Books

The “Silver Age” (c. 1890-1917) has been one of the most intensely studied topics in Russian literary studies, and for years scholars have struggled with its precise definition. Firmly established in the Russian cultural psyche, it continues to influence both literature and mass media. Rylkova analyzes writings by Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Nabokov, Boris Pasternak and Victor Erofeev to reveal how the construct of the Silver Age was perpetuated and ingrained.

In 1920, Aleksandr Antonov led an insurgency that became the largest armed peasant revolt against the Soviets during the civil war. Yet by 1921, the revolt had been crushed, and popular support for the movement had all but disappeared. Until now, details of this conflict have remained hidden. Erik Landis mines recently opened provincial and central Soviet archives and international collections to provide a depth of detail and historical analysis never before possible in this definitive account of the uprising.

The editors of this volume contend that transnational actors have exerted a powerful influence in postcommunist transitions. They demonstrate that transitions to democracy, capitalism, and nation-statehood, which scholars thought were likely to undermine one another, were facilitated by the integration of Central and East European states into an international system of complex interdependence. Transnational actors turn out to be the “dark matter” that held the various aspects of the transition together. Leading scholars debate the role and impact of transnational actors and present a promising new research program for the study of this rapidly transforming region.

This book exposes the paradox behind the myth of the indestructible Stalinist-era male. In her analysis of social-realist literature and cinema, Kaganovsky examines the recurring theme of the mutilated male body. She views this representation as a thinly veiled statement about the emasculated male condition during the Stalinist era. Kaganovsky provides an insightful reevaluation of classic works of the period, including the novels of Nikolai Ostrovskii (How Steel Was Tempered) and Boris Polevoi (A Story About a Real Man), and films such as Ivan Pyr’ev’s The Party Card, Eduard Pentslin’s The Fighter Pilots, and Mikhail Chiaureli’s The Fall of Berlin, among others. The symbolism of wounding in these works acts as a fissure in the facade of Stalinist cultural production through which we can view the consequences of historic and political trauma.

This volume presents reports from Dennison Rusinow, a member of the American Universities Field Staff, on major political developments and life in Yugoslavia during the Cold War.

The first scholarly account of BAM (the Baikal-Amur Railway), Russia’s most ambitious public construction project to be attempted in the final decades leading up to the collapse of the USSR. This is a rich social history based on a combination of original scholarly research and interviews with many of those who worked on BAM.

Examines the crucial postwar period in Slovakia, following Nazi occupation and ending with the Communist coup of February 1948. Centered on the major political role of the Catholic Church and its leaders, it offers a fascinating study of the interrelationship of Slovak Catholics, Democrats, and Communists. Felak views Communist policies toward Catholics and their strategies to court Catholic voters, and he chronicles the variety of political stances Catholics maintained during Slovakia’s political turmoil.

A study of the Great Purge in the setting of Leningrad Communist University, seen in the rhetoric of the accused and their accusors.

The essays in this collection chronicle the responses of the Soviet state and society to a variety of disabled groups and disabilities.

The first English-language account of the changing role of children in the Russian workforce, from the onset of industrialization until the Communist Revolution of 1917, and an examination of the laws that would establish children’s labor rights.

Acting as an important historical archive for the Jews of Eastern Europe, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture examines the progress of Yiddish culture from its origins in Tsarist and inter-war Poland to its apex with the founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute in 1925.

Maria Bucur explores the interactions between the science of eugenics and modernization efforts in Romania between World Wars I and II.

Duhamel examines the KGB at its pinnacle of power during the anticorruption campaigns of 1982-1987, when it sought to break the Communist Party’s stranglehold on Moscow’s two largest trade organizations, which were built on a foundation of bribery and favoritism.

A comprehensive literary and social history of sexual attitudes and mores in the Soviet Union during the 1920s, that reveals the complex and often contradictory impulses and ideas that permeated the culture.

Ruthchild’s study reveals that Russian feminists were an integral force for revolution and social change, particularly during the monumental uprisings of 1905-1917. She analyzes the backgrounds, motivations, methods, activism, and organizational networks of early Russian feminists that came to challenge, and eventually bring down, the patriarchal tsarist regime.