When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance

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Author :
Publisher : University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN 13 : 0299287637
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance by : Miriam Neirick

Download or read book When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance written by Miriam Neirick and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2012-09-21 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than seven decades the circuses enjoyed tremendous popularity in the Soviet Union. How did the circus—an institution that dethroned figures of authority and refused any orderly narrative structure—become such a cultural mainstay in a state known for blunt and didactic messages? Miriam Neirick argues that the variety, flexibility, and indeterminacy of the modern circus accounted for its appeal not only to diverse viewers but also to the Soviet state. In a society where government-legitimating myths underwent periodic revision, the circus proved a supple medium of communication. Between 1919 and 1991, it variously displayed the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution, the beauty of the new Soviet man and woman, the vulnerability of the enemy during World War II, the prosperity of the postwar Soviet household, and the Soviet mission of international peace—all while entertaining the public with the acrobats, elephants, and clowns. With its unique ability to meet and reconcile the demands of both state and society, the Soviet circus became the unlikely darling of Soviet culture and an entertainment whose usefulness and popularity stemmed from its ambiguity.

Designing Russian Cinema

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350246379
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Designing Russian Cinema by : Eleanor Rees

Download or read book Designing Russian Cinema written by Eleanor Rees and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the significant role that production artists played when Russian cinema was still in its infancy. It uncovers Russian cinema's connections with other art forms, examining how production artists drew on both aesthetic traditions and modernist experiments in architecture, painting and theatre as they explored the new medium of cinema and its potential to engender new models of perception and forms of audience engagement. Drawing on set design sketches, archival documents and film-makers' memoirs, Eleanor Rees reveals how less-canonical films such as Behind the Screen (Kulisy ekrana, 1919) and Palace and Fortress (Dvorets i krepost ́, 1923), were remarkable from a design perspective, and also provides new readings of well-known films, such as Children of the Age (Deti veka, 1915) and Strike (Stachka, 1925). Rees brings to light information on significant but understudied figures such as Vladimir Egorov and Sergei Kozlovskii, and highlights the involvement of well-known figures such as Lev Kuleshov and Aleksandr Rodchenko. Unlike the majority of late Imperial directors and camera operators, many early-Russian production artists continued to work in cinema in the Soviet era and to draw on practices forged before the 1917 Revolution. In spanning the entire silent era, this book highlights the often overlooked continuities between the late-Imperial and early-Soviet periods of cinema, thus questioning traditional historical periodisations.

Devastation and Laughter

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Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1487502435
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Devastation and Laughter by : Annie Gérin

Download or read book Devastation and Laughter written by Annie Gérin and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Devastation and Laughter, Annie G?rin explores the use of satire in the visual arts, the circus, theatre, and cinema under Lenin and Stalin. G?rin traces the rise and decline of the genre and argues that the use of satire in official Soviet art and propaganda was neither marginal nor un-theorized. The author sheds light on the theoretical texts written in the 1920s and 1930s by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, and the impact his writings had on satirists. While the Avant-Garde and Socialist Realism were necessarily forward-looking and utopian, satire afforded artists the means to examine critically past and present subjects, themes, and practice. Devastation and Laughter is the first work to bring Soviet theoretical writings on the use of satire to the attention of scholars outside of Russia. By introducing important bodies of work that have largely been overlooked in the fields of art history, film and theatre history, Annie G?rin provides a nuanced and alternative reading of early Soviet art.

The Routledge Circus Studies Reader

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000156052
Total Pages : 618 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Circus Studies Reader by : Peta Tait

Download or read book The Routledge Circus Studies Reader written by Peta Tait and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduction to this diverse and emerging field. It brings together the work of over 30 scholars in this discipline, including Janet Davis, Helen Stoddart and Peta Tait, to highlight and address the field’s key historical, critical and theoretical issues. It is organised into three accessible sections, Perspectives, Precedents and Presents, which approach historical aspects, current issues, and the future of circus performance. The chapters, grouped together into 13 theme-based sub-sections, provide a clear entry point into the field and emphasise the diversity of approaches available to students and scholars of circus studies. Classic accounts of performance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche, are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field. Edited by two scholars whose work is strongly connected to the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teaching and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus.

Nostalgia, Anxiety, Politics: Media and Performing Arts in Egypt, Central-Eastern Europe, and Russia

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Author :
Publisher : Vernon Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (819 download)

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Book Synopsis Nostalgia, Anxiety, Politics: Media and Performing Arts in Egypt, Central-Eastern Europe, and Russia by : Tetyana Dzyadevych

Download or read book Nostalgia, Anxiety, Politics: Media and Performing Arts in Egypt, Central-Eastern Europe, and Russia written by Tetyana Dzyadevych and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2025-01-07 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume shows that the cultural production of nostalgia is a major tool for structuring feelings of resentment and anxiety. The current volume is concerned with collective nostalgia as it has been elicited, channeled, and weaponized by media production agents. The book aims to analyze how the performing arts and media (music, cinema, TV, etc.) generate and shape the feeling of collective nostalgia. It shows how the cultural production of nostalgia reflects distinct social-political contexts and serves particular political purposes. The collective monograph prioritizes cases from the post-Soviet context. However, the authors do not argue that the collapse of the socialist bloc in general, and the USSR in particular, has established some unique nostalgic precedent. The book claims that mechanisms of producing nostalgia and marshaling it for political purposes are broadly similar in most (modern or postmodern) settings. It is not our intent to demonize Russia, nor do we want Russia to be our dominant frame of reference, even if, in most of our cases here, 'nolens volens' appeared first in Russia-centric post-Soviet discourse. The “Russian bloc” has been placed in the second part of the book in order to give primacy to non-Russian subjects.

Contemporary Circus

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317190130
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Contemporary Circus by : Katie Lavers

Download or read book Contemporary Circus written by Katie Lavers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, twenty-four creators come together with three scholars to discuss Contemporary Circus, bridging the divide between practice and theory. Lavers, Leroux, and Burtt offer conversations across four key themes: Apparatus, Politics, Performers, and New Work. Extensively illustrated with fifty photos of Contemporary Circus productions, and extensively annotated, Contemporary Circus thematically groups and contextualises extracts of conversations to provide a sophisticated and wide-ranging study supported by critical theory. Of interest to both practitioners and scholars, Contemporary Circus uses the lens of ‘contestation,’ or calling things into question, to provide a portal into ways of seeing today’s circus performance. Conversations with: Lachlan Binns and Jascha Boyce (Gravity and Other Myths), Tilde Björfors (Cirkus Cirkör), Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers (Hot Brown Honey), Shana Carroll (The 7 Fingers), David Clarkson (Stalker), Philippe Decouflé (Compagnie DCA), Fez Faanana (Briefs), Mike Finch (Circus Oz), Daniele Finzi Pasca (Compagnia Finzi Pasca), Sean Gandini (Gandini Juggling), Firenza Guidi (ElanFrantoio, NoFit State Circus), Jo Lancaster and Simon Yates (Acrobat), Johann Le Guillerm (Cirque Ici), Yaron Lifschitz (Circa), Chelsea McGuffin (Company 2), Phia Ménard (Compagnie Non Nova), Jennifer Miller (Circus Amok), Adrien Mondot (Compagnie Adrien M and Claire B), Charlotte Mooney and Tina Koch (Ockham’s Razor), Philippe Petit (high wire artist), and Elizabeth Streb (STREB EXTREME ACTION).

Victorians and Their Animals

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429768672
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (297 download)

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Book Synopsis Victorians and Their Animals by : Brenda Ayres

Download or read book Victorians and Their Animals written by Brenda Ayres and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, Victorians and Their Animals: Beast on a Leash, investigates the notion that British Victorians did see themselves as naturally dominant species over other humans and over animals. They conscientiously, hegemonically were determined to rule those beneath them and the animal within themselves albeit with varying degrees of success and failure. The articles in this collection apply posthuman and other theories, including queer, postcolonialism, deconstruction, and Marxism, in their exploration of Victorian attitudes toward animals. They study the biopolitical relationships between human and nonhuman animals in several key Victorian literary works. Some of this book’s chapters deal with animal ethics and moral aesthetics. Also being studied is the representation of animals in several Victorian novels as narrative devices to signify class status and gender dynamics, either to iterate socially acceptable mores or to satirize hypocrisy or breach of behavior or to voice social protest. All of the chapters analyse the interdependence of people and animals during the nineteenth century.

Performing the Cold War in the Postcolonial World

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 100093263X
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Performing the Cold War in the Postcolonial World by : Christopher B. Balme

Download or read book Performing the Cold War in the Postcolonial World written by Christopher B. Balme and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how the Cultural Cold War played out in Africa and Asia in the context of decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet Union as well as East European states undertook significant efforts to influence cultural life in the newly independent, postcolonial world. The different forms of influence are the subject of this book. The contributions are grouped around four topic headings. "Networks and Institutions" looks at the various ways Western-style theatre became institutionalized in the decolonial world, especially Africa. "Cultural Diplomacy" focuses on the activities of the Soviet Union in India in the late 1950s and 1960s in the very different arenas of book publishing and the circus. "Artists and Agency" explores how West African filmmakers (Ousmane Sembène and Abderrahmane Sissako) and European authors (Brecht and Ibsen) were harnessed for different kinds of Cold War strategies. Finally, "Cultures of Things" investigates how everyday objects such as books and iconic theatre buildings became suffused with affect, nostalgia, and ideology. This book will be of interest for students of the Cold War, postcolonial studies, theatre, film, and literature. Chapters 1, 4, 8, and 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the European Research Council Project "Developing Theatre".

1847

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Publisher : Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN 13 : 0717168433
Total Pages : 535 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis 1847 by : Turtle Bunbury

Download or read book 1847 written by Turtle Bunbury and published by Gill & Macmillan Ltd. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capture the spirit of an industrial, social and cultural revolution through this invigorating collection of historical portraits from the dawn of the industrialised world!Though it feels like an era marooned almost irretrievably in the distant past, the 1840s &ndash a decade of blistering social and cultural change – is only two lifetimes removed from the present day. There are, in other words, people alive today who knew and associated with people for whom the Gold Rush and the Great Famine were living memories.Having grown up in an Irish country house built that year, 1847 has long proven the source of inspiration and fascination for historian Turtle Bunbury. And in a bid to once more grasp the spirit of the age, he has over the years assembled an archive of the most remarkable stories from those twelve momentous months.Bristling with all manner of human life and endeavour, from American pioneers and German entrepreneurs to circus charlatans and down-and-out songwriters, 1847 is a collection of his most remarkable discoveries to date and a stirring portrait of a chaotic world surging towards the modern. By turns poignant, outlandish, curious and provocative, this is history at its most invigorating – as panorama, as epic.Praise for The Glorious Madness:'An absolutely brilliant book.'Patrick Geoghegan, Associate Professor in History at Trinity College, Dublin'Turtle Bunbury's open-handed, clear-sighted and finely written book comes fresh and, I might almost say, redeemed out of the moil and storm of controversy that surrounded the topic of the war, in a thousand different guises in the decades since its end. Turtle holds out his hand in the present, seeking the lost hands of the past, in darkness, in darkness, but also suddenly in the clear light of kindness – in the upshot acknowledging their imperilled existence with a brilliant flourish, a veritable banner, of wonderful stories.'Sebastian Barry, author of The Secret Scripture'Turtle continues the wonderful listening and yarn-spinning he has honed in the Vanishing Ireland series, applying it to veterans of the First World War. The stories he recreates are poignant, whimsical and bleakly funny, bringing back into the light the lives of people who found themselves on the wrong side of history after the struggle for Irish independence. This is my kind of micro-history.'John Grenham, The Irish TimesPraise for Vanishing Ireland:'A perfect symbiosis between text and images – both similarity affectionate, respectful, humorous, slightly melancholic but never sentimental or nostalgic. This is invaluable social history.'Cara Magazine'This is a beautiful and remarkably simple book that will melt the hardest of hearts. Bunbury has a light writing style that lets his interviewees, elderly folk from around the country, tell their stories without interference. It's neither patronising nor overly romantic about the past; just narrating moving tales – The portraits by Fennell are striking, warm and dignified, with a feeling of being invited into people's lives.'The Sunday Times

Throw Your Voice

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Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501776479
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Throw Your Voice by : Meghanne Barker

Download or read book Throw Your Voice written by Meghanne Barker and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-15 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throw Your Voice is a story of loss and recovery. It relates how children placed in a temporary care institution make sense of their situations. Moving between a Kazakhstan government children's home, Hope House, and the Almaty State Puppet Theater, Meghanne Barker shows how children, and puppets, as proxies, bring to life ideologies of childhood and visions of a rosy future. Sites and stories run in parallel. Framed by the narrative of Anton Chekhov's "Kashtanka," about a lost dog taken in by a kind stranger, the author follows the story's staging at the puppet theater. At Hope House, children find themselves on a path similar to Kashtanka, dislodged from their first homes to reside in a second. The heart of this story is about living in displacement and about the fragile intimacies achieved amidst conditions of missing. Whether due to war, migration, or pandemic, people get separated from those closest to them. Throw Your Voice examines how strangers become familiar, and how objects mediate precarious ties. She shows how people use fantasy to mitigate loss.

Contemporary Capacity-Building in Educational Contexts

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137374578
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (373 download)

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Book Synopsis Contemporary Capacity-Building in Educational Contexts by : Patrick Alan Danaher

Download or read book Contemporary Capacity-Building in Educational Contexts written by Patrick Alan Danaher and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education is generally supposed to help learners to develop new capacities and to be able to apply them in work and life - yet we still know very little about how to build useful capacities. This book investigates nine research projects, exploring why particular capacities are successful in some situations but not in others.

Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317359356
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide by : Matthias Neumann

Download or read book Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide written by Matthias Neumann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian Revolution of 1917 has often been presented as a complete break with the past, with everything which had gone before swept away, and all aspects of politics, economy, and society reformed and made new. Recently, however, historians have increasingly come to question this view, discovering that Tsarist Russia was much more entangled in the processes of modernisation, and that the new regime contained much more continuity than has previously been acknowledged. This book presents new research findings on a range of different aspects of Russian society, both showing how there was much change before 1917, and much continuity afterwards; and also going beyond this to show that the new Soviet regime established in the 1920s, with its vision of the New Soviet Person, was in fact based on a complicated mixture of new Soviet thinking and ideas developed before 1917 by a variety of non-Bolshevik movements.

Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge

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Author :
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1487501536
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge by : Mayhill C. Fowler

Download or read book Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge written by Mayhill C. Fowler and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Copyright page -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Note to the Reader on Transliteration -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: The Beau Monde on the Borderlands -- 1 The Russian Imperial Southwest: Theatre in the Age of Modernism and Pogroms -- 2 The Literary Fair: Mikhail Bulgakov and Mykola Kulish -- 3 Comedy Soviet and Ukrainian? Il'f-Petrov and Ostap Vyshnia -- 4 The Official Artist: Solomon Mikhoels and Les' Kurbas -- 5 The Arts Official: Andrii Khvylia, Vsevolod Balyts'kyi, and the Kremlin -- 6 The Soviet Beau Monde: The Gulag and Kremlin Cabaret -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

World Clothing and Fashion

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317451678
Total Pages : 825 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis World Clothing and Fashion by : Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Download or read book World Clothing and Fashion written by Mary Ellen Snodgrass and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a global, multicultural, social, and economic perspective, this work explores the diverse and colourful history of human attire. From prehistoric times to the age of globalization, articles cover the evolution of clothing utility, style, production, and commerce, including accessories (shoes, hats, gloves, handbags, and jewellery) for men, women, and children. Dress for different climates, occupations, recreational activities, religious observances, rites of passages, and other human needs and purposes - from hunting and warfare to sports and space exploration - are examined in depth and detail. Fashion and design trends in diverse historical periods, regions and countries, and social and ethnic groups constitute a major area of coverage, as does the evolution of materials (from animal fur to textiles to synthetic fabrics) and production methods (from sewing and weaving to industrial manufacturing and computer-aided design). Dress as a reflection of social status, intellectual and artistic trends, economic conditions, cultural exchange, and modern media marketing are recurring themes. Influential figures and institutions in fashion design, industry and manufacturing, retail sales, production technologies, and related fields are also covered.

Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 135009837X
Total Pages : 251 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe by : Anna Barcz

Download or read book Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe written by Anna Barcz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than 40 years Eastern European culture came under the sway of Soviet rule. What is the legacy of this period for cultural attitudes to the environment and the contemporary battle to confront climate change? This is the first in-depth study of the legacy of the Soviet era on attitudes to the environment in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Ukraine. Exploring responses in literature, culture and film to political projects such as the collectivisation of agricultural land, the expansion of the mining industry and disasters such as the Chernobyl explosion, Anna Barcz opens up new understandings of local political traditions and examines how they might be harnessed in the cause of contemporary environmental activism. The book covers works by writers such as Christa Wolf, the Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich and film-makers such as Béla Tarr, Andrzej Wajda and Wladyslaw Pasikowski.

Between Truth and Time

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Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300208960
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Between Truth and Time by : Christine Elaine Evans

Download or read book Between Truth and Time written by Christine Elaine Evans and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first full-length study of Soviet Central Television to draw extensively on archival sources, interviews, and television recordings, Evans challenges the idea that Soviet mass culture in the Brezhnev era was dull and formulaic. Tracing the emergence of play, conflict, and competition on Soviet news programs, serial films, and variety and game shows, Evans shows that Soviet Central Television’s most popular shows were experimental and creative, laying the groundwork for Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms and the post-Soviet media system.

Socialist Fun

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Author :
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822981254
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Socialist Fun by : Gleb Tsipursky

Download or read book Socialist Fun written by Gleb Tsipursky and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2016-09-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most narratives depict Soviet Cold War cultural activities and youth groups as drab and dreary, militant and politicized. In this study Gleb Tsipursky challenges these stereotypes in a revealing portrayal of Soviet youth and state-sponsored popular culture. The primary local venues for Soviet culture were the tens of thousands of clubs where young people found entertainment, leisure, social life, and romance. Here sports, dance, film, theater, music, lectures, and political meetings became vehicles to disseminate a socialist version of modernity. The Soviet way of life was dutifully presented and perceived as the most progressive and advanced, in an attempt to stave off Western influences. In effect, socialist fun became very serious business. As Tsipursky shows, however, Western culture did infiltrate these activities, particularly at local levels, where participants and organizers deceptively cloaked their offerings to appeal to their own audiences. Thus, Soviet modernity evolved as a complex and multivalent ideological device. Tsipursky provides a fresh and original examination of the Kremlin's paramount effort to shape young lives, consumption, popular culture, and to build an emotional community—all against the backdrop of Cold War struggles to win hearts and minds both at home and abroad.