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Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900
This book presents a side of Russian life that is largely unknown to the West--the world of popular culture. By surveying detective and science fiction, popular songs, jokes, box office movie hits, the stage, radio and television, Richard Stites introduces the people and cultural products that are household words to the Soviet people. He demonstrates how popular culture has over the past century had more impact on the lives of Russian people and reveals more about their lives than the works of giants of high culture. Richard Stites, Professor of History at Georgetown University, is the author of several books, including Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
84 people want to read
About the author
Richard Stites
30 books8 followersRichard Thomas Stites (December 2, 1931 – March 7, 2010) was a historian of Russian culture and professor of history at Georgetown University.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 7, 2011
Hmm... my notes have Soviet in the title in place of Russian; publisher's revision or Freudian slip on my part? I'm pretty sure I had a different cover, but it was a library copy and may have been rebound. Anyway.
Stites argues from an organic model of culture in which people participate in the creation of popular culture. Thus patterns in popular taste reflect attitudes to the family, foreigners, money, etc. Stites states that "Political control of culture has been a hallmark in this [20th] century" but argues that just because culture is created by or for elites does not mean that it cannot also be popular.
Stites argues from an organic model of culture in which people participate in the creation of popular culture. Thus patterns in popular taste reflect attitudes to the family, foreigners, money, etc. Stites states that "Political control of culture has been a hallmark in this [20th] century" but argues that just because culture is created by or for elites does not mean that it cannot also be popular.
July 24, 2020
This is a useful but very dry 209-page info dump with very little holding it together structurally — also I get the impulse, but saying that what you’re doing is ‘personal’ and contains loads of anecdotal evidence, then refusing to draw a sharp line of distinction between your historical sources + just things you heard at dinner parties in the 80s, makes for an untrustworthy account of several topics (most notably what “the people” thought politically and how that impacted culture)
November 13, 2014
In Soviet Popular Culture, Richard Stites attempts to demonstrate that, despite the perceptions of the western world, popular culture in the Soviet Union was never a realm devoted exclusively to high culture and the promulgation of political ideology. Although at times these elements were pervasive, the people of the Soviet Union rarely failed to challenge, or at least appropriate, government-imposed culture based on their personal needs and desires. As a general trend, most attempts by the state to be didactic or promote a specific viewpoint or representation of Soviet society failed to become engrained within the popular culture. If there was one theme that remained constant throughout the Soviet period, it was that entertainment had to be entertaining, or people would stop engaging with it.
Stites begins his account by covering the final two decades of the tsarist regime and then delves into the heart of his analysis. Although elements from the pre-Soviet era remained influential to varying degrees after 1917, the Bolshevik revolution introduced a radical transformation in popular culture that ran parallel to its social and political changes. Stites’ second chapter, which covers the first decade of the Soviet Union, chronicles Soviet culture’s development from the stifling conditions of war communism through the artistic openness of the New Economic Program. Given the freedom to choose between the state-sponsored avant-garde movement and more “popular” (and often foreign-inspired) forms of culture, the denizens of the Soviet Union chose the latter almost unanimously. This ignited two significant debates within the intelligentsia that would remain pervasive until dissolution. First of all, was it necessary to create a new culture that was symbolic of the revolution, or did the need to educate the “masses”, even if it meant coopting bourgeois forms of dissemination, take precedence? Perhaps more importantly, what could be considered “culture”?
Stites’ narrative then takes the reader through a repressive period under Stalin, who attempted to impose a singular form of popular culture known as “socialist realism”. The effectiveness of the regime’s policies forced most competing styles underground and brought the diversity of popular culture to its lowest ebb. The exigencies of World War II permitted a cultural opening, one that was quashed at the conflict’s end by the conservative zhdanovshcina movement, which mixed politics and culture and promoted the supremacy of the communist party above all else. The Khrushchev era was less didactic and permitted freer expression, allowing youth subcultures and (subdued) opposition movements to come to the fore, the latter of which focused mainly on portraying the realities of Soviet life. Directives during the Brezhnev era changed little on the cultural scene, while Gorbachev’s glasnost permitted new cultural forms, as well as previously repressed old ones, to enter the public sphere.
Stites’ analysis covers a wide range of cultural mediums, but often focuses on literature, music, and film. The breadth of his work is admirable overall, particularly in consideration of the era in which he wrote and the sources to which he had access. While the first chapter is somewhat dry, the book soon becomes engaging and presents sufficient variety that it rarely becomes dull or repetitive. The author does an excellent job of contrasting state directives with what was actually popular with the people (although on occasion these did align), and underlining the overall inability of the state to impose a particular vision. It is the people, in Stites’ account, that are the driving force in culture creation and popularity, which counters the traditional perception of Soviets as obsequious and accepting of whatever was levied upon them by the state. For students of the Soviet Union, Soviet Popular Culture is not to be missed, whether for its unique perspective or its groundbreaking look into a subject that has been too readily dismissed by “serious” academics. Nevertheless, it is primarily an academic work, and casual readers should not be misled by the subject matter into believing that this is an easy, superficial, or even wholly accessible read, even though it is not bogged down with overly theoretical discourse.
Stites begins his account by covering the final two decades of the tsarist regime and then delves into the heart of his analysis. Although elements from the pre-Soviet era remained influential to varying degrees after 1917, the Bolshevik revolution introduced a radical transformation in popular culture that ran parallel to its social and political changes. Stites’ second chapter, which covers the first decade of the Soviet Union, chronicles Soviet culture’s development from the stifling conditions of war communism through the artistic openness of the New Economic Program. Given the freedom to choose between the state-sponsored avant-garde movement and more “popular” (and often foreign-inspired) forms of culture, the denizens of the Soviet Union chose the latter almost unanimously. This ignited two significant debates within the intelligentsia that would remain pervasive until dissolution. First of all, was it necessary to create a new culture that was symbolic of the revolution, or did the need to educate the “masses”, even if it meant coopting bourgeois forms of dissemination, take precedence? Perhaps more importantly, what could be considered “culture”?
Stites’ narrative then takes the reader through a repressive period under Stalin, who attempted to impose a singular form of popular culture known as “socialist realism”. The effectiveness of the regime’s policies forced most competing styles underground and brought the diversity of popular culture to its lowest ebb. The exigencies of World War II permitted a cultural opening, one that was quashed at the conflict’s end by the conservative zhdanovshcina movement, which mixed politics and culture and promoted the supremacy of the communist party above all else. The Khrushchev era was less didactic and permitted freer expression, allowing youth subcultures and (subdued) opposition movements to come to the fore, the latter of which focused mainly on portraying the realities of Soviet life. Directives during the Brezhnev era changed little on the cultural scene, while Gorbachev’s glasnost permitted new cultural forms, as well as previously repressed old ones, to enter the public sphere.
Stites’ analysis covers a wide range of cultural mediums, but often focuses on literature, music, and film. The breadth of his work is admirable overall, particularly in consideration of the era in which he wrote and the sources to which he had access. While the first chapter is somewhat dry, the book soon becomes engaging and presents sufficient variety that it rarely becomes dull or repetitive. The author does an excellent job of contrasting state directives with what was actually popular with the people (although on occasion these did align), and underlining the overall inability of the state to impose a particular vision. It is the people, in Stites’ account, that are the driving force in culture creation and popularity, which counters the traditional perception of Soviets as obsequious and accepting of whatever was levied upon them by the state. For students of the Soviet Union, Soviet Popular Culture is not to be missed, whether for its unique perspective or its groundbreaking look into a subject that has been too readily dismissed by “serious” academics. Nevertheless, it is primarily an academic work, and casual readers should not be misled by the subject matter into believing that this is an easy, superficial, or even wholly accessible read, even though it is not bogged down with overly theoretical discourse.
September 14, 2012
I just needed to read the introduction and first chapter for some background, but found these first 40 pages or so to be well-written, well-organized, and pitched at a good level - undergraduate, or introductory text for more extensive further research. Author interacts with other theorists, but does not allow such to bog down his text or the clarity of his style. Tantalizing examples illustrate his various types of popular entertainment; for the student hoping to delver further into a specific genre, hopefully some of his examples are available (by now) in English translation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews