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A must-read for any fan or student of Russian film
Dr. Birgit Beumers has written extensively on Russian film as well as its culture and media, and her expertise shows. This history of Russian cinema is accessible and wonderfully balanced, and contains an extensive discussion of the highly dynamic period since the 'collapse.' There is always some history to any overview of Russian/Soviet cinema, given how extensively the state governed the country's film apparatus for many years. That having been said, some texts lean a little too much into the politics and lose sight of the cinema. Beumers does not do that. Her text illuminates on the state/art link, and the narrative is loosely organized around periods of Russian/Soviet political history, but she never takes the reader too far away from what they came for - the movies. The selection of films discussed is broad and comprehensive, and the appendices are loaded with resources for further study.

A well-written, well-researched, and most welcome book that clearly displays the author's love of Russia's underappreciated film history. Would probably make an excellent text for a college course, and highly recommended for anyone who simply enjoys Russian cinema.
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This study provides a critical history of Russian psychology. The author analyzes Pavlovian theory of conditioned reflexes, Lenin's and Stalin's theories of political mental development, and the explorations of consciousness by Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Mandelstam in the context of Russia's revolutionary development from the 1860s to the 1960s. He describes state policies from Tsarist relaxation of censorship to the intense revolutionary assertion of thought control and then, starting in the 1950s, the renewed retreat towards the modern norm of intellectual autonomy. ... Read more

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Russian literature arrived late on the European scene.Within several generations, its great novelists had shocked - and then conquered - the world. In this introduction to the rich and vibrant Russian tradition, Caryl Emerson weaves a narrative of recurring themes and fascinations across several centuries. Beginning with traditional Russian narratives (saints' lives, folk tales, epic and rogue narratives), the book moves through literary history chronologically and thematically, juxtaposing literary texts from each major period. Detailed attention is given to canonical writers including Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn, as well as to some current bestsellers from the post-Communist period. Fully accessible to students and readers with no knowledge of Russian, the volume includes a glossary and pronunciation guide of key Russian terms as well as a list of useful secondary works. The book will be of great interest to students of Russian as well as of comparative literature. ... Read more

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A succinct review of Russian history from earliest time to the present. Most 4-year colleges and some 2-year colleges offer a survey course, usually 2-semester, on sophomore, junior, and senior levels. Course is taken by history and political science majors; also by significant numbers of business, sociology, economics, and engineering majors. This book provides the essentials of the subject to supplement lecture and text. In view of the vast and dramatic changes taking place in the Soviet Union today, the book should attract general readers as well as students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Handy History
This volume is mostly bullet-pointed summaries of the various and facetted history of Russia, with lots of references listed for a more indepth view.Well organized and concise.

Concise
Heyman's work is a solid, concise overview of key portions in Russian History. Anyone who has studied the depth and complexity involved in Russian history understands the difficulty in doing this, but Heyman did an alright job. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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Great book!
Great book and a very good seller! Hope we meet again.

Lázaro Silva
Terceira - Açores

An admirable sum of devotion and constancy!
Yesterday evening I received by mail a long and unexpected gift. A golden friend sent me a reproduction of this treasured book. And that 's why I just slept few hours tonight, reading here and there the invaluable and remarkable information around the development of the Russian Cinema.

Jay Leda -his author- worked untiringly during three years around the Schools and Cinematographic Soviet Studies. His tour de force allowed him to explore all the impressive amount of material, never released overseas, and obviously known works in the Western World. He made a vivid and authorized portrait of the artistic trajectory of different filmmakers and their works.

Kino is dedicated to any interested reader about the theme as well the specialist, it has been documented with statements of creators, critics and valuable illustrations, some of them never posted previously. It includes besides, a selected catalogue of premiered films between 1908 and 1958, with interesting details about directors, screenwriters, interpreters
and scenographers.

It is a must buy.
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Though usually forgotten in general surveys of European colonization, the Russians were among the greatest colonizers of the Old World, eventually settling across most of the immense expanse of Northern Europe and Asia, from the Baltic and the Pacific, and from the Arctic Ocean to Central Asia. This book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the Eurasian past by examining the policies, practices, cultural representations, and daily-life experiences of Slavic settlement in non-Russian regions of Eurasia from the time of Ivan the Terrible to the nuclear era.

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This Collection of Original Essays gives surprising insights into what foodways reveal about Russia's history and culture from Kievan times to the present. A wide array of sources - including chronicles, diaries, letters, police records, poems, novels, folklore, paintings, and cookbooks - help to interpret the moral and spiritual role of food in Russian culture. Stovelore in Russian folklife, fasting in Russian peasant culture, food as power in Dostoevsky's fiction, Tolstoy and vegetarianism, restaurants in early Soviet Russia, Soviet cookery and cookbooks, and food as art in Soviet paintings are among the topics discussed in this appealing volume. ... Read more

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An excellent collection of essays on a big theme
These essays -- by a roster of accomplished contemporary scholars of Russian Studies -- are wonderfully accesible and informative. Readers with interests in folk culture and history, Russian studies (history, literature, whatever) and/or culinary history will feel like they've struck gold. The thirteen scholarly pieces, some with a few illustrations, cover a wealth of topics (see table of contents above)-- consistently well. It's anything but dry; Pamela Chester's article on the relationship between (state-) tormented poets Marina Tsvetaeva and Osip Mandelstam (and their uses of food as symbol and, tragically, their deprivation of it, later) is heartbreaking. Peasantry, the gentry, and the Eastern Orthodox church; brilliant fussbudget Tolstoy's vegetarianism is in here; the uses of food in the writing of Dostoyevsky; fasting and food fashions; Catherine the Great (hardly any tastebuds; hearty interest in 'presentation'); the new Soviet state with its ambitious dreams for the citizenry, and the ultimate cynical mess that resulted. Food as power, class marker, moral symbol, and solace. The roots of asceticism (Orthodox church).Unfortunately, Jewish life and gulag life has been omitted, and a careful list of the prices of foodstuffs in St. Petersburg in Catherine's time is all rubles and kopeks... so I couldn't tell what I might have been able to afford.. What's here, though, is very good. I'll look for Volume 2.

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Amazing
The literature of Old Russia includes THE CAMPAIGN OF IGOR, a purely literary work using the methods of oral poetry.It is cast in the Russo-Slavonic literary language of the twelfth century.Avvakum, a schismatic of the Russian Orthodox Church, circa 1666-67, (burned at the stake in 1682), was the first person to use colloquial Russian for a literary purpose.After 1569 White Russia, Galicia, and Ukraine came under Polish rule.Original novel-writing began in the time of Peter during the first half of the eighteenth century.No novel was printed in Russia before 1750. The first original novel was published in 1763.In that era the new French-bred literature was confined to the upper classes.French classical standards were adopted.The leaders were four men, Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, and Sumarokov.The highest form of literary art was poetry, the epic.Odes were important, also.The greatest poet of the century was Derzhavin.His work was lyric.He conveyed light and color.The first Russian drama, Sumarokov's tragedy KHOREV, was performed in front of Empress Elizabeth in 1749.The most remarkable playwright was Fonvizin.Tragedy relied on French models and was stilted.Comedy was more inventive.

Prose writing was promoted by the Empress Catherine.Satirical journals were founded.The political shift to reaction following the French Revolution resulted in the closing of a journal publishing serious social satire on the subject of serfdom.The editor, Novikov, proceeded to start a publishing company, 1775-1789, and formed the Russian reading public.Karamzin reformed Russian literary language.It was Europeanized and became the language of Pushkin.Karamzin wrote THE HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN STATE, 1818.The most famous of his stories of the Russian monarchs is that of Boris Godunov.The style of the history is rhetorical.At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century fable writing became a craze.Krylov's FABLES are contained in nine volumes.Narezhny's novel, A RUSSIAN GIL BLAS, appeared in 1814.After 1820 poetry monopolized the market.Byron was an influence.The repression of the Decembrist Revolt was a blow to the intellectual elite of the gentry.After 1829 novels in the manner of Scott became popular.

In 1837 Pushkin died in a duel.In 1824 he had been expelled from the Civil Service and made to live on his mother's estate.Forced seclusion made him productive.Later he was granted a special pardon.He fell in love with Natalie Goncharova and married in 1831.The couple ended up in St. Petersburg attending court balls.The author seesaws between THE STONE GUEST and THE BRONZE HORSEMAN as being Pushkin's supreme achievement.At the time of Pushkin's death, Gogol was more esteemed.Dostoyevsky and Turgenev were among those artists laying the foundation for the Pushkin cult, (as the artist terms it).One of the chapters in the book is entitled, 'The Age of Gogol'.The recognition of Tyutchev as a great poet was belated.Lermontov's poetic fame burst on the scene with a poem on the death of Pushkin.(In 1841 he was killed in a duel.)His THE DEMON was a source of inspiration to the modern poets, Blok and Pasternak.A HERO OF OUR TIMES is of greater importance than his poetry.Turgenev began his career writing verse, 1838 to 1845.His poetry is not comparable to his stories.In drama of the thirties and forties the comedies of Gogol stood alone.The summit of his career was his novel, DEAD SOULS.Gogol's imaginative work is marellous, unexpected.His prose is intense, saturated; he has verbal expressiveness.

The realistic novel dominated Russian literature from 1845 to 1905.In 1844-45 Dostoyevsky wrote POOR FOLK. Good notices and interest in it were received from Belinsky and Nekrasov.In 1849 Dostoyevsky was taken off to Siberia.He evolved a new style by the fusion of extremes.In 1859 Goncharov published OBLOMOV.Turgenev's mother, a heiress, was a domestic tyrant.In 1845 he fell out with his mother.She disapproved of his infatuation with Pauline Viardot.A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHESappeared in book form in 1852.After FATHERS AND SONS, 1862, he abandoned Russia.SMOKE and VIRGIN SOIL emphasized his estrangement from living Russia.Of the poets, Fet was the great love poet and Nekrasov a great satirist.

Tolstoy was always a class-conscious nobleman.After the Crimean war he mixed with the literary world.He had an insatiable quest for moral stability.The married happiness of Tolstoy, taking place during the first fifteen years of marriage, is expressed in WAR AND PEACE.Writing was a struggle to master reality.WAR AND PEACE andANNA KARENINA have the appearance of real life.Dostoyevsky brought out CRIME AND PUNISHMENT in 1866 and THE GAMBLER in 1867.THE POSSESSED, 1873, was a success.The high water mark for Dostoyevsky was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, 1880.Tolstoy was a puritan and Dostoyevsky a symbolist.Leontiev's work, ANALYSIS, STYLE, AND ATMOSPHERE IN THE NOVELS OF COUNT L.N. TOLSTOY is a masterpiece of Russian criticism.Chekhov's first play, IVANOV, was produced in 1887.In 1895 he wrote THE SEAGULL.That play along with UNCLE VANYA, THE THREE SISTERS, and THE CHERRY ORCHARD was successfully produced by the Art Theater in Moscow, Stanislavsky.The author finds the stories 'In the Ravine' and 'My Life' the masterpieces of Chekhov's body of work.

The book is both charming and comprehensive.I have barely touched this book's expansive and learned treatment of its subject matter.

A classic
Prince Mirsky's good old book has in fact not been excelled by any other work concerning Russian literature from its beginnings to 1900. It is packed with information, and still very comprehensive and intriguing indeed in its analyses and anecdotes.

It also provides some entertaining lingual gems - the writer Derzhavin's prose, for example, is by Mirsky characterised as 'virile', and his philosophy as 'manfully thankful for the joys of ephemeral life', while the influent literary criticist Belinsky's style is condemned as 'execrable lingo'.

Anyone interested in Russian literature should read this book. As a reference book it serves excellently.

A Classic History of Classic Literature
A compilation of Mirsky's "A History of Russian Literature from the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky" combined with the first two chapters of his "Contemporary Russian Literature, 1881-1925." Mirsky was, indeed, a contemporary historian of some of the greatest writers of fiction. Tolstoy, Doestoyevsky, Gogol, Chekhov and Turgenev are explored within the historical and physical framework in which they lived.

This books is a classic exploration of Russian Literature that has had a great deal of impact on the teaching and understanding of Russian Literature.For example, the leading translators of Russian Literature, Pevear and Volokhonsky, make use of Mirsky's history. Their translation of Chekhov stories even recommends Mirsky's section on Checkhov. Their recommendation is, of course, of much greater import than mine.

Mirsky created a classic historical work of literature. It is one of the guides you need to understand some of the greatest literature of all time. ... Read more

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A fresh, commanding, and thought-provoking narrative history of the competing Russianand American “empires.”

The American road to empire started when the first English settlers landed in Virginia. Simultaneously, the first Russians crossedthe Urals and the two empires that would dominate the twentiethcentury were born. Empires Apart covers the history of the Americans and Russians from the Vikings to the present day. It showsthe two empires developed in parallel as they expanded to thePacific and launched wars against the nations around them. Theyboth developed an imperial 'ideology' that was central to the waythey perceived themselves.

Soon after, the ideology of the Russian Empire also changedwith the advent of Communism. The key argument of this bookis that these changes did not alter the core imperial values of either nation; both Russians and Americans continued to believein their manifest destiny. Corporatist and Communist imperialism changed only the mechanics of empire. Both nations haveshown that they are still willing to use military force and clandestine intrigue to enforce imperial control. Uniquely, Landers showshow the broad sweep of American history follows a consistentpath from the first settlers to the present day and, by comparingthis with Russia's imperial path, demonstrates the true nature of American global ambitions.

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A remarkable, scholarly, and educational read for world history collections
Empire is a concept that never truly goes away. "Empires Apart: A History of American and Russian Imperialism" looks at the concept of empire through the perspective of America and Russia. Through tis birth, America has been part of an empire or building an empire of its own, so much so that one could say the country is built on empire. Russia, one of the most massive land-wise countries in the world, has also made its identity out of manifest destiny. Looking at these two countries, their history, and their futures as super powers, "Empires Apart" proves to be a remarkable, scholarly, and educational read for world history collections.
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A huge anthology of Russian writers containing over 100 beloved novels, essays, plays and stories (such as War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment). An active table of contents makes it easy to navigate to each work.

Authors include:
Anton Checkov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Nikolai Gogol
Ivan Goncharov
Alexander Ostrovsky
Alexander Pushkin
Leo Tolstoy
Ivan Turgenev
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This work presents a survey of Russian literature from its beginnings in the 11th century to modern times. Victor Terras argues that Russian literature has reflected, defined, and shaped the nation's beliefs and goals, and he sets his survey against a background of social and political developments and religious and philosophic thought. Terras traces a rich literary heritage that encompasses Russian folklore of the 11th and 13th centuries, medieval literature that in style and substance drew on the Byzantine tradition and literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, when Russia passed through a succession of literary schools - neoclassicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, and realism - imported from the West. Terras then moves on to the masterful realist fiction of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoi during the second half of the 19th century, showing how it was a catalyst for the social and cultural advances following the reforms of Alexander II. In discussing the period preceding the revolution of 1917. Terras links the literary movements with parallel developments in the theatre, music and the visual arts, explaining that these all placed Russia in the forefront of European modernism.Terras divides Russian literature after the revolution into emigre and Soviet writing, and he demonstrates how the latter acted as a propaganda tool of the Communist party. He concludes his survey with the dissident movement that followed Stalin's death, arguing that the movement again made literature a leader in the struggle for freedom of thought, genuine relevance, and communion with Western culture. ... Read more

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Out of the Shadow book review
Great book, I loved it. Was happy with the seller and the quick delivery. Thank You allot!

A hand-to-mouth existence
Rose Cohen's autobiography is the story of the illegal emigration of an illiterate Jewish Russian family to New York in the 1890s. The family doesn't arrive in the land of `milk and honey' but in a brutal world of `hunger and exploitation'.
The father and his child daughter have to work in sweatshops for survival wages: `Fourteen hours a day you sit on a chair, often without a back, close to the other feller hand feeling the heat of her body. Fourteen hours with your back bent. Your eyes close to your work you sit stitching often by gaslight. In the winter your body is numb with cold. In the summer, no sun. The black cloth dust eats into your very pores.'
When the two come home, they live with the whole family of seven in two rooms, where the sun never comes in.
On top of that, there is the daily anxiety for loosing one's job. This became a reality in the massive and extreme depression of the `memorable years' of 1893-1894. People survived on a loaf of bread per day and could barely (or not) pay the rent with their savings.
As a reaction, labor became organized (`Each of you can do nothing.')
When there is a sparkle of hope and love (marriage), religion becomes an insurmountable barrier. There is fanaticism on both sides and the `others' speak `wild talk'

This moving and sometimes very emotional autobiography is a tale of pure survival in a world without pity and solidarity. It reminds us from where we all come from.
Highly recommended.

A Touching Story of Immigrant Experience
I am submitting a note from one of my buyers, which somehow ended up on my seller feedback page but should be included here:This is a beautifully written bittersweet story of immigrant experience from around 1890s to 1910. The writer tells of her painful but hopeful emergence from traditional and restrictive family life to wider experience. There is deep pathos in this story.

Out of the Shadow
Out of the Shadow, by Rose Cohen, is a book about a pious Russian Jewish family that immigrated to America, after leaving Russia, due to strict unbearable laws that were past by the Czar.The father left Russia in pursuit of a better life in America for his family.As he earned somewhat of a living in America, he sends for his eldest daughter, and his sister, to come and help him make more money so that the family doesn't have to stay in Russia for mush longer. As the twelve-year old Rahel, twenty-one year old Masha and tired father work in America, they soon makes enough money to send traveling tickets to Russia for the rest of the family to come to America.They struggle in America to be happy, accepted, healthy, prosperous and become "Americans." Many drastic changes take place in their first years, and continue throughout the book. The family becomes less pious, but don't forget the Jewish religion completely.Losing their piety was a way of fitting in America.They tried to understand the life in America, and saw that it is very different than their lives in Russia.The family of seven (5 kids and the parents) was not really a family anymore because every family member had their own responsibilities.The kids worked so hard and barely spent any time at home, and begged by their mother not to work on the Sabbath.Rahel and her sister worked in sweatshops, and most of the money they earned was not for them, but for the family, and that was the most important thing. With this money they would buy food, and clothing. The mother came with her children to America to live a better life than they had lived in Russia and expected a lot more money, food, clothing, and happiness in America.Instead they survive with barley any food, money and happiness.I feel that all these changes are very hard to live with, or rather get used to because the family had a different view of life in America and are being let down by their expectations.These changes are rather sad, and discouraging, in my opinion because as I had read this book, I really felt their sorrow, and pain.They also had some happy moments, for example when the whole family was finally together (in America), but those happy moments are rare as the reader reads on in the book. The living style that the family had in America was one very different from Russia because in Russia, their home was with more warmth and even though the father went away to America, the house still felt nice and warm.The family itself had each other and everyone took care of everyone.The grandparents were living with the whole family, and the grandma especially had a very warm personality, I noticed as she talked to her grand-children etc.The mother seemed a lot happier too because she seemed like the family is all that she has and she must keep the house alive and happy for everyone, although she too at times was sad. Russia was undergoing many difficulties, and the Czar made the living standards impossible for some people, including the Jews. The mother and if I may add, the father as well, had many other things on their minds, which would cause for some tears of their own.Even though the log house in Russia, in my opinion seemed warmer (affectionately), it was hard for the family to keep a "warm" and comfortable living environment in America. The family didn't even live in a "better" area! They lived in the ghetto, full of poverty! They wanted a better life, and lived in misery in America!The family was always hungry because they couldn't make enough money to buy enough food and there was so much crying!Not knowing how to read and write was also very hard for the parents, and the kids as well.For immigrants lacking education was not good, and it kept them from getting better jobs in America.America was very different than Russia and since the people were different and the living style was different the family had to fit in by looking like Americans! This was also very hard for Jew's for they were not liked among the other people in their neighborhood.The father had to cut off his beard and his ear locks to look American so that nothing would happen to him as he walked in the streets. The mother was persuaded to take off her head covering so that she wouldn't look old fashioned, and this was a sin.Rahel reminds her mother that the father trims his beard and she answers to Rahel, "Is that why...I too must sin" (Cohen p.154)? In my opinion, they should've just stayed in Russia, and kept their Jewish faith because America is changing them in a bad way. I say this because I feel very strongly about the Jewish faith, that it is very important, and no one/nothing can ever take it away from me, or change who I am. The parents became very dependent on the children in the family for they worked most of the time and they too were the ones that brought home the money.The children would work just as hard as the adults did, but earn less money and were treated differently because of their young ages.When Rahel was a servant, she felt inferior to those who lived better than she did.Children (adults too) were the ones that would keep the family alive, I would say, but also lived the worst lives because they had such back-breaking jobs at the sweatshops etc. "Fourteen hours a day you sit on a chair, often without a back, felling coats. Fourteen hours you sit close to the other feller hand feeling the heat of her body against yours, her breathe on your face.Fourteen hours with your back bent, your eyes close to your work you sit stitching in a dull room often gas light.In the winter during all these hours as you sit stitching your body is numb and cold.In the summer, as far as you are concerned, there might be no sun, no green grass, no soft breezes" (Cohen p. 125).Rahel's family lived during a horrible time and being immigrants was the worst.They became less pious, had extremely difficult jobs and were unhappy most of the time. I really enjoyed reading this book because I felt that as a Jew, I can really relate to this story, aside from the fact it took place during the 1800's.This historical period was very hard, and as I read this book, a tear or two fell.The story was a success at the end, I feel, when the eldest of the two sons was on his way to Cornell University, but aside from that, the family did have an extremely difficult time in America. In my opinion they failed to live a better life, than they had anticipated they would live when they were still in Russia.Out Of the Shadow was definitely, one of the best books that I have read. ... Read more

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