Based on Soviet sociological studies, Soviet fiction and film, and mass media reports, this volume explores the ways in which Soviet attitudes about love, sex, marriage, friendship, and children have been influenced by the evolution of Soviet ideology, politics, and economy since the Bolshevik revolution.

Love, marriage, and friendship in the Soviet Union: Ideals and practices

Self-Help

Shlapentokh, Vladimir

Relationships

Praeger

From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, the Soviet people's acceptance of official state ideology was gradually replaced by an emphasis on the family and the individual. Perhaps one of the most important social, economic, and political processes to occur in modern Soviet society, privatization has caused people to withdraw their time, energy, and emotion from state controlled activities, investing them instead in family and friendship. Utilizing novels, films, and his own surveys done in the Soviet Union, the author, an emigre sociologist, analyzes the evolution of attitudes toward family and friendship and the emergence and development of civil society as a sphere of interaction not directed by the state. Finally, Shlapentokh examines Gorbachev's reforms as an attempt by the political elite to restore the authority of the state and the prestige of official public activity as well as to exploit some elements of privatization in the interests of the state. A gripping and revealing account of an aspect of Soviet society usually hidden from Westerners, this book will attract a broad audience.

Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

With a historical sweep that recent events have made definitive, the authors examine the influence of Soviet ideology on the presentation of social reality in films produced in the Soviet Union between the October Revolution and the final days of glasnost. Within the framework of an introduction that lays out the conceptual terminology used to describe that shifting ideological landscape, the authors analyze both the social groups appearing in the films and the relations of film directors and other film makers to state censorship and ideological control.

Soviet Cinematography 1918 - 1991: Ideological Conflict and Social Reality (Communication and Social Order)

Humor & Entertainment

Shlapentokh, Dmitry

Movies

de Gruyter

The book offers a theoretical discussion of the feudal model and a preliminary application of the model to post-Soviet Russia. In addition to a review of the feudal model as an ideal type, the authors explain the analytical benefits of drawing comparisons between countries and across historical contexts.

Contemporary Russia as a Feudal Society

Business & Money

Woods, Joshau

Economics

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

Feudal America: Elements of the Middle Ages in Contemporary Society

Do Americans live in a liberal capitalist society, where evenhanded competition rules the day, or a society in which big money, private security, and personal relations determine key social outcomes? Vladimir Shlapentokh and Joshua Woods argue that the answer to these questions cannot be found among the conventional models used to describe the nation. Offering a new analytical tool, the authors present a provocative explanation of the nature of contemporary society by comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval European societies. Their feudal model emphasizes five elements: the weakness of the state and its inability to protect its territory, guarantee the security of its citizens, and enforce laws; conflicts and collusions between and within organizations that involve corruption and other forms of illegal or semilegal actions; the dominance of personal relations in political and economic life; the prevalence of an elitist ideology; and the use of private agents and organizations for the provision of safety and security. Feudal America urges readers to suspend their forward-thinking and futurist orientations, question linear notions of social and historical progression, and look for explanations of contemporary social problems in medieval European history.

History

Woods, Joshua

Americas

Penn State University Press

Love, Marriage, and Friendship in the Soviet Union: Ideals and Practices

State Organized Terror: The Case Of Violent Internal Repression

Bushnell, P. Timothy

Vanderpool, Christopher

Sundram, Jeyaratnam

Death & Grief

Routledge

This book, an outcome of an international conference entitled "State Organized Terror: The Case of Violent Internal Repression", addresses the antecedent structural factors conducive to state organized terror and provides insights into the political and social psychology of state terror.

Written in the spirit of comparative and historical analysis, this book addresses the relationship between the center and its provinces?an important issue in any society?using Russia as a case study. The authors investigate the historical stages of Russia's past with a special focus on the postcommunist era, a time when the movement toward regional autonomy (regionalization) is extremely important as a molder of political and economic life. In addition, the book shows how historical traditions, on the one hand, and the new market economy and democratization, on the other, will shape the relationship between the center and provinces in the coming decades.Shlapentokh, Levita, and Loiberg direct their attention not only to factors which shape regionalization, but also to the effects of this process on many different facets of Russian life. They argue that regionalization in Russia, as well as in other countries, is a contradictory process that has both benefits and drawbacks for social and economic progress.The solid research foundation draws from a rich body of sources, including Russian periodicals, statistical yearbooks, work by Russian and Western authors, data gathered in nationwide surveys conducted specifically for this project, and insightful observations made by the authors during their numerous visits to various regions in Russia.

From Submission To Rebellion: The Provinces Versus The Center In Russia

Levita, Roman

Loiberg, Mikhail

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