Russia on the edge : imagined geographies and post-Soviet identity / Edith W. Clowes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clowes, Edith W.

Series:

Cornell paperbacks

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Russian literature--21st century--History and criticism.

Russian literature.

Russian literature--20th century--History and criticism.

National characteristics, Russian, in literature.

Nationalism and literature--Russia (Federation).

Nationalism and literature.

Cultural geography--Russia (Federation).

Cultural geography.

Territory, National--Russia (Federation).

Territory, National.

Russia (Federation)--Intellectual life--1991-.

Russia (Federation).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (199 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russians have confronted a major crisis of identity. Soviet ideology rested on a belief in historical progress, but the post-Soviet imagination has obsessed over territory. Indeed, geographical metaphors-whether axes of north vs. south or geopolitical images of center, periphery, and border-have become the signs of a different sense of self and the signposts of a new debate about Russian identity. In Russia on the Edge, Edith W. Clowes argues that refurbished geographical metaphors and imagined geographies provide a useful perspective for examining post-Soviet debates about what it means to be Russian today.Clowes lays out several sides of the debate. She takes as a backdrop the strong criticism of Soviet Moscow and its self-image as uncontested global hub by major contemporary writers, among them Tatyana Tolstaya and Viktor Pelevin. The most vocal, visible, and colorful rightist ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of neo-Eurasianism, has articulated positions contested by such writers and thinkers as Mikhail Ryklin, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and Anna Politkovskaia, whose works call for a new civility in a genuinely pluralistic Russia. Dugin's extreme views and their many responses-in fiction, film, philosophy, and documentary journalism-form the body of this book.In Russia on the Edge, literary and cultural critics will find the keys to a vital post-Soviet writing culture. For intellectual historians, cultural geographers, and political scientists the book is a guide to the variety of post-Soviet efforts to envision new forms of social life, even as a reconstructed authoritarianism has taken hold. The book introduces nonspecialist readers to some of the most creative and provocative of present-day Russia's writers and public intellectuals.

Contents:

Introduction : is Russia a center or a periphery?

Deconstructing imperial Moscow

Postmodernist empire meets Holy Rus : how Aleksandr Dugin tried to change the Eurasian periphery into the sacred center of the world

Illusory empire : Viktor Pelevin's parody of neo-Eurasianism

Russia's deconstructionist westernizer : Mikhail Ryklin's "larger space of Europe" confronts Holy Rus

The periphery and its narratives : Liudmila Ulitskaia's imagined south

Demonizing the post-Soviet other : the Chechens and the Muslim south.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780801461149

0801461146

9780801460661

0801460662

OCLC:

732957154