Russia on the Edge : Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity /
Clowes, Edith W.
Russia on the Edge : Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity / Edith W. Clowes. - 1 online resource (200 p.) : 8 halftones, 1 map, 1 chart/graph
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: Is Russia a Center or a Periphery? -- 1. Deconstructing Imperial Moscow -- 2. Postmodernist Empire Meets Holy Rus': How Aleksandr Dugin Tried to Change the Eurasian Periphery into the Sacred Center of the World -- 3. Illusory Empire: Viktor Pelevin's Parody of Neo-Eurasianism -- 4. Russia's Deconstructionist Westernizer: Mikhail Ryklin's "Larger Space of Europe" Confronts Holy Rus' -- 5. The Periphery and Its Narratives: Liudmila Ulitskaia's Imagined South -- 6. Demonizing the Post-Soviet Other: The Chechens and the Muslim South -- Conclusion -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russians have confronted a major crisis of identity. Soviet ideology rested on a belief in historical progress, but the post-Soviet imagination has obsessed over territory. Indeed, geographical metaphors-whether axes of north vs. south or geopolitical images of center, periphery, and border-have become the signs of a different sense of self and the signposts of a new debate about Russian identity. In Russia on the Edge, Edith W. Clowes argues that refurbished geographical metaphors and imagined geographies provide a useful perspective for examining post-Soviet debates about what it means to be Russian today.Clowes lays out several sides of the debate. She takes as a backdrop the strong criticism of Soviet Moscow and its self-image as uncontested global hub by major contemporary writers, among them Tatyana Tolstaya and Viktor Pelevin. The most vocal, visible, and colorful rightist ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of neo-Eurasianism, has articulated positions contested by such writers and thinkers as Mikhail Ryklin, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and Anna Politkovskaia, whose works call for a new civility in a genuinely pluralistic Russia. Dugin's extreme views and their many responses-in fiction, film, philosophy, and documentary journalism-form the body of this book.In Russia on the Edge, literary and cultural critics will find the keys to a vital post-Soviet writing culture. For intellectual historians, cultural geographers, and political scientists the book is a guide to the variety of post-Soviet efforts to envision new forms of social life, even as a reconstructed authoritarianism has taken hold. The book introduces nonspecialist readers to some of the most creative and provocative of present-day Russia's writers and public intellectuals.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780801448560 9780801460661
10.7591/9780801460661 doi
Cultural geography--Russia (Federation).
National characteristics, Russian, in literature.
Nationalism and literature--Russia (Federation).
Russian literature--History and criticism.--20th century
Russian literature--History and criticism.--21st century
Territory, National--Russia (Federation).
Geography-Physical & Cultural.
History.
Soviet & East European History.
LITERARY CRITICISM / Russian & Former Soviet Union.
PG3027 / .C57 2016
891.70935847
Russia on the Edge : Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity / Edith W. Clowes. - 1 online resource (200 p.) : 8 halftones, 1 map, 1 chart/graph
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: Is Russia a Center or a Periphery? -- 1. Deconstructing Imperial Moscow -- 2. Postmodernist Empire Meets Holy Rus': How Aleksandr Dugin Tried to Change the Eurasian Periphery into the Sacred Center of the World -- 3. Illusory Empire: Viktor Pelevin's Parody of Neo-Eurasianism -- 4. Russia's Deconstructionist Westernizer: Mikhail Ryklin's "Larger Space of Europe" Confronts Holy Rus' -- 5. The Periphery and Its Narratives: Liudmila Ulitskaia's Imagined South -- 6. Demonizing the Post-Soviet Other: The Chechens and the Muslim South -- Conclusion -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russians have confronted a major crisis of identity. Soviet ideology rested on a belief in historical progress, but the post-Soviet imagination has obsessed over territory. Indeed, geographical metaphors-whether axes of north vs. south or geopolitical images of center, periphery, and border-have become the signs of a different sense of self and the signposts of a new debate about Russian identity. In Russia on the Edge, Edith W. Clowes argues that refurbished geographical metaphors and imagined geographies provide a useful perspective for examining post-Soviet debates about what it means to be Russian today.Clowes lays out several sides of the debate. She takes as a backdrop the strong criticism of Soviet Moscow and its self-image as uncontested global hub by major contemporary writers, among them Tatyana Tolstaya and Viktor Pelevin. The most vocal, visible, and colorful rightist ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of neo-Eurasianism, has articulated positions contested by such writers and thinkers as Mikhail Ryklin, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and Anna Politkovskaia, whose works call for a new civility in a genuinely pluralistic Russia. Dugin's extreme views and their many responses-in fiction, film, philosophy, and documentary journalism-form the body of this book.In Russia on the Edge, literary and cultural critics will find the keys to a vital post-Soviet writing culture. For intellectual historians, cultural geographers, and political scientists the book is a guide to the variety of post-Soviet efforts to envision new forms of social life, even as a reconstructed authoritarianism has taken hold. The book introduces nonspecialist readers to some of the most creative and provocative of present-day Russia's writers and public intellectuals.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780801448560 9780801460661
10.7591/9780801460661 doi
Cultural geography--Russia (Federation).
National characteristics, Russian, in literature.
Nationalism and literature--Russia (Federation).
Russian literature--History and criticism.--20th century
Russian literature--History and criticism.--21st century
Territory, National--Russia (Federation).
Geography-Physical & Cultural.
History.
Soviet & East European History.
LITERARY CRITICISM / Russian & Former Soviet Union.
PG3027 / .C57 2016
891.70935847