Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Lina Bernstein, Nancy Condee, Darra Goldstein, Helena Goscilo, Gitta Hammarberg, Alison Hilton, Beth Holmgren, Mary B. Kelly, Louise McReynolds, Nadya L. Peterson, Stephanie Sandler, and Ol ga Vainshtein."

A compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that show how the Russian fairy tale acquired political and historical meanings during the Soviet era
We were born to make fairy tales come true. As one of Stalinism's more memorable slogans, this one suggests that the fairy tale figured in Soviet culture as far more than a category of children's literature. How much more-and how cannily Russian fairy tales reflect and interpret Soviet culture, especially in its utopian ambitions-becomes clear for the first time in Politicizing Magic, a compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that demonstrate the degree to which ancient fairy-tale fantasies acquired political and historical meanings during the catastrophic twentieth century.
Introducing Western readers to the most representative texts of Russian folkloric and literary tales, this book documents a rich exploration of this colorful genre through all periods of Soviet literary production (1920-1985) by authors with varied political and aesthetic allegiances. Here are traditional Russian folkloric tales and transformations of these tales that, adopting the didacticism of Soviet ideology, proved significant for the official discourse of Socialist Realism. Here, too, are narratives produced during the same era that use the fairy-tale paradigm as a deconstructive device aimed at the very underpinnings of the Soviet system. The editors' introductory essays acquaint readers with the fairy-tale paradigm and the permutations it underwent within the utopian dream of Soviet culture, deftly placing each-from traditional folklore to fairy tales of Socialist Realism, to real-life events recast as fairy tales for ironiceffect-in its literary, historical, and political context.