From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature and Cinema between the Second and the Third Worlds

by Rossen Djagalov

Overview

Would there have been a Third World without the Second? Perhaps, but it would have looked very different. From Internationalism to Postcolonialism recounts the story of two Cold War-era cultural formations that claimed to represent the Third World project in literature and cinema, and offers a compelling genealogy of contemporary postcolonial studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228001102
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	03/19/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Rossen Djagalov is assistant professor of Russian at New York University, a research fellow at the Poletayev Institute of the Higher School of Economics, and a member of the editorial collective of LeftEast.

Table of Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 3

1 Entering the Soviet Literary Orbit, Early 1920s-Mid-1950s 32

2 The Afro-Asian Writers Association (1958-1991) and Its Literary Field 65

3 "The Links That Bind Us": Solidarity Narratives in Third-Worldist Fiction 111

4 The Tashkent Film Festival (1968-1988) as a Contact Zone 137

5 "Brothers!": Solidarity Documentary Film 173

Epilogue 210

Appendix: Lotus Prize Winners, 1969-1988 227

Notes 229

Bibliography 261

Index 295

Editorial Reviews

Blending provocative rhetoric with careful archival analysis, Rossen Djagalov’s passionately argued new monograph, From Internationalism to Postcolonialism, makes a compelling case for the need to narrate a new origin story for postcolonial studies … From Internationalism to Postcolonialism’s admirably detailed analysis provides its interdisciplinary audience with a series of counter-intuitive, but convincing, revelations.” University of Toronto Quarterly


This book makes a remarkable contribution to knowledge; it significantly enriches our understanding of Leftist cultural internationalism and challenges much received thinking about world literature. Djagalov's prose is learned and engaging, at times touched by healthy irony, yet never hesitant in conveying a wider sense of commitment. Galin Tihanov, Queen Mary University of London


From Internationalism to Postcolonialism is groundbreaking. Overturning the overwhelming focus of past scholarship on the Soviet Union's cultural and political interrelationships with Europe and the West, Djagalov casts light on the extensive network of institutions, relationships and people through which Soviet culture engaged with the global south and the developing world. In so doing, he uncovers an important and profoundly understudied genealogy for anti-imperial and post-colonial thought and action. This book is essential for any scholar or student of global cultural life of the twentieth century. Kevin M.F. Platt, University of Pennsylvania


From Internationalism to Postcolonialism provides a highly valuable reference for readers and scholars interested in the breadth and depth of cultural outreach conducted by the former Soviet Union. Los Angeles Review of Books


Djagalov's contribution is immense: at once a work of diplomatic history that situates postcolonial literature within the unexpected framework of socialist internationalism, From Internationalism to Postcolonialism is also a rehabilitation of Third World writers whose work largely had been forgotten as unexceptional national allegory." Djagalov's command of postcolonial studies and Cold War diplomatic history is impressive, and I hope the book finds its audience within both of these divergent fields." H-Net

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