Understanding Russianness

Understanding Russianness PDF Author: Risto Alapuro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113684824X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Book Description
In today’s world where other cultures are being tapped to a greater extent than ever before, the processes of mixing and matching are especially relevant in making sense of Russia. Not only do borrowing and assimilation, interaction between the familiar and the alien, constitute a venerable tradition in Russian culture, but during the two last post-Soviet decades a notable Western influence has become apparent. This book provides means for understanding Russianness in this new situation. By bringing together Russian and Western, eminent and younger scholars it provides insights both from inside and outside. By extending its perspectives to three fields – linguistics, cultural studies, and social sciences – it covers different dimensions of creative misunderstandings , hybrids, tensions and other modes of adaptation in the Russian culture. By offering concrete case studies it avoids easy stereotypes, deconstructs clichés, problematizes accepted truths, and identifies points of interaction between Russia and the West.

Understanding Russianness

Understanding Russianness PDF Author: Risto Alapuro
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136848258
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
In today’s world where other cultures are being tapped to a greater extent than ever before, the processes of mixing and matching are especially relevant in making sense of Russia. Not only do borrowing and assimilation, interaction between the familiar and the alien, constitute a venerable tradition in Russian culture, but during the two last post-Soviet decades a notable Western influence has become apparent. This book provides means for understanding Russianness in this new situation. By bringing together Russian and Western, eminent and younger scholars it provides insights both from inside and outside. By extending its perspectives to three fields – linguistics, cultural studies, and social sciences – it covers different dimensions of creative misunderstandings , hybrids, tensions and other modes of adaptation in the Russian culture. By offering concrete case studies it avoids easy stereotypes, deconstructs clichés, problematizes accepted truths, and identifies points of interaction between Russia and the West.

From Nyet to Da

From Nyet to Da PDF Author: Yale Richmond
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 1931930724
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Updated fourth edition In the wake of the Cold War and perestroika, the New Russia is finding its place in the global world. No longer a superpower, but still a nation with great influence, Russia remains an enigmatic and mysterious land. Like earlier editions, the new fourth edition of From Nyet to Da illuminates the dynamics of traditional Russian culture in the framework of contemporary events, such as the March 2008 elections and the Georgian conflict. With a new preface, and updates and revisions throughout, From Nyet to Da enlightens readers about virtually every aspect of Russian life, covering social and interpersonal skills as well as the underlying cultural assumptions and values of the Russian people.

Understanding Russia

Understanding Russia PDF Author: Matthew Maly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : National characteristics, Russian
Languages : en
Pages : 83

Book Description


Eurasian Integration and the Russian World

Eurasian Integration and the Russian World PDF Author: Aliaksei Kazharski
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633862868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
This volume examines Russian discourses of regionalism as a source of identity construction practices for the country's political and intellectual establishment. The overall purpose of the monograph is to demonstrate that, contrary to some assumptions, the transition trajectory of post-Soviet Russia has not been towards a liberal democratic nation state that is set to emulate Western political and normative standards. Instead, its foreign policy discourses have been constructing Russia as a supranational community which transcends Russia's current legally established borders. The study undertakes a systematic and comprehensive survey of Russian official (authorities) and semi-official (establishment affiliated think tanks) discourse for a period of seven years between 2007 and 2013. This exercise demonstrates how Russia is being constructed as a supranational entity through its discourses of cultural and economic regionalism. These discourses associate closely with the political project of Eurasian economic integration and the "Russian world" and "Russian civilization" doctrines. Both ideologies, the geoeconomic and culturalist, have gained prominence in the post-Crimean environment. The analysis tracks down how these identitary concepts crystallized in Russia's foreign policies discourses beginning from Vladimir Putin's second term in power.

From Nyet to Da

From Nyet to Da PDF Author: Yale Richmond
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
ISBN: 9781877864162
Category : National characteristics, Russian
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
From Nyet to Da enlightens readers about virtually every aspect of Russian life. - Increase in contact between Russians and Westerners. As interactions multiply, so does the need to understand what drives Russian behaviour and what skills are needed to communicate effectively. From Nyet to Da covers social and interpersonal skills, as well as the underlying cultural assumptions and values of the Russian people. - Written for anyone engaged in transactions with Russians. s: business executives, educators, students, governmental or non-governmental officials; anyone with an interest in understanding more about Russians will gain new insights from this sympathetic yet even-handed treatment of the Russian people. The text is enlivened with entertaining anecdotes, colourful proverbs and insightful quotes from other scholars. - Five major sections help to define the Russian culture.: Geography and Culture places Russian culture in the framework of the geographic and historical forces that have shaped it; Culture and Character describes the Russian personality: State and Society explains the post-Soviet sociopolitical system; Personal Encounters identifies key behaviour patterns a visitor will encounter; and Negotiating with Russians provides a guide to negotiating a joint venture or a new contract.

Global Russian Cultures

Global Russian Cultures PDF Author: Kevin M. F. Platt
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299319709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
Is there an essential Russian identity? What happens when "Russian" literature is written in English, by such authors as Gary Shteyngart or Lara Vapnyar? What is the geographic "home" of Russian culture created and shared via the internet? Global Russian Cultures innovatively considers these and many related questions about the literary and cultural life of Russians who in successive waves of migration have dispersed to the United States, Europe, and Israel, or who remained after the collapse of the USSR in Ukraine, the Baltic states, and the Central Asian states. The volume's internationally renowned contributors treat the many different global Russian cultures not as "displaced" elements of Russian cultural life but rather as independent entities in their own right. They describe diverse forms of literature, music, film, and everyday life that transcend and defy political, geographic, and even linguistic borders. Arguing that Russian cultures today are many, this volume contends that no state or society can lay claim to be the single or authentic representative of Russianness. In so doing, it contests the conceptions of culture and identity at the root of nation-building projects in and around Russia.

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself PDF Author: Emily D. Johnson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271028726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
"Johnson traces the history of kraevedenie, showing how St. Petersburg-based scholars and institutions have played a central role in the evolution of the discipline. Distinguished from obvious Western equivalents such as cultural geography and the German Heimatkunde by both its dramatic history and unique social significance, kraevedenie has, for close to a hundred years, served as a key forum for expressing concepts of regional and national identity within Russian culture."--Jacket.

Natasha's Dance

Natasha's Dance PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466862890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
History on a grand scale--an enchanting masterpiece that explores the making of one of the world's most vibrant civilizations A People's Tragedy, wrote Eric Hobsbawm, did "more to help us understand the Russian Revolution than any other book I know." Now, in Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the building of St. Petersburg--a "window on the West"--and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself--its character, spiritual essence, and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works--by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall--with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons, and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world. Figes's characters range high and low: the revered Tolstoy, who left his deathbed to search for the Kingdom of God, as well as the serf girl Praskovya, who became Russian opera's first superstar and shocked society by becoming her owner's wife. Like the European-schooled countess Natasha performing an impromptu folk dance in Tolstoy's War and Peace, the spirit of "Russianness" is revealed by Figes as rich and uplifting, complex and contradictory--a powerful force that unified a vast country and proved more lasting than any Russian ruler or state.

Transnational Russian Studies

Transnational Russian Studies PDF Author: Andy Byford
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1789624940
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
This book focuses on how Russia has perpetually redefined Russianness in reaction to the wider world. Treating culture as an expanding field, it offers original case studies in Russia’s imperial entanglements; the life of things ‘Russian’, including the language, beyond the nation’s boundaries, and Russia’s positioning in the globalized world.