Revolutionary Culture and “The Lady Aristocrat”

Mikhail Zoshchenko was an immensely popular Russian writer and satirist during the early soviet era. He used simple language to appeal to a broad base of Russian readers, who would have identified their grievances with the emerging and rapidly changing society with the humor and thematic undertones of Zoschenko’s work. In “The Lady Aristocrat”, published in a mass circulated newspaper,

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Kommunist Kino

Leon Trotsky, a influential Bolshevik and one of Lenin’s top lieutenants, foresaw the great power and influence that Cinema would have over popular culture. In a 1923 issue of the state controlled news magazine Pravda (“The Truth”) Trotsky detailed how the newly blooming cinematic industry would be a key tool of Bolshevik Soviet in the fight… More Kommunist Kino

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Week 3 Blogpost

Socialist Cinema The cinema was really the only practical application of new life technology for the Soviets during the time of the revolution. New found technologies such as airplanes and cars were not something feasible for everyday use by the Soviets. During the revolution when the Bolsheviks were making films, they were not very well […]

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What is revolutionary culture?

  [Top show a Komsomol membership card with a picture of Lenin on the front; Bottom shows a Komsomol poster stating “Prepare for worthy successors to the Leninist Komsomol”] The Komsomol, also known as the Russian Communist Union of Youth, was an organization for young adults from the ages 14 to 28 that was established to teach and […]

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Buzzer Fly

Buzzer-Fly (1924) is a children’s story written by Kornei Chukovsky, Russia’s most famous children’s writer. Chukovsky created a fanciful tale of a fly on her birthday. The birthday fly invites her insect friends to celebrate her day. They enjoy a traditional Russian tea from a samovar. Unfortunately, their party comes to a sudden halt when a […]

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Red Army Heroes

In 1919, playwright and revolutionary Pavel Arsky published his one-act play “For the Cause of the Red Soviets”. The play details one fateful evening in the lives of a family in which the father is a Soviet commander who is currently away from home, fighting in the civil war. It served as a serious piece […]

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