Welcome to the course website for History 3684: History of Soviet Culture from Fall 2018. Over the semester we explored many of the key issues that shaped artistic expression and popular culture during the Soviet period, including the challenges of cultural transformation during times of revolutionary upheaval, the evolving dictates of Socialist Realism, changing sensibilities around gender and generation, and […]
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For this final blogpost we were given a wide range of topics to choose from, all of which tied into the changes and societal shifts brought about after Stalin’s death in 1953. I found the cultural artifact/expression from Boris I. Sharagin to be the most captivating, and quite frankly one of the few choices we had …
It is hard for me to think of popular culture without the inclusion of popular sport. Passionate fandom for our favorite teams is a key component to how many American individuals form their identity. It also has served as an effective platform for political, social, and cultural change. Stalinist Russia was noticeably absent of large … Continue reading The Soviet Sporting Revolution →
One could say that the state of post-World War II Soviet Russia was a very ‘Big Deal.’ A term coined by Vera Dunham, writer of In Stalin’s Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, describes the social and democratic shift of Soviet society from “sacrificial and “heroic”” mindsets to a culture based on meshchanstvo (bourgeois culture),…
It is no secret that the nature of war can change a person, mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is also no secret that a society is rarely ever fully ready nor capable to accommodate for the men and women who return from the front lines. The USSR was no exception to this assumption, as their […]
World War Two, also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union, was a war, even though defined by some of the most evil acts of mankind, was also a war fought out of love: love for one’s country and love for one’s family and significant other. When the war started, an … Continue reading Love and Kerchiefs
Scene of The Lady of Mtsensk at the Met in 2014 In 1936, Stalin went to the opera to see Dmitri Shostakovich’s adaption of The Lady of Mtsensk. Supposedly, Stalin “stalked out ill-pleased” after seeing the opera, and later declared a large crackdown on all artistic expression. Although there was widespread enjoyment of the opera, the vulgarity … Continue reading Stalin v. Katerina
Stalin’s Soviet Union used film to capture Russian audiences in the 1930s and to further their agenda of cultural revolution. Cinema served as the most efficient and gleaming tool for the masses, it was the easiest and most ‘entertaining’ way to hold the attention of the Russian people in a way that socialist realist literature…
The early 1930’s in Soviet Russia was in turmoil as Stalin enacted his first Five-Year Plan. Soviet citizens had to learn how to adapt to the harsher quality of life and the variety of obstacles that were thrown into their everyday lives. Although corruption and coercion were reaching record-breaking heights during Joseph Stalin’s reign, the […]
From a young age, Russian author Evgeny Zamiatin supported revolutionary movements in Russia. In 1905, not only did he witness the uprising on the battleship Potemkin in Odessa, but he himself was imprisoned for five months after participating in demonstrations. He supported the Bolshevik party and, though he was travelling at the time, was excited […]
Dziga Vertov, at birth named David Abelevich Kaufman, played a crucial part in revolutionary cinema during the rise of Lenin’s Bolsheviks during the 1920s and onto 1930s. Vertov was influential in the spread of the Russian Revolution in a time without instant and mass communication, where he would produce “revolutionary propaganda” in the form of cinema … Continue reading Is this the Dziga you’re looking for? →
Nikolai Leskov’s “The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” leaves the readers head spinning with the complexities and calamities of the Izmailov household. While the focus of my attention on my first readthrough was wrapped up in an inter-class romance that eventually spurred a series of irrational decisions, I found one of the less prominent characters to … Continue reading The Cook in a Messy Kitchen →
What’s the first thing that strikes you when you study the painting above? Do you notice the people being depicted, or are you focusing on the smaller details and the setting? Maybe, you’re taken aback by the textures, shading, and all-around technique employed by the artist. Abram Arkhipov’s paintings, including the one above, are rife […]
