Greetings, Pushkin!

In 1937, the Soviet Union mounted a national celebration commemorating the centenary of poet Alexander Pushkin’s death. Though already a beloved national literary figure, the scale and feverish pitch of the Pushkin festival was unprecedented. Greetings, Pushkin! presents the first in-depth study of this historic event and follows its manifestations in art, literature, popular culture, education, and politics, while also examining its philosophical underpinnings. Jonathan Brooks Platt looks deeply into the motivations behind the Soviet glorification of a long-dead poet—seemingly at odds with the October Revolution’s radical break with the past. He views the Pushkin celebration as a conjunction of two opposing approaches to time and modernity: monumentalism, which points to specific moments and individuals as the origin point for cultural narratives, and eschatology, which glorifies ruptures in the chain of art or thought and the destruction of canons. In the midst of the Great Purge, the Pushkin jubilee was a critical element in the drive toward a nationalist discourse that attempted to unify and subsume the disparate elements of the Soviet Union, supporting the move to “socialism in one country.”

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Greetings, Pushkin! is the first comprehensive analysis of the celebrations of the centenary of Pushkin's death which was the climax of the cultural turn toward traditional nationalism in the USSR in 1930s. Prodigiously researched and lucidly written, nuanced and captivating this is a truly interdisciplinary study analyzing poetry, prose, drama, theatre, painting, sculpture, and cinema as well as ideology, education and cultural politics. Platt makes use of vast quantities of little known or completely unknown archival materials, which he interprets in a fresh and thorough manner. The impressive amount of work is nothing short of outstanding.

Evgeny Dobrenko, University of Sheffield

A mature and serious work that will make a significant impact on the field. With confidence, Platt's voice negotiates historical contexts, contemporary perceptions of Pushkin, and Pushkin scholarship across almost a century. His mastery of the philosophical and historical discourse enables him to take the everyday stuff of the jubilee year (and years on either side of it) and present it to readers anew.

Angela Brintlinger, Ohio State University

Jonathan Brooks Platt has written an important book about Pushkin, public celebrations, and cultural coherence in the era of Stalinism. . . ambitious, fascinating, and packed with smart, challenging readings of texts, images, films, and theories.

The Russian Review

Given the turbulent history of Central and Eastern Europe, historians have tended to focus on the ethnic and nationality conflicts that follow a narrative of either steps toward national awakening or a struggle for liberation against an oppressor. Swanson provides an alternative approach in this magnificent book about German-speaking minority in Hungary.

Choice

Stalinist Cultural Politics and the Russian National Bard

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336 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

June, 2016

isbn : 9780822964155

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