Dirk Uffelmann - Böcker

Vladimir Sorokin is the most prominent and the most controversial contemporary Russian writer. Having emerged as a prose writer in Moscow's artistic underground in the late 1970s and early 80s, he became visible to a broader Russian audience only in the mid-1990s, with texts shocking the moralistic expectations of traditionally minded readers by violating not only Soviet ideological taboos, but also injecting vulgar language, sex, and violence into plots that the postmodernist Sorokin borrowed from nineteenth-century literature and Socialist Realism. Sorokin became famous when the Putin youth organization burned his books in 2002 and he picked up neo-nationalist and neo-imperialist discourses in his dystopian novels of the 2000s and 2010s, making him one of the fiercest critics of Russia's "new middle ages," while remaining steadfast in his dismantling of foreign discourses.

Vladimir Sorokin is the most prominent and the most controversial contemporary Russian writer. Having emerged as a prose writer in Moscow’s artistic underground in the late 1970s and early 80s, he became visible to a broader Russian audience only in the mid-1990s, with texts shocking the moralistic expectations of traditionally minded readers by violating not only Soviet ideological taboos, but also injecting vulgar language, sex, and violence into plots that the postmodernist Sorokin borrowed from nineteenth-century literature and Socialist Realism. Sorokin became famous when the Putin youth organization burned his books in 2002 and he picked up neo-nationalist and neo-imperialist discourses in his dystopian novels of the 2000s and 2010s, making him one of the fiercest critics of Russia’s “new middle ages,” while remaining steadfast in his dismantling of foreign discourses.

This three-volume book investigates the Russian transformations of one of the central concepts of Greek Christology, the self-humiliation or kenosis of Christ. The author applies rhetoric (paradox, metaphor, metonymy) as a means to elucidate mechanisms of theological persuasion and to trace the representations of the humiliated Christ and his imitations in various media from liturgy and iconology to everyday practice and literary fiction. The exploration of post-Christian literature of the 19th and 20th century (N. Chernyshevskii, M. Gor’kii, N. Ostrovskii, Ven. Erofeev, Vl. Sorokin) demonstrates the existence of a kenotic Christology after Christianity.

How postcolonial are the literatures of postcommunist countries such as Poland, Russia, and Ukraine? Are they postcolonial on the level of sociopolitical conditions, postcolonial modes of representation, or of a (post-)colonial mind? The contributors consider and respond to the heuristic questions and to the claim for accuracy which purports that Slavic literatures after communism are indeed postcolonial – in a no more metaphorical way than the «classic» cases of postcolonial literatures, whose postcoloniality can be traced to the colonialism of overseas empires. The contributions to this volume deal with the exploration of literary representation and hence of postcolonial textuality.

What is the role and position of Russophone/Russian culture in Ukraine today? How can the dynamics of Ukrainian culture lend insight into the possibility of a global Russian culture, or multiple Russian cultures, in the contemporary world? The author responds to these questions by investi-gating the interplay between literature, politics, market, and identity in the contemporary Ukrainian cultural process (1991–2018). This book explores the contested encounters of the Russian language and culture with other languages, cultures, and traditions in the post-Soviet space, highlighting pressing contemporary issues related to—and affected by—political and social developments.

ENThis three-volume book investigates the Russian transformations of one of the central concepts of Greek Christology, the self-humiliation or kenosis of Christ. The author applies rhetoric (paradox, metaphor, metonymy) as a means to elucidate mechanisms of theological persuasion and to trace the representations of the humiliated Christ and his imitations in various media from liturgy and iconology to everyday practice and literary fiction. The exploration of post-Christian literature of the 19th and 20th century (N. Chernyshevskii, M. Gor’kii, N. Ostrovskii, Ven. Erofeev, Vl. Sorokin) demonstrates the existence of a kenotic Christology after Christianity.RUThis three-volume book investigates the Russian transformations of one of the central concepts of Greek Christology, the self-humiliation or kenosis of Christ. The author applies rhetoric (paradox, metaphor, metonymy) as a means to elucidate mechanisms of theological persuasion and to trace the representations of the humiliated Christ and his imitations in various media from liturgy and iconology to everyday practice and literary fiction. The exploration of post-Christian literature of the 19th and 20th century (N. Chernyshevskii, M. Gor’kii, N. Ostrovskii, Ven. Erofeev, Vl. Sorokin) demonstrates the existence of a kenotic Christology after Christianity.