Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T18:37:43.010Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nature of Russia's Identity: The Theme of “Russia and the West” in Post-Soviet Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Rosalind Marsh
Rosalind Marsh*
Affiliation:
University of Bath, England, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studiess. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The aim of this essay is to present a brief overview of the treatment in post-Soviet culture and the media, especially in literature, film and publitsistika on historical themes, of certain aspects of the perennial debate about “Russia and the West.” I will ask whether the West is still regarded as Russia's “Other,” or whether, in a period when Russia has been more open to the West than ever before, and Western and Russian tastes in historical and other fiction appear to be converging, such a polar opposition can now be seen as fundamentally outdated.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 35 , Issue 3: Identities, Nations and Politics after Communism , July 2007 , pp. 555 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aksenov, Vasilii [Aksyonov, Vassily]. Generations of Winter. Translated by John Glad and Christopher Morris. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Aksenov, Vasilii [Aksyonov, Vassily]. “Nostalgiia ili shizofreniia.” Moskovskie novosti, 9 November 1997.Google Scholar
Aksenov, Visilii. Volter'iantsy i volter'ianki: starinnyi roman. Moscow: Eksmo, 2004.Google Scholar
Akunin, Boris. Azazel'. Moscow: Zakharov, 2002.Google Scholar
Akunin, Boris. The Winter Queen: An Erast Fandorin Mystery. Translated by Andrew Bromfield. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Norton, 1991.Google Scholar
Annenkov, P. V. Literaturnye vospominaniia. First published in 1880. Leningrad: Akademiia, 1928.Google Scholar
Barghoorn, Frederick C. “Some Russian Images of the West.” In The Transformation of Russian Society, edited by Black, Cyril E. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. “A Remarkable Decade” In Russian Thinkers, edited by Hardy, Henry and Kelly, Aileen. London: Hogarth Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Brandenberger, David. Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Brodsky, Vsevolod. “Letter from Russia.” Translated by Keith Gessen. Context, no. 9 (2001). Online Edition, < http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no9/brodsky.html > (accessed 1 August 2005).+(accessed+1+August+2005).>Google Scholar
Brudny, Yitzhak M. Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953–1991. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Buck-Morss, Susan. Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Chaadaev, P. Ia. “Philosophical Letters” and “Apology of a Madman. “ Translated by Mary-Barbara Zeldin. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Cross, Anthony. The Russian Theme in English Literature. Oxford: William A. Meeuws, 1985.Google Scholar
Davies, R. W. Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era. London: Macmillan, 1997.Google Scholar
de Custine, Marquis Astolphe. La Russie en 1839. First published Paris, 1843; Journey for Our Time: The Journals of the Marquis de Custine. Edited and translated by Phyllis Penn Kohler. London and Portland, OR: George Prior, 1953.Google Scholar
Den', no. 1 (1992). Cited in A. Latynina. “Ia tebe vlepliu odin beze. …” Literaturnaia gazeta, 8 January, 2.Google Scholar
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. Translated and introduced by Kyril Fitzlyon. London, Melbourne and New York: Quartet Books, 1985.Google Scholar
Dunmore, Helen. “The Siege is a Novel for Now.” Interview with Robert McCrum. The Observer, 10 June 2001.Google Scholar
Dunmore, Helen. The Siege. London: Penguin, 2002.Google Scholar
English, Robert D. Russia and the Idea of the West. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Erofeyev, Viktor. Muzhchiny. Moscow: Podkova, 1999.Google Scholar
Erofeyev, Viktor. Khoroshii Stalin: roman. Moscow: ZebraE, 2004.Google Scholar
Fallowell, Duncan. One Hot Summer in Saint Petersburg. London: Vintage, 1995.Google Scholar
Feifer, Gregory. “Emergent Marketing.” The Moscow Times, 6 June 2000.Google Scholar
Finn, Peter. “In Russia, a Pop Culture Coup for the KGB.” Washington Post, 22 February 2005.Google Scholar
Fonvizine, Denis. Lettres de France (1777–1778). Traduites du russe et commentés par Henri Grosse, Jacque Proust et Piotr Zaborov. Paris: CNRS Editions; Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1995.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. “The Order of Discourse.” In Untying the Text: A Poststructuralist Reader, edited by Young, Robert. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.Google Scholar
Gilichensky, Zalman. “The Tip of the Iceberg (Russian Neo-Nazis in Israel).” <www.pogrom.org.il/The%20Tip%20of%20the%20Iceberg.htm> (accessed 18 November 2006).+(accessed+18+November+2006).>Google Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. “The Crimean Article.” In The August Coup: The Truth and its Lessons. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.Google Scholar
Goscilo, Helena. “Special Issue on Russian Culture of the 1990s.” Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 24, no. 1 (2000).Google Scholar
Granin, Daniil. Vechera s Petrom Velikim: soobshcheniia i svidetel”stva gospodina M. St. Petersburg: Istoricheskaia illiustratsiia, 2000.Google Scholar
Grossman, Vasily. Forever Flowing. Translated by Thomas P. Whitney. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.Google Scholar
Lyane, Guillaume. La Tour Ivanov. Paris: J.-C. Lattes, 2001.Google Scholar
Herzen, Alexander. Letters from France and Italy, 1847–1851. Edited and translated by Judith E. Zimmerman. Pittsburgh and London: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Khazanov, Boris. “Lotova zhena.” Literaturnaia gazeta, 4 February 1998.Google Scholar
Kichin, V. “Aristokrat.” Izvestiia, 5 April 2000.Google Scholar
Kishkovsky, Sophia. “Russian Novelist Scoffs at Post-Soviet Leaders.” New York Times, 24 August 2002, <www.freeserbia.net/Articles/2002.Scotts.html> (accessed 1 August 2005).+(accessed+1+August+2005).>Google Scholar
“Konkurs ‘Rossiiskoi gazety’: ideia dlia Rossii.” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 30 July 1996.Google Scholar
Korolev, Anatolii. “Golova Gogolia.” Znamia, no. 7 (1992): 7–66.Google Scholar
Kozhinov, Vadim. “Solzhenitsyn versus Solzhenitsyn. Literary Scholar and Historian Vadim Kozhinov Talks with Viktor Kozhemiako.” Sovetskaia Rossiia, 3 December 1998.Google Scholar
Krupin, Vladimir. “Stalinskaia dacha.” Literaturnaia ucheba, no. 5 (2002): 65–74.Google Scholar
Kublanovsky, Iurii. “Solzhenitsyn in Exile.” IU, 9 December 1998, 5. Translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 50, no. 50 (1998), 4–6.Google Scholar
Leonov, Leonid. Piramida. Moscow: Golos, 1994.Google Scholar
Lieven, Dominic. Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Likhachev, Dmitri. The National Nature of Russian History. New York: Harriman Institute, Columbia University, 1990.Google Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.Google Scholar
“MajorityofRussiansFearImmigrants.”RIANovosti, 23May2005, <www.barentsobserver.com/index.php?id=249199> (accessed 1 August 2005).+(accessed+1+August+2005).>Google Scholar
Makanin, Vladimir. “Stol, pokrytyi suknom i s grafinom peseredine.” Znamia, 1993, no. 1:9–53. Translated by Arch Tait as Baize-Covered Table with Decanter. Columbia, LA and London: Readers International (1995).Google Scholar
Malia, Martin. Russia under Western Eyes: From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Mamleev, Iurii. “Rossiia—mezhdu vechnost'iu i liubov'iu.” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 January 1998.Google Scholar
Mandel'shtam, Nadezhda. Hope against Hope. Translated by Max Hay ward. London: Penguin, 1975.Google Scholar
Marsh, Rosalind J. Soviet Fiction since Stalin: Science, Politics and Literature. London: Croom Helm, 1986.Google Scholar
Marsh, Rosalind J. History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. London: Macmillan, 1995.Google Scholar
Mozhaev, Boris. “Muzhiki i baby.” Don, nos. 1–3 (1987).Google Scholar
P'etsukh, V. [Pietsukh, Viacheslav]. “Novaia moskovskaia filosofiia.” Novyi mir, no. 1 (1989): 54–124.Google Scholar
P'etsukh, V. “Nagornaia propoved’ i Rossiia.” In Tsikly. Moscow: RIK “Kul”tura,” 1991.Google Scholar
P'etsukh, V. “Zakoldovannaia strana.” Znamia, no. 2 (1992): 67–107.Google Scholar
P'etsukh, V. “Russkaia tema” [Essay]. Druzhba narodov, no. 7 (1993): 3–7.Google Scholar
P'etsukh, V. “The Central-Ermolaevo War.” In The Penguin Book of New Russian Writing, edited by Erofeyev, Victor. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.Google Scholar
Paramonov, Boris M. “Historical Culture.” In Russian Culture at the Crossroads: Paradoxes of Postcommunist Consciousness, edited by Shalin, Dmitri N. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Pelevin, Viktor. Generation P. Moscow: Vagrius. Translated by Andrew Bromfield as Babylon. London: Faber and Faber, 2000.Google Scholar
Pilkington, Hilary et al. Looking West? Cultural Globalization and Russian Youth Cultures. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Prokhanov, Aleksandr. “Poslednii soldat imperii.” Nash sovremennik, nos. 7–9 (1993): 7–46, 15–16, 10–50.Google Scholar
Prokhanov, Aleksandr. Gospodin Geksogen: roman. Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2002.Google Scholar
Pushkin, A. S. Review of “Vtoroi tom Tstorii Russkogo naroda’ Polevogo.” In Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, by A. S. Pushkin, 14 vols. Vol. 11. Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiiamauk SSSR, 1935–1949.Google Scholar
Raeff, Marc. “Russia's Perception of her Relationship with the West.” Slavic Review 23, no. 1 (1964): 13–29.Google Scholar
Remnick, David. Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Andrew. “Translator's Introduction.” In Life with an Idiot: Stories by Victor Erofeyev, by Victor Erofeyev, translated by Andrew Reynolds. London: Penguin, 2004.Google Scholar
Roberts, Henry L. “Russia and the West: A Comparison and Contrast.” Slavic Review 23, no. 1 (1964): 1–11.Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1955.Google Scholar
Service, Robert. Russia: Experiment with a People. London: Macmillan, 2003.Google Scholar
Shafarevich, I. “Fenomen emigratsii.” Literaturnaia Rossiia, 8 September 1989.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, Lilia. Putin's Russia. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003.Google Scholar
Shlapentokh, Vladimir. “The Changing Russian View of the West: From Admiration in the Early 1990s to Hostility in the Late 1990s.” In Is Russia a European Power? The Position of Russia in a New Europe, edited by Casier, Tom and Malfliet, Katlijn. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Shulze, Ingo. 33 Moments of Happiness. Translated by John E. Woods. New York: Vintage International, 1998.Google Scholar
Slavic Review 23, no. 1 (1964): 1–29.Google Scholar
Smith, Kathleen E. Mythmaking in the New Russia: Politics and Memory during the Yeltsin Era. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Sokurov, Aleksandr. Interview with John Hartl. Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2 February 2003, 2, < www.russianart.spb.ru/eng/interview_full.php?int_id=14> (accessed 1 August 2005).+(accessed+1+August+2005).>Google Scholar
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Sobranie sochinenii. 20 vols. Vol. 9. Vermont and Paris: YMCA Press, 1978–1991.Google Scholar
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. “Ugodilo zernyshko promezh dvukh zhernovov: ocherki izgnaniia.” Novyi mir, no. 11 (1998), 95–153.Google Scholar
Thomas, Anne. “The Portrayal of Russia and the Russians in Works by Three Contemporary Western Writers.” Unpublished paper, University of Bath, 2005.Google Scholar
Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Tolstaya, Tatiana. “Notes from Underground.” New York Review of Books, 31 May 1990, 4–5.Google Scholar
Tolstaya, Tatiana. “Women's Lives.” In Pushkin's Children: Writings on Russia and Russians, translated by Jamey Gambrell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.Google Scholar
Tynianov, Iurii. “O slonenke.” Peterburg, no. 1 (1922).Google Scholar
Ulitskaia, Liudmila. Kazus Kukotskogo. Moscow: Eksmo, 2003.Google Scholar
Vernet, Daniel. Le Monde, 25 January 1979. Republished in Viktor Erofeev, Khoroshii Stalin: roman. Moscow: ZebraE, 2004.Google Scholar
Voinovich, Vladimir. “Fashisty i kommunisty v odnom stroiu.” Literaturnaia gazeta, 23 December 1998.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Marcus. Russia—East or West. Belfast: Queen's University of Belfast, 1969.Google Scholar
Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso, 1994.Google Scholar