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Oleg Budnitskii - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the great patriotic war and Soviet Society defeatism 1941 42
    Kritika, 2014
    Co-Authors: Oleg Budnitskii
    Abstract:

    In October 1941, David Kaufman, a Moscow student and aspiring poet, wrote in his diary: "The Civil War was our fathers. The Five Year Plan, our older brothers. The Patriotic War of '41, this is us.... The people of our generation, from diverse walks of life, now have but one path: everyone to the front. Here are heroes, cowards, and ordinary people. Nobody is excluded from the war. If I must write, I will write about how this sense of duty came to govern us. There is only one feeling that should be instilled in people from the cradle: duty." (1) Kaufman, later published under the pseudonym David Samoilov, would become one of the most beloved poets of the Soviet intelligentsia. His generation was raised under Soviet power and did not know or recognize any other. He belonged to a cohort of educated, urban young people, many of whom rushed to recruitment offices on 22 June 1941, fearful of missing out on the war. On that very day, when so many young enthusiasts were rushing to sign up as volunteers, Olimpiada Poliakova, a resident of the town of Pushkin, outside Leningrad, wrote in her diary: Could our liberation be at hand? Whatever the Germans may be, they can't be worse than our own. And what are the Germans to us? We'll live somehow without them. Everyone has the sense that, at last, the thing we have awaited for so long but did not even dare to hope for-although we did hope for it very much in the depths of our consciousness-has finally arrived. Without this hope it would not have been possible to live. And there is no doubt about the coming German victory. Lord forgive me! I am not an enemy of my people or my homeland. I'm not a degenerate. But you have to look the truth straight in the eyes: all of us, all of Russia, fervently desires the victory of the enemy, whoever he may be. This accursed regime stole everything from us, even our feelings of patriotism. (2) Clearly, Poliakovas claims about "all of Russia" wishing for the victory of the enemy are grossly exaggerated, as are Kaufman's touching words about the spirit of duty animating his entire generation. What is clear is that, more than 20 years after the revolution, Soviet Society was still not homogenous: a significant part of it would have been happy to witness the disappearance of the Bolsheviks. Historiography The war was to be the most serious test of the Stalinist systems durability, becoming, in the words of Robert Thurston, "the acid test of Stalinism." (3) The nature of public opinion about the Soviet regime and the outbreak of the war continues to be one of the most important, and consistently controversial, questions for the history of Soviet Society during the war period. Meanwhile, the year 1941 constitutes an important chronological boundary for scholars of Stalinism. According to Stephen Lovell, among historians "the war is usually recognized as traumatic and important, but ultimately is granted the status of a cataclysmic interlude between two phases of Stalinism: the turbulent and bloody era of the 1930s and the deep freeze of the late 1940s.... Nonmilitary historians do not quite know what to do with the war." (4) Historians whose work relates to the history of Soviet Society during the war years have starkly different assessments of popular attitudes toward the state and the war. In the literature of the early 1950s, one already finds the idea that the defeat of the Red Army in 1941 and the vast number of prisoners taken at that time reflected the unwillingness of Soviet soldiers to fight for the regime. (5) According to Martin Malia, Soviet soldiers in 1941 "felt no ardor" for the defense of the Stalinist system, and "even clearer signs of collapse appeared among the civilian population." (6) In accordance with authors who argue that Red Army soldiers in 1941 were forced to fight under threat of reprisals, Mark Edele and Michael Geyer have claimed that desertion and evasion of service were not restricted to the catastrophic events of 1941-42 but were in fact characteristic, albeit to a lesser degree, of the entire war period. …

  • The Great Patriotic War and Soviet Society: Defeatism, 1941–42
    Kritika, 2014
    Co-Authors: Oleg Budnitskii
    Abstract:

    In October 1941, David Kaufman, a Moscow student and aspiring poet, wrote in his diary: "The Civil War was our fathers. The Five Year Plan, our older brothers. The Patriotic War of '41, this is us.... The people of our generation, from diverse walks of life, now have but one path: everyone to the front. Here are heroes, cowards, and ordinary people. Nobody is excluded from the war. If I must write, I will write about how this sense of duty came to govern us. There is only one feeling that should be instilled in people from the cradle: duty." (1) Kaufman, later published under the pseudonym David Samoilov, would become one of the most beloved poets of the Soviet intelligentsia. His generation was raised under Soviet power and did not know or recognize any other. He belonged to a cohort of educated, urban young people, many of whom rushed to recruitment offices on 22 June 1941, fearful of missing out on the war. On that very day, when so many young enthusiasts were rushing to sign up as volunteers, Olimpiada Poliakova, a resident of the town of Pushkin, outside Leningrad, wrote in her diary: Could our liberation be at hand? Whatever the Germans may be, they can't be worse than our own. And what are the Germans to us? We'll live somehow without them. Everyone has the sense that, at last, the thing we have awaited for so long but did not even dare to hope for-although we did hope for it very much in the depths of our consciousness-has finally arrived. Without this hope it would not have been possible to live. And there is no doubt about the coming German victory. Lord forgive me! I am not an enemy of my people or my homeland. I'm not a degenerate. But you have to look the truth straight in the eyes: all of us, all of Russia, fervently desires the victory of the enemy, whoever he may be. This accursed regime stole everything from us, even our feelings of patriotism. (2) Clearly, Poliakovas claims about "all of Russia" wishing for the victory of the enemy are grossly exaggerated, as are Kaufman's touching words about the spirit of duty animating his entire generation. What is clear is that, more than 20 years after the revolution, Soviet Society was still not homogenous: a significant part of it would have been happy to witness the disappearance of the Bolsheviks. Historiography The war was to be the most serious test of the Stalinist systems durability, becoming, in the words of Robert Thurston, "the acid test of Stalinism." (3) The nature of public opinion about the Soviet regime and the outbreak of the war continues to be one of the most important, and consistently controversial, questions for the history of Soviet Society during the war period. Meanwhile, the year 1941 constitutes an important chronological boundary for scholars of Stalinism. According to Stephen Lovell, among historians "the war is usually recognized as traumatic and important, but ultimately is granted the status of a cataclysmic interlude between two phases of Stalinism: the turbulent and bloody era of the 1930s and the deep freeze of the late 1940s.... Nonmilitary historians do not quite know what to do with the war." (4) Historians whose work relates to the history of Soviet Society during the war years have starkly different assessments of popular attitudes toward the state and the war. In the literature of the early 1950s, one already finds the idea that the defeat of the Red Army in 1941 and the vast number of prisoners taken at that time reflected the unwillingness of Soviet soldiers to fight for the regime. (5) According to Martin Malia, Soviet soldiers in 1941 "felt no ardor" for the defense of the Stalinist system, and "even clearer signs of collapse appeared among the civilian population." (6) In accordance with authors who argue that Red Army soldiers in 1941 were forced to fight under threat of reprisals, Mark Edele and Michael Geyer have claimed that desertion and evasion of service were not restricted to the catastrophic events of 1941-42 but were in fact characteristic, albeit to a lesser degree, of the entire war period. …

Elena Zdravomyslova - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The Informal Public / in Soviet Society: / Double Morality /
    2020
    Co-Authors: Elena Zdravomyslova
    Abstract:

    THE concept of informal public is used here to designate the diversity of state-independent activities and interactions in late Soviet Society. Segments of this informal sphere—which is different from the official public sphere—had begun to develop at the end of the 1950s. Unlike previous periods of Soviet history, when communication had been officially controlled or had taken place in the private “kitchen” setting, the Brezhnev era of stagnation provided public places for communication that escaped total control. The recent debates on the transformations in East Europe and Russia have made wide use of the concepts of public/private, civic culture, and civil Society. These ideas have been major conceptual tools for sociological thinking on modernity in general. Since F. Toennis distinguished between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft and Durkheim claimed organic and mechanical solidarities, these concepts have shown how modernizing Society differentiates into public and private realms, the boundaries of which are constantly shifting through the efforts of social actors. This means that each modern Society, independent of its political regime and particular cultural patterns, develops its own public and private spheres with correspondingly different rules of the game. Researchers have identified two versions of the public realm in late Soviet Society: the official public and the informal public.

  • gender studies in post Soviet Society western frames and cultural differences
    Studies in East European Thought, 2003
    Co-Authors: Anna Temkina, Elena Zdravomyslova
    Abstract:

    This article is devoted to theexploration of some trends in gender studies incontemporary Russia and is based on ourresearch and teaching in the field over thecourse of seven years. The main concepts ofgender research – gender, feminism,women's subjectivity – were introduced to theRussian public early in 1990s; Russian genderstudies began to develop as a whole due to theapplication of Western concepts and theories.The article examines the growth of genderstudies over the last 10 years, contextualdifferences as well as theoretical approachesin Russian gender studies as these have arisenin the context of the `Russia – West'dichotomy.

  • the informal public in Soviet Society double morality at work
    Social Research, 2002
    Co-Authors: Elena Zdravomyslova, Viktor Voronkov
    Abstract:

    Dans cet article, l'A. explique l'evolution de la sphere publique dans la societe Sovietique. Il est question ici de la dualite de la notion de public: entre systeme social officiel garantit par la sructure etatique et de parti et un systeme informel de codes et de valeurs non ecrits et pourtant clairement etablis que sont les tusoskas

Brandon Gray Miller - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Leo Cooper - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Soviet Society — People’s Power?
    Power and Politics in the Soviet Union, 1992
    Co-Authors: Leo Cooper
    Abstract:

    Perestroika is often compared to NEP. The New Economic Policy, initiated by Lenin, suggested to Soviet Society at the time, a partial return to a system of motivation and stimulation, with which it was well familiar, which it had practiced in the past, in which it was educated and lived for generations. There was no need for a psychological transformation. The policy of perestroika, however, implied the creation of a new type of social behaviour which in many ways conflicted with the life experience and motivation of the last two to three generations (Kon, 1988, p. 64). The question discussed among Soviet social scientists is whether Soviet Society is capable of transforming itself into a civil Society, into a western type Society, and how long the process of transformation would take.

  • Political Power and Soviet Society
    Power and Politics in the Soviet Union, 1992
    Co-Authors: Leo Cooper
    Abstract:

    No other event in the history of the Soviet Union had a more profound impact not only upon Soviet Society, but on the world at large, than the introduction of reforms within the USSR, generally known as Perestroika and Glasnost. The dramatic changes in the relations between the superpowers, the end of the Cold War and the broad agreements on world politics between the Soviet Union and the United States are only a few examples of the profound transformations that have taken place in the Soviet Union since 1985.

  • Whither the Soviet Union
    Power and Politics in the Soviet Union, 1992
    Co-Authors: Leo Cooper
    Abstract:

    In the aftermath of the coup many questions began to be asked as to the causes of the attempted coup and the reason for its collapse. A lively debate in the Soviet press followed the events of 18–21 August. In a way it reflected the transformation of Soviet Society. It was for the first time since perestroika came into being that an objective analysis began to emerge, pointing to a political maturity within some parts of Soviet Society (V. Lagovskii, 1991, pp. 1–2).

Peter Kenez - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • cinema and Soviet Society from the revolution to the death of stalin
    2000
    Co-Authors: Peter Kenez
    Abstract:

    Part 1 The golden age: cinema before October the birth of the Soviet film industry the films of the golden age, 1925-9 reaching the people, 1925-9. Part 2 The age of Stalin: the cultural revolution in cinema the industry, 1933-41 censorship, 1933-41 socialist realism, 1933-41 films of World War II. Part 3 The death of Soviet film: film hunger, 1945-53 the nadir, 1945-53 conclusion.

  • cinema and Soviet Society 1917 1953
    1992
    Co-Authors: Peter Kenez
    Abstract:

    n this history of Soviet cinema Peter Kenez describes the pre-revolutionary heritage, the changes brought about by the Revolution, the great flourishing of the golden years of the late 1920s, the constraints imposed on artists in the name of Socialist realism, the relative liberalization during the years of the Second World War, and the extraordinary repression during the gloomy last years of Stalin. The author's primary concern is the political uses of film. The Bolsheviks had high expectations: they believed that this medium would be a major vehicle for transmitting their social and political messages, and so experimented with the various ways with which they could bring movies to worker and peasant audiences. Although they achieved major successes, their unrealistically high expectations often led to disappointments and acrimonious debates. An examination of how the explicit and implicit messages in Soviet films changed over time helps us to understand the evolution of Soviet Society. This study deals with the intersection of politics and culture and aims to illuminate both.In this history of Soviet cinema Peter Kenez describes the pre-revolutionary heritage, the changes brought about by the Revolution, the great flourishing of the golden years of the late 1920s, the constraints imposed on artists in the name of Socialist realism, the relative liberalization during the years of the Second World War, and the extraordinary repression during the gloomy last years of Stalin. The author's primary concern is the political uses of film. The Bolsheviks had high expectations: they believed that this medium would be a major vehicle for transmitting their social and political messages, and so experimented with the various ways with which they could bring movies to worker and peasant audiences. Although they achieved major successes, their unrealistically high expectations often led to disappointments and acrimonious debates. An examination of how the explicit and implicit messages in Soviet films changed over time helps us to understand the evolution of Soviet Society. This study deals with the intersection of politics and culture and aims to illuminate both.