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During his tenure as Russia's President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended politics, to become the country's major cultural icon. This book explores his public persona as glamorous hero--the man uniquely capable of restoring Russia's reputation as a global power. Analysing cultural representations of Putin, the book assesses the role of the media in constructing and disseminating this image and weighs the Russian populace's contribution to the extraordinary acclamation he enjoyed throughout the first decade of the new millennium, challenged only by a tiny minority.
Discursive practices during war polarize and politicize gender: they normally require men to fulfill a single, overriding task destroy the enemy but impose a series of often contradictory expectations on women. The essays in the book establish links between political ideology, history, psychology, cultural studies, cinema, literature, and gender studies and addresses questions such as what is the role of women in war or military conflicts beyond the well-studied victimization? Can the often contradictory expectations of women and their traditional roles be (re)thought and (re)constructed? How do cultural representations of women during war times reveal conflicting desires and poke holes in the ideological apparatus of the state and society? Geographically, focuses on the USSR / Russia, Central Europe, and the Balkans; historically, on WWII; the secessionist war(s) in Chechnya (1994 96, 1999 ); and the Bosnia / Croatia / Serbia war (1992 95).
First Published in 1998. This volume will surely be regarded as the standard guide to Russian literature for some considerable time to come... It is therefore confidently recommended for addition to reference libraries, be they academic or public.
Novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya is a best-selling and critically lauded Russian writer who champions the values of liberalism and tolerance and critiques Putin's policies. This is the first English-language book about this important writer, placing her in the shifting landscape of post-Soviet society and culture.
Among the many successes of the Soviet Union were inaugural space flight—ahead of the United States—and many other triumphs related to aviation. Aviators and cosmonauts enjoyed heroic status in the Soviet Union, and provided supports of the Soviet project with iconic figures which could be used to bolster the regime’s visions, self-confidence, and the image of itself as forward looking and futuristic. This book explores how the themes of aviation and space flight have been depicted in film, animation, art, architecture, and digital media. Incorporating many illustrations, the book covers a wide range of subjects, including the representations of heroes, the construction of myths, and the relationship between visual art forms and Soviet/Russian culture and society.
A collection of 13 essays of literary and gender issue analysis, engaging some of the blossoming literary output of women in the glasnost and post-glasnost era--writings that also happen to be some of the most colorful and thought-provoking examples of recent Russian culture. The theoretical and critical positions of the contributors are refreshingly diverse. Paper edition (unseen), $18.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
A beautiful illustrated collection of fairy tales about the most iconic and active of Russian magical characters
Is Vladimir Putin macho, or is he a "fag"? Sex, Politics, and Putin investigates how gender stereotypes and sexualization have been used as tools of political legitimation in contemporary Russia. Despite their enmity, regime allies and detractors alike have wielded traditional concepts of masculinity, femininity, and homophobia as a means of symbolic endorsement or disparagement of political leaders and policies. By repeatedly using machismo as a means of legitimation, Putin's regime (unlike that of Gorbachev or Yeltsin) opened the door to the concerted use of gendered rhetoric and imagery as a means to challenge regime authority. Sex, Politics, and Putin analyzes the political uses of gende...