Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hi, everyone. This is a bit of a tangential post, but I thought that you all might find this interesting given our recent class discussions regarding Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and Russia’s intervention in the Syrian Civil War. I … Continue reading →

Alexandr raises an interesting point on page 234, saying “If she does not understand this she is not a teacher of live, developing aesthetics, but a preacher of dogmatic aesthetics – which is no better than religion.”  I think Alexandr … Continue reading →

I am interested in analyzing this passage from Kataev’s “Time Forward”: Nalbandov was deaf. He refused to hear. Amortization and quality, he thought to himself. His glance glided carelessly over the room. Everywhere-newspapers, newspapers, newspapers … Newspapers spotted with portraits … Continue reading →

We learned from Stites (1989, 88-89) that Lenin insisted on decorating cities with monuments, inscriptions, and inscriptions on monuments. Stites writes, “Between 1918 and 1921 about 50-60 such monuments were erected, mostly in Moscow, as well as dozens of inscriptions.” … Continue reading →

For class on Monday, we read Irina Paperno’s succinct summary of Symbolist aesthetics during the beginning of the 20th century in Russia. While focusing primarily on the literary methods and theories of the symbolists, Paperno also contextualizes the historical views … Continue reading →

Vera Figner presented an interesting rendering of gender stereotypes in relation to ideals of radicalism. We touched on this a bit in class, but it would be useful to think further about the gendered implications of the split of Land … Continue reading →

On page 337, Saunders uses a citation to summarize The Peoples Will’s philosophy on force and violence: Their prime concern was the acquisition of force. ‘Is terror necessary? Are newspapers necessary? Is a change of programme necessary? Is activity among … Continue reading →

Hi, all. I wanted to follow up on our discussion on Wednesday regarding Alexander Pushkin’s representation of Pugachev’s Rebellion in “The Captain’s Daughter”. While we were all struck by Pushkin’s seemingly positive characterization of Pugachev, as well as his deleterious … Continue reading →

Reading Cracraft left me wondering about one specific phrase in the following passage. “New ways of dress, deportment, communication, navigation, building, gardening, gunnery, drawing, computing, measuring, sculpting, writing, visualizing, indeed of thinking had to be adopted along with new vocabularies … Continue reading →

The Stylehunters of Soviet Russia