Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
Author :
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages : 337
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780822973911
ISBN-13 : 082297391X
Rating : 4/5 (11 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by : Gyorgy Peteri

Download or read book Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union written by Gyorgy Peteri and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents work from an international group of writers who explore conceptualizations of what defined "East" and "West" in Eastern Europe, imperial Russia, and the Soviet Union. The contributors analyze the effects of transnational interactions on ideology, politics, and cultural production. They reveal that the roots of an East/West cultural divide were present many years prior to the rise of socialism and the Cold War. The chapters offer insights into the complex stages of adoption and rejection of Western ideals in areas such as architecture, travel writings, film, music, health care, consumer products, political propaganda, and human rights. They describe a process of mental mapping whereby individuals "captured and possessed" Western identity through cultural encounters and developed their own interpretations from these experiences. Despite these imaginaries, political and intellectual elites devised responses of resistance, defiance, and counterattack to defy Western impositions. Socialists believed that their cultural forms and collectivist strategies offered morally and materially better lives for the masses and the true path to a modern society. Their sentiments toward the West, however, fluctuated between superiority and inferiority. But in material terms, Western products, industry, and technology, became the ever-present yardstick by which progress was measured. The contributors conclude that the commodification of the necessities of modern life and the rise of consumerism in the twentieth century made it impossible for communist states to meet the demands of their citizens. The West eventually won the battle of supply and demand, and thus the battle for cultural influence.


Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union Related Books

Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
Language: en
Pages: 337
Authors: Gyorgy Peteri
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-11-28 - Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents work from an international group of writers who explore conceptualizations of what defined "East" and "West" in Eastern Europe, imperial Ru
Inventing Eastern Europe
Language: en
Pages: 444
Authors: Larry Wolff
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: Stanford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Wolff explores how Western thinkers contributed to defining and characterizing Eastern Europe as half-civilized and barbaric.
Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Language: en
Pages: 224
Authors: Vedrana Veličković
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-04-08 - Publisher: Springer

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe provides a comprehensive study of the way in which contemporary writers, filmmake
Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain
Language: en
Pages: 313
Authors: Malgorzata Fidelis
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-06-10 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Sixties occupy a prominent place in popular culture and scholarship as an era of global upheavals, including the Civil Rights Movement, de-colonization, rad
Nikolai Bolkhovitinov and American Studies in the USSR
Language: en
Pages: 295
Authors: Sergei I. Zhuk
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-07-06 - Publisher: Lexington Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This study is an intellectual biography of Nikolai N. Bolkhovitinov (1930–2008), the prominent Soviet historian who was a pioneering scholar of US history and