This book explores a new character archetype that permeated Soviet film during what became known as the era of Stagnation, a stark period of loneliness, disappointment, and individual despair. This new type of character was neither negative nor positive, but nevertheless systematically undermined Soviet norms of behaviour, hairstyle, dress, lifestyle, and perspective, in stark contrast to Socialist Realism's traditional, positive hero who fought for Soviet values and who vanquished the enemies of socialism. The book discusses a wide range of films from the period, showing how the new antiheroic archetype of Stagnation resonated through a multitude of characters, mostly male, and vividly reflected the realities of Soviet life. The book thereby provides great insight into the lives, outlook, and psychology of citizens in the late Soviet period.

This book explores a new character archetype that permeated Soviet film during what became known as the era of Stagnation, a stark period of loneliness, disappointment, and individual despair. This new type of character was neither negative nor positive, but nevertheless systematically undermined Soviet norms of behaviour, hairstyle, dress, lifestyle, and perspective, in stark contrast to Socialist Realism's traditional, positive hero who fought for Soviet values and who vanquished the enemies of socialism. The book discusses a wide range of films from the period, showing how the new antiheroic archetype of Stagnation resonated through a multitude of characters, mostly male, and vividly reflected the realities of Soviet life. The book thereby provides great insight into the lives, outlook, and psychology of citizens in the late Soviet period.

This book illuminates and explores the representation of women in Soviet cinema from the late 1950s, through the 1960s, and into the 1970s, a period when Soviet culture shifted away, to varying degrees, from the well-established conventions of socialist realism. Covering films about working class women, rural and urban women, and women from the intelligentsia, it probes various cinematic genres and approaches to film aesthetics, while it also highlights how Soviet cinema depicted the ambiguity of emerging gender roles, pressing social issues, and evolving relationships between men and women. It thereby casts a penetrating light on society and culture in this crucial period of the Soviet Union's development.

This book illuminates and explores the representation of women in Soviet cinema from the late 1950s, through the 1960s, and into the 1970s, a period when Soviet culture shifted away, to varying degrees, from the well-established conventions of socialist realism. Covering films about working class women, rural and urban women, and women from the intelligentsia, it probes various cinematic genres and approaches to film aesthetics, while it also highlights how Soviet cinema depicted the ambiguity of emerging gender roles, pressing social issues, and evolving relationships between men and women. It thereby casts a penetrating light on society and culture in this crucial period of the Soviet Union's development.

The revival of the Olympic games in 1896 and the subsequent rise of modern athletics prompted a new, energetic movement away from more sedentary habits. In Russia, this ethos soon became a key facet of the Bolsheviks' shared vision for the future. In the aftermath of the revolution, glorification of exercise persevered, pointing the way toward a stronger, healthier populace and a vibrant Socialist society. With interdisciplinary analysis of literature, painting, and film, Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades! traces how physical fitness had an even broader impact on culture and ideology in the Soviet Union than previously realized. From prerevolutionary writers and painters glorifying popular circus wrestlers to Soviet photographers capturing unprecedented athleticism as a means of satisfying their aesthetic ideals, the nation's artists embraced sports in profound, inventive ways. Though athletics were used for doctrinaire purposes, Tim Harte demonstrates that at their core, they remained playful, joyous physical activities capable of stirring imaginations and transforming everyday realities.

The Poetics of the Avant-garde in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy presents a range of chapters written by a highly international group of scholars from disciplines such as literary studies, arts, theatre, and philosophy to analyze the ambitions of avant-garde artists. Together, these essays highlight the interdisciplinary scope of the historic avant-garde and the interconnected of its artists. Contributors analyze topics such as abstraction and estrangement across the arts, the imaginary dialogue between Lev Yakubinsky and Mikhail Bakhtin, the problem of the “masculine ethos” in the Russian avant-garde, the transformation of barefoot dancing, Kazimir Malevich’s avant-garde poetic experimentations, the ecological imagination of the Polish avant-garde, science-fiction in the Russian avant-garde cinema, and the almost forgotten history of the avant-garde children’s literature in Germany. The chapters in this collection open a new critical discourse about the avant-garde movement in Europe and reshape contemporary understandings of it.

Life in the modernist era not only moved, it sped. As automobiles, airplanes, and high-speed industrial machinery proliferated at the turn of the twentieth century, a fascination with speed influenced artists--from Moscow to Manhattan--working in a variety of media. Russian avant-garde literary, visual, and cinematic artists were among those striving to elevate the ordinary physical concept of speed into a source of inspiration and generate new possibilities for everyday existence.
Although modernism arrived somewhat late in Russia, the increased tempo of life at the start of the twentieth century provided Russia's avant-garde artists with an infusion of creative dynamism and crucial momentum for revolutionary experimentation. In "Fast Forward" Tim Harte presents a detailed examination of the images and concepts of speed that permeated Russian modernist poetry, visual arts, and cinema. His study illustrates how a wide variety of experimental artistic tendencies of the day--such as "rayism" in poetry and painting, the effort to create a "transrational" language ("zaum"') in verse, and movements seemingly as divergent as neo-primitivism and constructivism--all relied on notions of speed or dynamism to create at least part of their effects.
"Fast Forward" reveals how the Russian avant-garde's race to establish a new artistic and social reality over a twenty-year span reflected an ambitious metaphysical vision that corresponded closely to the nation's rapidly changing social parameters. The embrace of speed after the 1917 Revolution, however, paradoxically hastened the movement's demise. By the late 1920s, under a variety of historical pressures, avant-garde artistic forms morphed into those more compatible with the political agenda of the Russian state. Experimentation became politically suspect and abstractionism gave way to orthodox realism, ultimately ushering in the socialist realism and aesthetic conformism of the Stalin years.