In search of the true Russia : the provinces in contemporary nationalist discourse /

In search of the true Russia : the provinces in contemporary nationalist discourse /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Parts, Lyudmila, author.
Imprint:	Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2018] ©2018
Description:	1 online resource
Language:	English
Subject:	Russian literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism. Russian literature -- 21st century -- History and criticism. National characteristics, Russian, in literature. National characteristics, Russian, in motion pictures. Nationalism and literature -- Russia (Federation) Mass media and nationalism -- Russia (Federation) Mass media and nationalism. National characteristics, Russian, in literature. National characteristics, Russian, in motion pictures. Nationalism and literature. Russian literature. Russia (Federation) Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11912331

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780299317638 0299317633 9780299317607 0299317609
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index. Print version record.
Summary:	This book examines the provincial theme in post-Soviet literature, film, and journalism as a cultural representation of Russian nationalism. Its focus is on "the provinces" of cultural myth: the imagined domain of authentic Russianness, and collective contemplation of the recurring questions concerning Russia's past and future, what it means to be "Russian," and where "true" Russians reside. Cultural production today locates true Russianness outside the newly prosperous, multiethnic, and westernized Moscow. In mass culture, the traditional privileging of the center, over the backward provinces, yields to a view of the provinces as the repository of national tradition and moral strength. Conversely, high literature and art-house cinema provide an alternative, harshly critical image of the provinces. Differing perspectives notwithstanding, both are negotiating a particular concept of Russianness, in which the provinces play a central role and, ultimately, function to both redirect nationalist discourse away from the deeply unsatisfying model of Russia versus the West, and put forth a hermetic national identity, based on the opposition of "us versus us," rather than "us versus them."
Other form:	Print version: Parts, Lyudmila. In search of the true Russia. Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2018] 9780299317607

Description
Summary:	Russia's provinces have long held a prominent place in the nation's cultural imagination. Lyudmila Parts looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russian literature and popular culture, addressing notions of nationalism, authenticity, Orientalism, Occidentalism, and postimperial identity.<br> <br> Surveying a largely unexplored body of Russian journalism, literature, and film from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Parts finds that the harshest portrayals of the provinces arise within "high" culture. Popular culture, however, has increasingly turned from the newly prosperous, multiethnic, and westernized Moscow to celebrate the hinterlands as repositories of national traditions and moral strength. This change, she argues, has directed debate about Russia's identity away from its loss of imperial might and global prestige and toward a hermetic national identity based on the opposition of "us vs. us" rather than "us vs. them." She offers an intriguing analysis of the contemporary debate over what it means to be Russian and where "true" Russians reside.
Physical Description:	1 online resource
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780299317638 0299317633 9780299317607 0299317609