Москва, четвертый Рим. Сталинизм, космополитизм и эволюция советской культуры

by Katerina Clark, Катерина Кларк

В XVI веке Филофей, инок Псковского Спасо-Елеазарова монастыря, провозгласил Москву Третьим Римом. К началу 1930-х годов интеллектуалы и художники всего мира видели в Москве источник нового просветительского и освободительного проекта. Труд известного слависта, профессора Йельского университета Катерины Кларк показывает, как официальные институции и советские интеллектуалы пытались утвердить репутацию СССР в качестве центра левого и антифашистского движений, превратить Москву в культурный образец нового глобального будущего. Главные герои этой книги - С.Эйзенштейн, С.Третьяков, М.Кольцов и И.Эренбург, чья интеллектуальная, художественная и политическая активность легла в основу меняющейся генеральной линии советской культурной дипломатии на протяжении второй половины 1920-х-1930-х годов. Теоретический контекст данного исследования составляют работы Б.Брехта, В.Беньямина, Г.Лукача и М.Бахтина. В свою очередь, ключевые понятия современного социогуманитарного знания - транснационализм, космополитизм, мировая литература - задают новый политический и полемический контекст для понимания их собственных работ. В результате такого челночного прочтения на месте железного занавеса, зачастую предопределяющего описание советской культуры 1930-х годов, обнаруживается интернациональное пространство интеллектуального диалога.

Genres: History, Russia, Russian History, Soviet Union, Nonfiction, Cultural, Politics

520 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2011

About the author

Katerina Clark is B. E. Bensinger Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her books include Moscow, the Fourth Rome; Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution; and, with Michael Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this year, 1935, Eisenstein was repeatedly attacked for his linguistic universalism and seen as not sufficiently patriotic.

Katerina Clark asserts that 1935 marked the apex of Stalinist Cosmopolitanism, she cites the alliance with the French Popular Front and the virtual explosion of Shakespeare translation and celebration especially around Moscow. The dynamic change to follow is inscrutable. The use of the Bard is interesting, not a high art endeavor but the bodily poetry of a Bottom or a Falstaff. Think Bakhtin and his Rabelais and His World.

The first six years of the decade witnessed incredible cross pollination, most pointedly in terms of translation. Berlin, at least before 1933, was satellite for ideas to distill: Modernism could then find quick traction with Soviet audiences. Clark is captivated by the symbolic, how images of Lenin always captured him speaking but those of Stalin commonly showed him writing, at, work—redefining a reality.

She tends to shoehorn events into theory: finding stagings of Brecht to satisfy a tenet of Benedict Anderson or parsing links between Benjamin and Eisenstein. Far too much time is spent on the Spanish Civil War or the proliferation of the Stanislavsky Method. The latter forms an eerie counterpoint to the Show Trials. Lastly encompassing the anxiety of the prewar period was the advent of a Byron Cult, right there in Red Square. I’m far from convinced but undoubtedly entertained. Schiller found the sublime to be a simultaneous eruption of joy and terror. I’d call this mess something similar in analytical terms.

[Olga · Rating 3 out of 5]

A persuasive reinterpretation of Stalinist culture in the 1930s as not monolothic or closed off from the West, but as deeply engaged in conversation with past and contemporary Western trends. The book particularly stands out for its careful reading of Soviet literary journals of the period, and its teasing out of the various discourses (sometimes appearing as masked criticism of Stalin's cultural policies) that took place under the seemingly still waters of official Soviet doctrine. At times the reader can get tangled in the web of names and dates, but this does not obscure the book's overarching argument that Moscow, despite the repressive policies of Stalinism at home, sought to insert itself into the center of a progressive cosmopolitan culture that was envisioned to include not only Europe, but even the United States.

[Rob M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovingly composed and gorgeously detailed literary and cultural history of the Soviet 1930s. By no means a hagiography of Stalinism, this book is nonetheless an antidote to the prevalent narrative of a the Soviet Union being little more than a terrifying black hole.

[William David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really cool book to study. It's interesting to see how the Stalinist USSR can both insulate into itself increasingly as the Great Terror went on, but still kept a spirit of internationalism through its connection to Europe lol? I definitely need to look more into the Eisenstein bit about Chinese theatre considered as a more 'emotive' mode of communication than Euro, I genuinely cannot tell if this is Orientalist or not. Highly recommend!

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a sophisticated approach to Stalinism, communism, Leftist internationalism, modernity, and Moscow. The author’s books on St. Petersburg and the Soviet novel are almost as good.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit effete, but an interesting read about the cultural milieu of the USSR in the 1930s.

[Mirumir · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Boy” was not just meeting “tractor,” he was also encountering Western culture.