Interpreting Emotions in Russia and Eastern Europe

by Mark D. Steinberg (Editor), Valeria Sobol (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together important new work by an international and interdisciplinary group of leading scholars, Interpreting Emotions in Russia and Eastern Europe approaches emotions as a phenomenon complexly intertwined with society, culture, politics, and history. The stories in this book involve sensitive aristocrats, committed revolutionaries, aggressive nationalists, political leaders, female victims of sexual violence, perpetrators and victims of Stalinist terror, citizens in the former Yugoslavia in the wake of war, workers in post-socialist Romania, Balkan Romani "Gypsy" musicians, and veterans of the Afghan and Chechen wars. These essays explore emotional perception and expression not only as private, inward feeling but also as a way of interpreting and judging a troubled world, acting in it, and perhaps changing it. Essential reading for those interested in new perspectives on the study of Russia and Eastern Europe, past and present, this volume will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities who are seeking new and deeper approaches to understanding human experience, thought, and feeling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609090234
Publisher:	Northern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2011
Series:	NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	311
File size:	686 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark D. Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editor of the journal Slavic Review. His most recent books include Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred in Russia, 1910–1925 and A History of Russia, with Nicholas Riasanovsky, 8th edition. Valeria Sobol is Associate Professor and Language Program Coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of Febris Erotica: Lovesickness in the Russian Literary Imagination.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction Mark D. Steinberg Valeria Sobol 3

1 "The Queen of Lofty Thoughts": The Cult of Melancholy in Russian Sentimentalism Ilya Vinitsky 18

2 Leaving Your Family in 1797: Two Identities of Mikhail Murav'ev Andrei Zorin 44

3 Radicals and Feeling: The 1860s Victoria Frede 62

4 Shame and Modern Subjectivities: The Rape of Elizaveta Cheremnova Alexandra Oberländer 82

5 Thinking about Feelings: Affective Dispositions and Emotional Ties in Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire Ronald Grigor Suny 102

6 Bolsheviks and Emotional Hermeneutics: The Great Purges, Bukharin, and the February-March Plenum of 1937 Glennys Young 128

7 Breaking the Silence: Iurii Bondarev's Quietness between the "Sincerity" and "Civic Emotion" of the Thaw Polly Jones 152

8 Emplaced and Displaced: Theorizing the Emotions of Space in the Former Yugoslavia Judith Pintar 177

9 A Genealogy of Working-Class Anger: History, Emotions, and Political Economy in Romania's Jiu Valley Jack R. Friedman 201

10 Music, Emotion, and the "Other": Balkan Roma and the Negotiation of Exoticism Carol Silverman 224

11 Emotional Blueprints: War Songs as an Affective Medium Serguei Alex. Oushakine 248

Bibliography 277

Contributors 281

Index 285

Editorial Reviews

This volume... presents a series of case studies on the construction, representation, and historical significance of emotion. Though focused on Russia and, to a lesser degree, southeastern Europe, the contributions range widely over time—from the late eighteenth century to the present, and among disciplines—from history, literature, and cultural studies, to sociology and anthropology.... Taken as a whole, this volume demonstrates the vitality of this small but growing field within Russian and east European studies.

Slavic Review

A significant collection that advances a key subject in an important regional history, it should also be of interest to comparativists.

Peter N. Stearns

""A significant collection that advances a key subject in an important regional history, it should also be of interest to comparativists.

" -Peter N. Stearns, Provost and Professor of History, George Mason University

"This volume... presents a series of case studies on the construction, representation, and historical significance of emotion. Though focused on Russia and, to a lesser degree, southeastern Europe, the contributions range widely over time-from the late eighteenth century to the present, and among disciplines-from history, literature, and cultural studies, to sociology and anthropology.... Taken as a whole, this volume demonstrates the vitality of this small but growing field within Russian and east European studies.

"—-Slavic Review"

From the Publisher