Soviet Dostoevsky: Dostoevsky in Soviet culture, ideology, and philosophy

The article aims to analyze how Dostoevsky’s works were perceived and presented in the Soviet ideology and philosophy. Contrary to some commonly held views, it is shown that despite the restrictions, there was never any talk of a complete ban or non-publication of Dostoevsky’s works in the Soviet times including the Stalinist years. Individual works of Dostoevsky as well as collections of his works were actively published in those years. The author explores the presence of Dostoevsky in the school literature program as well as the perception of Dostoevsky’s legacy by the Soviet leaders – V. Lenin and J. Stalin. It is concluded that the official ideological position in relation to Dostoevsky was never devoid of dynamics even in the Stalinist years. Among the factors that Soviet ideologists noted as positive in Dostoevsky, the author identifies the following three: Dostoevsky’s allegedly revolutionary past, his humanism and fervent sympathy for the humiliated and offended, and his great skill of an artist and expert in the secrets of the human soul. The author also discusses the perception of Dostoevsky’s work by the Soviet philosopher E.V. Ilyenkov. The author sets the task of further research into the perception of Dostoevsky in the legacy of other creative Soviet Marxists and / or publicists of the sixties – G. Lukach, M.A. Lifshits, Yu. F. Karyakin, etc.

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The Impact of Deconstruction on the Lithuanian Literary Criticism

Literatūra ◽

10.15388/litera.2021.1.5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 63 (1) ◽

pp. 71-85

Author(s):

Aušra Jurgutienė

Keyword(s):

Literary Criticism ◽

Jacques Derrida ◽

Literary Works ◽

Theoretical Concepts ◽

Soviet Culture ◽

The Third ◽

Soviet Ideology ◽

The Impact ◽

New Strategies

In the article I discuss how deconstruction (Jacques Derrida and other Yale School participants) came to Lithuanian literary criticism and how it changed habits of humanitarian thinking during the three decades after independence. The most unusual and radical deconstruction critique of essentialist metaphysical thinking, new terminology (inter-text, elimination of center, footprint, writing, difference, blinding, labyrinth narrative, guest / enemy, etc.) and new strategies for interpreting texts were very important for Lithuanian humanities liberated from Soviet ideology. Literary critics have noticed and discussed the undoubted connection between postmodernist literature and its deconstructive reading.We can find three tendencies in the deconstructive criticism of Lithuanian literature. The first tendency is the interpretation of general theoretical concepts of deconstruction, second tendency - searching the deconstructive features in literary works and the third tendency of criticism, expanding its own self-criticism and self-irony, is discussing chrestomathic and structuralist interpretations of the literary works or deconstructing icons of Soviet culture. We know very well, that many feminist, postcolonial, historiographic, anthropological, or interdisciplinary researches of literature cannot escape the effects of deconstruction.

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At Home among Strangers: U.S. Artists, the Soviet Union, and the Myth of Rockwell Kent during the Cold War

Journal of Cold War Studies ◽

10.1162/jcws_a_00910 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 175-207

Author(s):

Kirill Chunikhin

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Cold War ◽

Soviet Union ◽

World War ◽

Soviet Culture ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

American Artist ◽

Soviet Ideology ◽

The Cold War ◽

Government Promotion

After World War II, Soviet institutions organized many exhibitions of the American artist Rockwell Kent that bypassed the U.S. government. Promotion of Kent's work in the USSR was an exclusively Soviet enterprise. This article sheds new light on the Soviet approach to the representation of U.S. visual art during the Cold War. Drawing on U.S. and Russian archives, the article provides a comprehensive analysis of the political and aesthetic factors that resulted in Kent's immense popularity in the Soviet Union. Contextualizing the Soviet representation of Kent within relevant Cold War contexts, the article shows that his art occupied a specific symbolic position in Soviet culture. Soviet propaganda reconceptualized his biography and established the “Myth of Rockwell Kent”—a myth that helped to legitimate Soviet ideology and anti-American propaganda.

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Stalinizmas ir etnokultūros institucionalizavimas. Pirmoji Dainų šventė sovietinėje Lietuvoje 1946 m.

Lietuvos istorijos metraštis ◽

10.33918/2019/1/5 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019/1 ◽

pp. 127-144

Author(s):

Vladas Sirutavičius

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Central Committee ◽

Political Regime ◽

Folk Culture ◽

Soviet Government ◽

Soviet Culture ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

History Of ◽

The Government ◽

Soviet Ideology

decided to re-establish the tradition of song festivals and organize the first such festival in 1946; and to what extent the implementation of the said idea was successful. Analysis of the history of the first Soviet song festival and circumstances surrounding the preparation for the event is based on the little known or practically unknown documents kept in the archives of Lithuania and the Russian Federation. The government of Lithuania viewed the organization of the “first Soviet song festival” as a possibility to demonstrate its concern with Lithuanian folk culture, its development, and promotion. This kind of policy was intended to strengthen the legitimacy of the Soviet government and make it seem more “Lithuanian”. The fact that Lithuanian folk culture helped spread the new Soviet ideology also cannot be ignored. The song festival was not only amply decorated with Soviet symbols, attempts were made to couple the attributes of the Soviet culture with the values of folk culture. On the other hand, organizing the festival the leadership of Soviet Lithuania wanted to show that the Soviet political regime can be in “harmony” with Lithuanian ethno-culture and the new government was a natural successor of former ethnic traditions. However, alone, without the approval of the Lithuanian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the support from Moscow, the government of Lithuania was unable to organize the festival. This suggests that the leadership of the Soviet Union was rather tolerant to the manifestations of “national Communism” not only in the countries of Central Europe that fell under Moscow’s influence but also in Lithuanian SSR. Besides, the decision to organize the festival in Vilnius was not a random one. Crowds of singers that came to the city from all around Lithuania changed its national composition – Vilnius for once became more Lithuanian. This not only demonstrated the government’s aspiration to show off its “Lithuanian” nature but also its ambition to make Vilnius the centre of Lithuanian (Soviet) culture. Finally, the government of LSSR was satisfied with the organization and course of the festival and believed that it managed to achieve its goals and objectives. Probably the success of the first Soviet song festival resulted in them being organized periodically.

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„Ближайшая станция европейской культуры…”: полонофилия 60-х годов

Studia Rossica Posnaniensia ◽

10.14746/strp.2019.44.2.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 44 (2) ◽

pp. 5-14

Author(s):

Kristina Vorontsova

Keyword(s):

Russian Literature ◽

Soviet Culture ◽

Cultural Image ◽

Polish Text ◽

The Sixties

The article attempts to trace the sources of “polonophilia” in the Soviet culture of the sixties and to consider the strategies of the representation of the Polish text in Russian literature after the Khrushchev Thaw on the material of Stanislav Kunyaev, Boris Dubrovin and Emil Janvarev’s poetry. The special influence on the formation of the geo-cultural image of the Polish People’s Republic in this period is discussed in the context of Polish cinema (in particular Andrzej Wajda’s film Ashes and Diamonds).

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A photoelectron microscope study of surfaces

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100152021 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 47 ◽

pp. 10-11

Author(s):

W. Engel ◽

M. Kordesch ◽

A. M. Bradshaw ◽

E. Zeitler

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

High Pressure ◽

Field Strength ◽

Uv Light ◽

Physical Property ◽

Photon Flux ◽

Mercury Lamp ◽

Object Surface ◽

The Sixties ◽

Physical Features

Photoelectron microscopy is as old as electron microscopy itself. Electrons liberated from the object surface by photons are utilized to form an image that is a map of the object's emissivity. This physical property is a function of many parameters, some depending on the physical features of the objects and others on the conditions of the instrument rendering the image.The electron-optical situation is tricky, since the lateral resolution increases with the electric field strength at the object's surface. This, in turn, leads to small distances between the electrodes, restricting the photon flux that should be high for the sake of resolution.The electron-optical development came to fruition in the sixties. Figure 1a shows a typical photoelectron image of a polycrystalline tantalum sample irradiated by the UV light of a high-pressure mercury lamp.

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Language in mental retardation: Individual and syndromic differences, and neurogenetic variation 1Based on a keynote presentation at the Third European Conference on Psychological Theory and Research in Mental Retardation, Geneva, September 1st, 2000.

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024//1421-0185.60.3.161 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 161-178 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Jean A. Rondal

Keyword(s):

Mental Retardation ◽

Language Development ◽

Oral Language ◽

Psychological Theory ◽

Genetic Syndromes ◽

Explanatory Variables ◽

Keynote Presentation ◽

Genetic Origins ◽

The Sixties ◽

The Individual

Predominantly non-etiological conceptions have dominated the field of mental retardation (MR) since the discovery of the genetic etiology of Down syndrome (DS) in the sixties. However, contemporary approaches are becoming more etiologically oriented. Important differences across MR syndromes of genetic origin are being documented, particularly in the cognition and language domains, differences not explicable in terms of psychometric level, motivation, or other dimensions. This paper highlights the major difficulties observed in the oral language development of individuals with genetic syndromes of mental retardation. The extent of inter- and within-syndrome variability are evaluated. Possible brain underpinnings of the behavioural differences are envisaged. Cases of atypically favourable language development in MR individuals are also summarized and explanatory variables discussed. It is suggested that differences in brain architectures, originating in neurological development and having genetic origins, may largely explain the syndromic as well as the individual within-syndrome variability documented. Lastly, the major implications of the above points for current debates about modularity and developmental connectionism are spelt out.

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