Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda

by Kevin M. F. Platt (Editor), David Brandenberger (Editor)

Overview

Focusing on a number of historical and literary personalities who were regarded with disdain in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution—figures such as Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Lermontov—Epic Revisionism tells the fascinating story of these individuals’ return to canonical status during the darkest days of the Stalin era. 

    An inherently interdisciplinary project, Epic Revisionism features pieces on literary and cultural history, film, opera, and theater. This volume pairs scholarly essays with selections drawn from Stalin-era primary sources—newspaper articles, unpublished archival documents, short stories—to provide students and specialists with the richest possible understanding of this understudied phenomenon in modern Russian history.

“These scholars shed a great deal of light not only on Stalinist culture but on the politics of cultural production under the Soviet system.”—David L. Hoffmann, Slavic Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299215033
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	02/23/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	372
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kevin M. F. Platt is associate professor and chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania. David Brandenberger is assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond.

Table of Contents

<table of contents, p. v> Contents[e1] Acknowledgements 000 A Note on Conventions 000 Terms and Acronyms 000 Illustrations 000 Introduction Tsarist-Era Heroes in Stalinist Mass Culture and Propaganda 000 Lev Tolstoi 1. Tolstoi in 1928: In the Mirror of the Revolution 000 William Nickell 2. Do We Know How to Celebrate Jubilees? 000 Novus, from Chitatel' i pisatel', 7 November 1928 Peter the Great 3. Rehabilitation and Afterimage: Aleksei Tolstoi's Many Returns to Peter the Great 000 Kevin M. F. Platt 4. Aleksei Tolstoi's Remarks on the Film Peter I 000 A. Danat, from Skorokhodovskii rabochii, 15 September 1937 The Epic Heroes 5. Chronicle of a Poet's Downfall: Dem'ian Bednyi, Russian History and The Epic Heroes 000 A. M. Dubrovsky 6. The Reaction of Writers and Artists to the Banning of D. Bednyi's Play 000 NKVD report, 1936 Nikolai Leskov 7. The Adventures of a Leskov Story in Soviet Russia, or the Socialist Realist Opera that Wasn't 000 Andrew Wachtel 8. Muddle Instead of Music 000 [P. M. Kerzhentsev], from Pravda, 28 January 1936 Ivan the Terrible 9. The Terrible Tsar as Comic Hero: Mikhail Bulgakov's "Ivan Vasil'evich" 000 Maureen Perrie 10. Terrible Pragmatic: Rewriting the History of Ivan IV's Reign 000 David Brandenberger and Kevin M. F. Platt 11. Memorandum to Stalin concerning A. N. Tolstoi's play "Ivan the Terrible" 000 A. S. Shcherbakov, 1941-1943 Aleksandr Pushkin 12. The 1937 Pushkin Jubilee as Epic Trauma 000 Stephanie Sandler 13. Glory to the Russian People 000 Editorial, from Pravda, 10 February 1937 14. During the Pushkin Days 000 Mikhail Zoshchenko, from Krokodil 3, 5 (1937) Aleksandr Nevskii 15. The Popular Reception of S. M. Eisenstein's Aleksandr Nevskii 000 David Brandenberger 16. An Epic Hero-People 000 Mikhail Kol'tsov, from Pravda, 7 November 1938 Ivan Susanin 17. Reinventing the Enemy: The Villains of Glinka's Opera Ivan Susanin on the Soviet Stage 000 Susan Beam Eggers 18. Ivan Susanin on the Stage of the Bolshoi Theater 000 B. Mordvinov, from Literaturnaia gazeta, 15 November 1939 Mikhail Lermontov 19. Fashioning 'Our Lermontov': Canonization and Conflict in the Stalinist 1930s 000 David Powelstock 20. In the Poet's Defense 000 A. Ragozin, from Pravda, 25 August 1939 Epilogue 21. An Internationalist's Complaint to Stalin 000 V. I. Blium, 31 January 1939 Conclusion Epic Revisionism and the Emergence of "Public" Culture in the USSR 000 James von Geldern Contributors 000 Archival Repository Abbreviations 000 Index 000

Editorial Reviews

“This stimulating potpourri of essays and documents about the portrayal of historical and literary figures in the Stalin era will be a boon to graduate students and a delight to aficionados of Soviet culture. Platt and Bradenberger have performed a service to the profession.”—Jeffrey Brooks, John Hopkins University

“Two excellent scholars, with original, conceptual minds, have undertaken the investigation of historical revisionism in the Stalin years to demonstrate the effectiveness and limitations of a state project of legitimation. One a historian and the other a literary critic, Platt and Brandenberger have collected first-rate contributors and produced a coherent and powerful volume that amplifies what we know about the uses and abuses of history in the Soviet 1930s.”—Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Chicago

“A marvelous work.”—Andrew M. Drozd, "Slavic and East European Journal"

"This stimulating potpourri of essays and documents about the portrayal of historical and literary figures in the Stalin era will be a boon to graduate students and a delight to aficionados of Soviet culture. Platt and Bradenberger have performed a service to the profession."--Jeffrey Brooks, John Hopkins University

"Two excellent scholars, with original, conceptual minds, have undertaken the investigation of historical revisionism in the Stalin years to demonstrate the effectiveness and limitations of a state project of legitimation. One a historian and the other a literary critic, Platt and Brandenberger have collected first-rate contributors and produced a coherent and powerful volume that amplifies what we know about the uses and abuses of history in the Soviet 1930s."--Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Chicago

From the Publisher