Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900

by Richard Stites

Book Overview

This book presents a side of Russian life that is largely unknown to the West - the world of popular culture. By surveying detective and science fiction, popular songs, jokes, box office movie hits,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 052136986X
• ISBN13: 9780521369862
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 5.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

ends with the Soviet Union's end

The book's story ends around 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed. In that sense, even the last section reads as from another time. Largely, thus, the book is an account of Soviet propaganda. Describing the various media campaigns instituted by the Kremlin to mobilise public opinion. We see how in the desperate years of World War 2, that appeals to Rodina were used, as a traditional rallying point. There is some account of independent cultural activities. Very little operating space was permitted for these by the authorities. Until the 80s and perestroika and glasnost arose. Surprisingly, the index omits any mention of samizdat. Yet this was the hallmark of much dissident actions.