Author Archives: noroskyj

I’m very interested in the significance of Pussy Riot both in and outside of Russia. Last class, we discussed the reductive and paternalistic “Western gaze” on Russia. Is effective diplomacy possible when the West continues to hold Russia to its … Continue reading →

Can we draw a connection between susceptibility to a cult of personality leader and national trauma? Freeze emphasizes the characteristics that made Putin so attractive – the antithesis to Yeltsin, he was intelligent, ideologically committed, and deeply proud of his … Continue reading →

The USSR’s attitude towards technology and music demonstrates a tension we have encountered before: that between the desire to establish Russia as an advanced, culturally vibrant country, and the proliferation and cementation of communist ideals. This tension ended up creating many … Continue reading →

I’m very interested in the comparisons that Stites has drawn between Bolshevik ritualism and religious symbolism. Although communist rituals were intended to be explicitly anti-religious and grounded in the “real” historical revolutionary moments and utopianism of the future, in many … Continue reading →

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/25/lenin-love-literature-russian-revolution-soviet-union-goethe Seems relevant! The article mentions Belinskii’s letter to Gogol, among other topics we’ve covered. A piece that Lenin wrote on Tolstoy is also cited, which I found particularly interesting: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/sep/11.htm

I’m very interested in the role that individualism plays in securing the foundations of a revolutionary movement. Saunders identifies two broad movements within the revolutionary faction of Russian society: the Lavrovists and the Bakuninists. Lavrov argued that the development of … Continue reading →

I felt that evident in “The Captain’s Daughter” was a criticism of the alienation of social groups under Catherine, particularly ethnic groups. Pushkin frames his novel with multiple moments of extreme violence – first with the violent beating of the … Continue reading →

I’m interested in the Bushkovich reading and Hadji Murat in the context of Russia’s continuous attempts at Westernization. Bushkovich describes Russia’s territorial annexation as a mimicking of the successes of European colonial empires. Russia has been consistently referred to as … Continue reading →

Madariaga’s account of Catherine’s reign indicates a tension between Catherine’s admiration of Western culture and her desire to maintain power. The Westernization of Russia under her rule seemed to take effect significantly more in the higher-ranking classes than among the peasants. … Continue reading →

Public rituals of catharsis are one of many ways in which the governing class can disperse and cement ideologies. The collective feeling of grief achieved through the 22nd Party Congress achieved this goal, while also effectively shutting out (most) dissent … Continue reading →