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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.
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