Richard Stites - Böcker

This book discusses utopian ideals and experimentation before, during, and after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Richard Stites grounds his study in the larger field of Russia's social, intellectual, and cultural history, examining party programmes, economic policy, and moral practices to recreate the vast tableau of revolutionary life. Above all, he reveals how people expressed revolutionary sentiment through myth, ritual, symbol, cult, and community.

Stite's book received the 1990 Vucinich Prize, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for the best book published in 1989 in the field of Russian and East European studies."The presentation is dynamic, fascinating, indeed brilliant, as well as fully expert....It is also a highly readable book....The book has already received much critical attention and great acclaim....In Revolutionary Dreams, we have a brilliantly presented historical work which is both pioneering and fundamental in its important field." -- Nicholas V Riasanovsky (speech made on presentation of the Vucinich Prize)

In a series of revolts starting in 1820, four military officers rode forth on horseback from obscure European towns to bring political freedom and a constitution to Spain, Naples, and Russia; and national independence to the Greeks. The men who launched these exploits from Andalusia to the snowy fields of Ukraine--Colonel Rafael del Riego, General Guglielmo Pepe, General Alexandros Ypsilanti, and Colonel Sergei Muraviev-Apostol--all hoped to overturn the old order. Over the next six years, their revolutions ended in failure. The men who led them became martyrs.In The Four Horsemen, the late, eminent historian Richard Stites offers a compelling narrative history of these four revolutions. Stites sets the stories side by side, allowing him to compare events and movements and so illuminate such topics as the transfer of ideas and peoples across frontiers, the formation of an international community of revolutionaries, and the appropriation of Christian symbols and language for secular purposes. He shows how expressive behavior and artifacts of all kinds--art, popular festivities, propaganda, and religion--worked their way to various degrees into all the revolutionary movements and regimes. And he documents as well the corruption, abandonment of liberal values, and outright betrayal of the revolution that emerged in Spain and Naples; the clash of ambitions and ideas that wracked the unity of the Decembrists' cause; and civil war that erupted in the midst of the Greek struggle for independence.Richard Stites was one of the most imaginative and broad-ranging historians working in the United States. This book is his last work, a classic example of his dazzling knowledge and idiosyncratic yet accessible writing style. The culmination of an esteemed career, The Four Horsemen promises to enthrall anyone interested in nineteenth-century Europe and the history of revolutions.

The 1820s marked a revolutionary moment in European history. Uprisings during this decade marked the last horseback-mounted epics where officers led their men from provincial towns in the hopes of reaching the capital and overturning the old order. Scholarly work has also stressed the great powers and their 1820s revolutions, namely, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. In this book, Richard Stites aims to widen and refocus the lens of Europe by providing a narrative history of revolutions in Spain, Naples, Greece, and Russia and the relationships among them. Generally these uprisings are studied in individual nation-state contexts, and while this book tells the events in their national contexts, it highlights commonalities and divergences by setting them side by side. On the whole, it gives more weight to cross-national elements in the revolutions and the regimes they created or tried to create. Among the topics that emerge from their comparative study are constitutional liberalism in early nineteenth century Europe; the migratory history of the Spanish constitution of 1812; secret societies; military uprisings; the transfer of ideas and peoples across frontiers; the formation of an international community of revolutionaries; guerrilla warfare; and the appropriation of Christian symbols and language for secular purpose.Richard Stites was one of the most imaginative and broad-ranging Slavicists/Europeanists working in the United States. This book is his last work, and his colleagues John McNeill and Catherine Evtuhov have prepared the text for submission. A classic example of Stites' dazzling knowledge and idiosyncratic yet accessible writing style, this book promises to appeal to those interested in 19th century Europe and the history of revolutions.

"[A] surprisingly moving story." —The New Yorker"Bogdanov's novels reveal a great deal about their fascinating author, about his time and, ironically, ours, and about the genre of utopia as well as his contribution to it." —Slavic Review"Bogdanov's imaginative predictions for his utopia are both technological and social . . . Even more farsighted are [his] anxious forebodings about the limits and costs of the utopian future." —Science Fiction Studies"The contemporary reader will marvel at [Bogdanov's] foresight: nuclear fusion and propulsion, atomic weaponry and fallout, computers, blood transfusions, and (almost) unisexuality." —ChoiceA communist society on Mars, the Russian revolution, and class struggle on two planets is the subject of this arresting science fiction novel by Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), one of the early organizers and prophets of the Russian Bolshevik party. The red star is Mars, but it is also the dream set to paper of the society that could emerge on earth after the dual victory of the socialist and scientific-technical revolutions. While portraying a harmonious and rational socialist society, Bogdanov sketches out the problems that will face industrialized nations, whether socialist or capitalist.

" . . . a comprehensive look at an enigmatic era . . . " —Choice"This provocative collection of essays certainly takes some of the polish off Soviet socialism's golden age." —Journal of Interdisciplinary History"The authors and editors of this splendid volume deserve great praise. Their work moves the field of Soviet history several large steps forward." —Slavic ReviewLenin's New Economic Policy of the 1920s, although a relatively free and open potential alternative to Soviet communism, was also a time of extreme tension, as Russian society and culture were rocked by the forces of resistance and change. These essays examine the social and cultural dimensions of NEP in urban and rural Russia in the years before Stalin and rapid industrialization.

"This lively and often moving collection of essays is an important contribution to Western scholarship on Soviet society and culture during the Second World War. . . . [a] straightforward but lively description of cultural life, unhampered by excessive interpretation or cultural theory. For all those who love Russia's cultural heritage, these essays cast a welcome spotlight on some of the people and pockets of life from that tragic but compelling time." —Canadian Slavonic Papers"Enjoyable to read and accessible to the nonspecialist, Culture and Entertainment is not only an indispensable addition to any Soviet studies library but will prove valuable to anyone interested in or teaching courses on World War II, propaganda and popular culture, homefront politics, or the interacation between cultural creation and governmental power." —Journal of Modern History"This comprehensive recollection of articles goes beyond cultural history, and provides an original approach to the study of war. War, we learn, is fought on many fronts, and the cultural one should not be underestimated." —SAIS Review" . . . takes the reader to the heart of the patriotic struggle, to the cultural and spiritual imperatives that roused Russian resistance." —Canadian Military History"This collection . . . furthers knowledge of Soviet high and popular culture, and also demonstrates the extremely important role that cultural productions played in helping to maintain Soviet spirits in the midst of the Nazi onslaught." —Choice"This anthology of scholarly articles provides surprising insights into Soviet cultural propaganda during the Great Patriotic War." —War, Literature and the Arts". . . the essays here provide much food for thought and constitute a valuable addition to a relatively neglected area of study." —The Slavonic ReviewWorld War II (The Great Patriotic War) had a pronounced cultural and emotional impact on the Russian people. The subjects of these essays range from the Moscow press to frontline correspondents, from entertainment brigades to amateur songs by fighting men and women, from symphonic compositions to revivals of literary classics, and from Moscow stages to folk ensembles on the battlefield—the cultural outpourings in the hearts and souls of ordinary Russians at war.

This anthology offers a rich array of documents, short fiction, poems, songs, plays, movie scripts, comic routines, and folklore to offer a close look at the mass culture that was consumed by millions in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1953. Both state-sponsored cultural forms and the unofficial culture that flourished beneath the surface are represented. The focus is on the entertainment genres that both shaped and reflected the social, political, and personal values of the regime and the masses. The period covered encompasses the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the mixed economy and culture of the 1920s, the tightly controlled Stalinist 1930s, the looser atmosphere of the Great Patriotic War, and the postwar era ending with the death of Stalin. Much of the material appears here in English for the first time.A companion 45-minute audio tape (ISBN 0-253-32911-6) features contemporaneous performances of fifteen popular songs of the time, with such favorites as "Bublichki," "The Blue Kerchief," and "Katyusha." Russian texts of the songs are included in the book.

Serf-era and provincial Russia heralded the spectacular turn in cultural history that began in the 1860s. Examining the role of arts and artists in society’s value system, Richard Stites explores this shift in a groundbreaking history of visual and performing arts in the last decades of serfdom. Provincial town and manor house engaged the culture of Moscow and St. Petersburg while thousands of serfs and ex-serfs created or performed. Mikhail Glinka raised Russian music to new levels and Anton Rubinstein struggled to found a conservatory. Long before the itinerants, painters explored town and country in genre scenes of everyday life. Serf actors on loan from their masters brought naturalistic acting from provincial theaters to the imperial stages. Stites’s richly detailed book offers new perspectives on the origins of Russia’s nineteenth-century artistic prowess.

It is commonplace to refer to the First World War as an historical watershed, but the nature of that great cataclysm's impact upon European society and culture remains a hotly debated topic. Many recent works have dealt with the Great War's role in shaping artistic and intellectual modernism and with the social history of the war. Yet the English-language literature remains dominated by a disproportionate emphasis on the western European experience. This book redresses the balance by giving equal attention to the countries of eastern and central Europe, and distinguishes itself by focusing specifically on cultural change during the course of the war, as distinct from the after-effects and memories of the conflict.

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, stage, radio and television, Professor Richard Stites introduces the people and cultural products that are household words to Russian people. Spanning the entire twentieth century, the author examines the subcultures that draw upon and enrich Russian popular culture. He explores the relationship between popular culture and the national and social values of the masses, including their heroes and myths, and assesses the phenomenon of the celebrity from the silent screen star to the latest rock music idol. Richard Stites pays particular attention to the dramatic battle between elite and popular culture and to the intervention of revolutions, wars, and the state in the production and control of this culture.

Richard Stites views the struggle for liberation of Russian women in the context of both nineteenth-century European feminism and twentieth-century communism. The central personalities, their vigorous exchange of ideas, the social and political events that marked the emerging ideal of emancipation--all come to life in this absorbing and dramatic account. The author's history begins with the feminist, nihilist, and populist impulses of the 1860s and 1870s, and leads to the social mobilization campaigns of the early Soviet period.