Russia's Carnival: The Smells, Sights, and Sounds of TransitionRowman & Littlefield, 2003 - 253 páginas This colorfully drawn and acutely observed book explores Russia by engaging all our senses. Today's Russia smells different from the Soviet Union. The country looks and sounds different, its touch is different and its food tastes different. Thus, Christoph Neidhart argues, Russia is truly a changed country from the Soviet Union it was, little more than a decade ago. Russian society is rapidly urbanizing and modernizing, as can be perceived by all senses, including the awareness of space and the conception of time. After almost a century, space can be privately owned and freely traded; time too has become commodified. New role models and new ways to express social status are emerging. Russia has become a 'monetized' economy as the old Soviet practice of provision by networking has grown obsolete. Russia thus readies itself gradually to grow into a Western-style, middle-class society with a free market and democratic polity. The author assesses these rapid changes using the evocative metaphor of the carnival to understand the chaotic inversion of the Communist structure of society. He explores the transition's traps and shortcomings--such as the privatization of politics and the looting of the state's assets--and compares this process to the modernization Western society underwent a century earlier. |
Contenido
Introduction Is Democracy Visible? | 1 |
Carnival or Revolution? When Russia Suspended Time and Space | 15 |
Sight The First Sense | 31 |
To Fake Is to Make Believe | 63 |
Sound Scent Taste and Touch | 79 |
Space The Sixth Sense | 117 |
A New Time for New Times | 157 |
To Buy Is to Be Money Replaces the Fences | 183 |
Mafiosi and Prostitutes The New Role Models | 205 |
Conclusion Ikea or the Furniture for a Modern Russia | 221 |
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247 | |
About the Author | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Russia's Carnival: The Smells, Sights, and Sounds of Transition Christoph Neidhart Vista previa limitada - 2002 |
Russia's Carnival: The Smells, Sights, and Sounds of Transition Christoph Neidhart Vista de fragmentos - 2003 |
Términos y frases comunes
appearance architecture Bakhtin bania became become began blat Brodsky called capital carnival cars citizens collapse Communist coup culture dacha democracy despite dress eating economy emerging European everyday example favor foreign former Soviet friends future Gorbachev Goscilo Homo Sovieticus houses Ikea individuals industrial jazz Joseph Brodsky kommunalka Kremlin Ledeneva Lenin lives looked maps Margolina ment Mikhail modern monuments Moscow never newly Ogonyok party people's perestroika person Petersburg police political polychronic post-Soviet post-Soviet Russia republics restaurants revolution rock ruble Russian society seemed shock worker smell social Soviet regime Soviet society Soviet Union space spatial Square Stakhanov Stakhanovites Stalin status stiliagi streets style subway tion trans transition turned U.S. dollars Umberto Eco University Press urban USSR viet Viktor Pelevin West Western women workers Yeltsin York young