Mother Russia

Mother Russia PDF

Author: Joanna Hubbs

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1993-09-22

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780253115782

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"Joanna Hubbs has found the trace of Baba Yaga and the rusalki and Moist Mother Earth and other fascinating feminine myths in Russian culture, and has added richly to the growing interest in popular culture." -- New York Times Book Review "... brave... fascinating... immensely enjoyable... " -- Times Higher Education Supplement "... a stimulating and original study... vivid and readable." -- Russian Review "An immensely stimulating, beautifully written work of scholarship." -- Francine du Plessix Gray "Joanna Hubbs has provided scholars... with a wealth of significant interpretive material to inform if not reform views of both Russian and women's cultures." -- Journal of American Folklore A ground-breaking interpretation of Russian culture from prehistory to the present, dealing with the feminine myth as a central cultural force.

Russian Myths

Russian Myths PDF

Author: Elizabeth Warner

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2002-07-01

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 9780292791589

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The coming of Christianity to the state of Kievan Rus' at the end of the tenth century had an enormous impact on the development of Russian civilization. Despite the abandonment of the pagan gods, both Christian and pagan practices and beliefs continued to coexist for centuries, producing a system known as "dual faith." Russian Myths deals with mythic beliefs, notions, and customs—concerning the veneration of earth, water, fire, and air, demons and spirit-beings in the world of nature, the cult of the dead, and witchcraft—many of which have their roots in the pre-Christian past but still survive to the present day. To illuminate the evolution of major themes and motifs and set Russian myths in the context of mythology the world over, Elizabeth Warner draws upon a rich variety of sources, including anecdotal narrative forms and religious legends, epic songs, funeral laments and folk religion, and, of course, the folktales where the sacred gives way to pure imagination in the depiction of mythic themes and characters.

Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend

Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend PDF

Author: Mike Dixon-Kennedy

Publisher: ABC-CLIO

Published: 1998-12-08

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13:

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Summary: Covers the myths and legends of the Russian Empire at its greatest extent as well as other Slavic people and countries. Includes historical, geographical, and biographical background information

Yeltsin's Russia

Yeltsin's Russia PDF

Author: Lilii︠a︡ Shevt︠s︡ova

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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Yeltsin's Russia: Myths and Reality is the most current and comprehensive account of the achievements - and failures - of Boris Yeltsin's Russia. Combining keen political analysis with the unique perspective of a native observer, Shevtsova's book also offers a valuable assessment of the forces that will shape the post-Yeltsin era.

The Russian Folktale by Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp

The Russian Folktale by Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp PDF

Author: Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2012-09-12

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 081433721X

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Vladimir Propp is the Russian folklore specialist most widely known outside Russia thanks to the impact of his 1928 book Morphology of the Folktale-but Morphology is only the first of Propp's contributions to scholarship. This volume translates into English for the first time his book The Russian Folktale, which was based on a seminar on Russian folktales that Propp taught at Leningrad State University late in his life. Edited and translated by Sibelan Forrester, this English edition contains Propp's own text and is supplemented by notes from his students. The Russian Folktale begins with Propp's description of the folktale's aesthetic qualities and the history of the term; the history of folklore studies, first in Western Europe and then in Russia and the USSR; and the place of the folktale in the matrix of folk culture and folk oral creativity. The book presents Propp's key insight into the formulaic structure of Russian wonder tales (and less schematically than in Morphology, though in abbreviated form), and it devotes one chapter to each of the main types of Russian folktales: the wonder tale, the "novellistic" or everyday tale, the animal tale, and the cumulative tale. Even Propp's bibliography, included here, gives useful insight into the sources accessible to and used by Soviet scholars in the third quarter of the twentieth century. Propp's scholarly authority and his human warmth both emerge from this well-balanced and carefully structured series of lectures. An accessible introduction to the Russian folktale, it will serve readers interested in folklore and fairy-tale studies in addition to Russian history and cultural studies.

Terror and Greatness

Terror and Greatness PDF

Author: Kevin M. F. Platt

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-05-15

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0801460956

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In this ambitious book, Kevin M. F. Platt focuses on a cruel paradox central to Russian history: that the price of progress has so often been the traumatic suffering of society at the hands of the state. The reigns of Ivan IV (the Terrible) and Peter the Great are the most vivid exemplars of this phenomenon in the pre-Soviet period. Both rulers have been alternately lionized for great achievements and despised for the extraordinary violence of their reigns. In many accounts, the balance of praise and condemnation remains unresolved; often the violence is simply repressed. Platt explores historical and cultural representations of the two rulers from the early nineteenth century to the present, as they shaped and served the changing dictates of Russian political life. Throughout, he shows how past representations exerted pressure on subsequent attempts to evaluate these liminal figures. In ever-changing and often counterposed treatments of the two, Russians have debated the relationship between greatness and terror in Russian political practice, while wrestling with the fact that the nation’s collective selfhood has seemingly been forged only through shared, often self-inflicted trauma. Platt investigates the work of all the major historians, from Karamzin to the present, who wrote on Ivan and Peter. Yet he casts his net widely, and "historians" of the two tsars include poets, novelists, composers, and painters, giants of the opera stage, Party hacks, filmmakers, and Stalin himself. To this day the contradictory legacies of Ivan and Peter burden any attempt to come to terms with the nature of political power—past, present, future—in Russia.

Russian Folk-tales

Russian Folk-tales PDF

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13:

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In the Russian winter, in the depths of the forest, a whole village gathers together by the blazing fire. Then the storyteller arrives and the whole audience listens with bated breath. The award-winning novelist, James Riordan, has collected and translated some of these stories from original sources and retold them for children. Here are stories about flying ships, snow maidens, fire birds, frog princesses, Misha the Bear, Ivan the Fool, and Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch. With evocative pictures by Andrew Breakspeare, this is a book that will transport you into the world of Russian myths and magic.

Russia Without Putin

Russia Without Putin PDF

Author: Tony Wood

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1788731255

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How the West’s obsession with Vladimir Putin prevents it from understanding Russia It is impossible to think of Russia today without thinking of Vladimir Putin. More than any other major national leader, he personifies his country in the eyes of the world, and dominates Western media coverage. In Russia itself, he is likewise the centre of attention both for his supporters and his detractors. But, as Tony Wood argues, this focus on Russia’s president gets in the way of any real understanding of the country. The West needs to shake off its obsession with Putin and look beyond the Kremlin walls. In this timely and provocative analysis, Wood explores the profound changes Russia has undergone since 1991. In the process, he challenges several common assumptions made about contemporary Russia. Against the idea that Putin represents a return to Soviet authoritarianism, Wood argues that his rule should be seen as a continuation of Yeltsin’s in the 1990s. The core features of Putinism—a predatory elite presiding over a vastly unequal society—are in fact integral to the system set in place after the fall of Communism. Wood also overturns the standard view of Russia’s foreign policy, identifying the fundamental loss of power and influence that has underpinned recent clashes with the West. Russia without Putin concludes by assessing the current regime’s prospects, and looks ahead to what the future may hold for the country.

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