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Author: Bryon MacWilliams Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1609091655 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 157
Book Description
In 1996 Bryon MacWilliams left the relative stability of the United States for the chaos of post-Soviet Russia and stayed. Over the course of nearly twelve years he reported on academe and the sciences for the world's leading publications and sought out the best baths—or banyas—everywhere he went. His story of Russia through its cult of steam begins on a frosty Sunday morning in a gypsy cab traveling to a bathhouse in Moscow, where the steam is conjured by an out-of-work carpenter named Grisha, who takes on MacWilliams as a kind of apprentice, allowing him into an otherwise closed world through which MacWilliams could see himself, and Russia, with different eyes. The Russian bathers insist, only half-jokingly, that the American is a spy. Writing in a highly engaging style, MacWilliams travels the country to convey the breadth of banya culture and what it means to steam, a process that is at once a simple cleansing and a deep purification. It awakens the body and quiets the mind, generating waves of good feeling akin to an endorphin high. Each chapter of this splendid book is an episode—spanning from several hours to several days—from the Far North, Moscow, the Ural Mountains, the Solovetsky Islands, and a southern stretch of the Volga River. With Light Steam, the title is derived from the phrase used in banyas in lieu of goodbye, is the only book in English devoted to the banya and the only volume in any language to present Russia through the lens of its bath culture, the most Russian thing there is. General readers and scholars alike will be enchanted with this unforgettable portrait of a people and a millennia-spanning tradition.
Author: Bryon MacWilliams Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1609091655 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 157
Book Description
In 1996 Bryon MacWilliams left the relative stability of the United States for the chaos of post-Soviet Russia and stayed. Over the course of nearly twelve years he reported on academe and the sciences for the world's leading publications and sought out the best baths—or banyas—everywhere he went. His story of Russia through its cult of steam begins on a frosty Sunday morning in a gypsy cab traveling to a bathhouse in Moscow, where the steam is conjured by an out-of-work carpenter named Grisha, who takes on MacWilliams as a kind of apprentice, allowing him into an otherwise closed world through which MacWilliams could see himself, and Russia, with different eyes. The Russian bathers insist, only half-jokingly, that the American is a spy. Writing in a highly engaging style, MacWilliams travels the country to convey the breadth of banya culture and what it means to steam, a process that is at once a simple cleansing and a deep purification. It awakens the body and quiets the mind, generating waves of good feeling akin to an endorphin high. Each chapter of this splendid book is an episode—spanning from several hours to several days—from the Far North, Moscow, the Ural Mountains, the Solovetsky Islands, and a southern stretch of the Volga River. With Light Steam, the title is derived from the phrase used in banyas in lieu of goodbye, is the only book in English devoted to the banya and the only volume in any language to present Russia through the lens of its bath culture, the most Russian thing there is. General readers and scholars alike will be enchanted with this unforgettable portrait of a people and a millennia-spanning tradition.
Author: Igal Halfin Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre ISBN: 0822972042 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 490
Book Description
In this interdisciplinary and controversial work, Igal Halfin looks at Marxist theory in a new light, attempting to break down the divisions between history, philosophy, and literary theory. His approach is methodological, combining intellectual and social history to argue that if we are to take the Bolshevik revolutionary experiment seriously, we have to examine carefully the ideological presupposition of both communist ideological texts and the archival documents that social historians believe truly reflect lived experience in order to see what effects these texts had on reality. Igal Halfin aims to turn Marxism, class, and consciousness from subjects of analysis to its objects. From Darkness to Light begins by examining the Marxist philosophy of history as understood by the Russian revolutionary movement. Halfin argues that the Soviet government took its cues to how it could bring about a classless society from a peculiar blending of eschatological thinking and modern techniques of power. Halfin then offers a case study of the Bolshevik attempt in the 1920s to create the “Communist New Man” by amalgamating the characteristics of the intellectual and the worker in order to eradicate the petit-bourgeois traits attributed by the regime to the pre-revolutionary individualistic and decadent student. Halfin’s conclusions raise important questions about Marxist theory as it relates to class, historical progress, and communism itself. His approach suggests that “proletarianization” should be understood not as a change in the social composition of the student body, but as the introduction of the language of class into the universities. Through the examination of the process of the literary construction of class identity, Halfin concludes that the student class affiliation in the Soviet Union of the 1920s was not simply a matter of social origins, but of students’ ability, using a set of ritualized procedures, to defend their claims to a working-class identity. Halfin’s conclusions raise important questions about Marxist theory as it relates to class, historical progress, and communism itself.
Author: Yuri Slezkine Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501703307 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 475
Book Description
For over five hundred years the Russians wondered what kind of people their Arctic and sub-Arctic subjects were. "They have mouths between their shoulders and eyes in their chests," reported a fifteenth-century tale. "They rove around, live of their own free will, and beat the Russian people," complained a seventeenth-century Cossack. "Their actions are exceedingly rude. They do not take off their hats and do not bow to each other," huffed an eighteenth-century scholar. They are "children of nature" and "guardians of ecological balance," rhapsodized early nineteenth-century and late twentieth-century romantics. Even the Bolsheviks, who categorized the circumpolar foragers as "authentic proletarians," were repeatedly puzzled by the "peoples from the late Neolithic period who, by virtue of their extreme backwardness, cannot keep up either economically or culturally with the furious speed of the emerging socialist society."Whether described as brutes, aliens, or endangered indigenous populations, the so-called small peoples of the north have consistently remained a point of contrast for speculations on Russian identity and a convenient testing ground for policies and images that grew out of these speculations. In Arctic Mirrors, a vividly rendered history of circumpolar peoples in the Russian empire and the Russian mind, Yuri Slezkine offers the first in-depth interpretation of this relationship. No other book in any language links the history of a colonized non-Russian people to the full sweep of Russian intellectual and cultural history. Enhancing his account with vintage prints and photographs, Slezkine reenacts the procession of Russian fur traders, missionaries, tsarist bureaucrats, radical intellectuals, professional ethnographers, and commissars who struggled to reform and conceptualize this most "alien" of their subject populations.Slezkine reconstructs from a vast range of sources the successive official policies and prevailing attitudes toward the northern peoples, interweaving the resonant narratives of Russian and indigenous contemporaries with the extravagant images of popular Russian fiction. As he examines the many ironies and ambivalences involved in successive Russian attempts to overcome northern—and hence their own—otherness, Slezkine explores the wider issues of ethnic identity, cultural change, nationalist rhetoric, and not-so European colonialism.
Author: Jonathan Coopersmith Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501705369 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 392
Book Description
The Electrification of Russia, 1880–1926 is the first full account of the widespread adoption of electricity in Russia, from the beginning in the 1880s to its early years as a state technology under Soviet rule. Jonathan Coopersmith has mined the archives for both the tsarist and the Soviet periods to examine a crucial element in the modernization of Russia. Coopersmith shows how the Communist Party forged an alliance with engineers to harness the socially transformative power of this science-based enterprise. A centralized plan of electrification triumphed, to the benefit of the Communist Party and the detriment of local governments and the electrical engineers. Coopersmith’s narrative of how this came to be elucidates the deep-seated and chronic conflict between the utopianism of Soviet ideology and the reality of Soviet politics and economics.
Author: Lester W. Grau Publisher: Mentor Military ISBN: 9781940370194 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces The mighty Soviet Army is no more. The feckless Russian Army that stumbled into Chechnya is no more. Today's Russian Army is modern, better manned, better equipped and designed for maneuver combat under nuclear-threatened conditions. This is your source for the tactics, equipment, force structure and theoretical underpinnings of a major Eurasian power. Here's what the experts are saying: "A superb baseline study for understanding how and why the modern Russian Army functions as it does. Essential for specialist and generalist alike." -Colonel (Ret) David M. Glantz, foremost Western author on the Soviet Union in World War II and Editor of The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. "Congratulations to Les Grau and Chuck Bartles on filling a gap which has yawned steadily wider since the end of the USSR. Their book addresses evolving Russian views on war, including the blurring of its nature and levels, and the consequent Russian approaches to the Ground Forces' force structuring, manning, equipping, and tactics. Confidence is conferred on the validity of their arguments and conclusions by copious footnoting, mostly from an impressive array of primary sources. It is this firm grounding in Russian military writings, coupled with the authors' understanding of war and the Russian way of thinking about it, that imparts such an authoritative tone to this impressive work." -Charles Dick, former Director of the Combat Studies Research Centre, Senior Fellow at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, author of the 1991 British Army Field Manual, Volume 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art and author of From Victory to Stalemate The Western Front, Summer 1944 and From Defeat to Victory, The Eastern Front, Summer 1944. "Dr. Lester Grau's and Chuck Bartles' professional research on the Russian Armed Forces is widely read throughout the world and especially in Russia. Russia's Armed Forces have changed much since the large-scale reforms of 2008, which brought the Russian Army to the level of the world's other leading armies. The speed of reform combined with limited information about their core mechanisms represented a difficult challenge to the authors. They have done a great job and created a book which could be called an encyclopedia of the modern armed forces of Russia. They used their wisdom and talents to explore vital elements of the Russian military machine: the system of recruitment and training, structure of units of different levels, methods and tactics in defense and offence and even such little-known fields as the Arctic forces and the latest Russian combat robotics." -Dr. Vadim Kozyulin, Professor of Military Science and Project Director, Project on Asian Security, Emerging Technologies and Global Security Project PIR Center, Moscow. "Probably the best book on the Russian Armed Forces published in North America during the past ten years. A must read for all analysts and professionals following Russian affairs. A reliable account of the strong and weak aspects of the Russian Army. Provides the first look on what the Russian Ministry of Defense learned from best Western practices and then applied them on Russian soil." -Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and member of the Public Council of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. Author of Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, Russia's New Army, and The Tanks of August.
Author: Mikhail Baryatinskiy Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing ISBN: 9780711031630 Category : Tanks (Military science) Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
It is one of the ironies of Soviet tank development that a country opposed to free enterprise and capitalism was largely reliant on influences from Britain and the USA for many of its early designs. However, unhindered by many of the tactical constraints that affected tank development in the West, the Red Army was able to acquire and develop technology that was under-rated in both Britain and the USA. From Britain, the famous manufacturer Vickers produced a Six-Ton light tank; effectively rejected by the War Office, one example was acquired by the Russians and this formed the basis of the Russian T-26 of 1931. Further British designs also influenced the later light tanks, equipment which was pivotal to the Red Army during its campaigns in Manchuria, Finland and against the initial German assault in 1941. In the USA, Walter Christie was also largely ignored as a designer but, as with Vickers, his designs came to be highly important. His influence was seen in the 'BT' - short for 'Bystrochodri' or 'Fast Tank' - series of light-medium tanks that was first introduced in 1932. The BT series saw service in Spain, Manchuria, Finland and in the defense of Russia itself in 1941. The critical aspect of the Christie design was that the vehicles were capable of operating both with nor without tracks; in the latter case eight road wheels carried the weight of the vehicle, with steering being achieved via a steering wheel acting in conjunction with the clutch/brake system.In the second of the new 'Soviet Tanks' series, Mikhail Baryatinsky provides the reader with a comprehensive account of the development and operational record of Soviet light tanks. Utilizing photographs, line drawings and speciallyprepared artworks, he provides a detailed portrait of these highly successful tanks.Aimed at the modeler, military historian and war gamer, the new 'Soviet Tanks' series is designed to provide, probably for the first time in the English language, authoritative information on the classic Soviet tank designs of the 20th century. The series will be required reading for all those interested in the development of armored warfare over the past 100 years.
Author: Gregory Feifer Publisher: Twelve ISBN: 1455509655 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 317
Book Description
From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character for centuries-and continue to do so today. Russians explores the seeming paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor. Traversing the world's largest country from the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian power. Feifer also draws on formative experiences in Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture to shed much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning of its society before, during, and after communism. Woven throughout is an intimate, first-person account of his family history, from his Russian mother's coming of age among Moscow's bohemian artistic elite to his American father's harrowing vodka-fueled run-ins with the KGB. What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced some of the world's greatest art and some of its most remarkable scientific advances. Russians is an expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.
Author: Rosamund Bartlett Publisher: HMH ISBN: 0547545878 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 581
Book Description
This biography of the brilliant author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina “should become the first resort for everyone drawn to its titanic subject” (Booklist, starred review). In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station. At the time of his death, he was the most famous man in Russia, more revered than the tsar, with a growing international following. Born into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy spent his existence rebelling against not only conventional ideas about literature and art but also traditional education, family life, organized religion, and the state. In “an epic biography that does justice to an epic figure,” Rosamund Bartlett draws extensively on key Russian sources, including fascinating material that has only become available since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Library Journal, starred review). She sheds light on Tolstoy’s remarkable journey from callow youth to writer to prophet; discusses his troubled relationship with his wife, Sonya; and vividly evokes the Russian landscapes Tolstoy so loved and the turbulent times in which he lived.
Author: Lyudmila Parts Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres ISBN: 0299317609 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
Looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russia, surveying cultural discourse in journalism, literature, and film to analyze changing notions of nationalism, authenticity, and postimperial identity.
Author: Bryon MacWilliams
Author: Bryon MacWilliams
Author: Igal Halfin
Author: Yuri Slezkine
Author: Jonathan Coopersmith
Author: 
Author: Lester W. Grau
Author: Mikhail Baryatinskiy
Author: Gregory Feifer
Author: Rosamund Bartlett
Author: Lyudmila Parts