Post-Soviet Literature and the Search for a Russian Identity

ISBN-13: 9781137596727 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 232 str.

Boris Noordenbos

Opis

This book examines a wide range of contemporary Russian writers whose work, after the demise of Communism, became more authoritative in debates on Russia's character, destiny, and place in the world. Unique in his in-depth analysis of both playful postmodernist authors and fanatical nationalist writers, Noordenbos pays attention to not only the acute social and political implications of contemporary Russian literature but also literary form by documenting the decline of postmodern styles, analyzing shifting metaphors for a "Russian identity crisis," and tracing the emergence of new forms of authorial ethos. To achieve this end, the book builds on theories of postcoloniality, trauma, and conspiracy thinking, and makes these research fields productively available for post-Soviet studies.

Spis treści

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

The Black Holes of History: Narratives of Cultural Trauma 

CHAPTER TWO

Post-Totalitarian Identity and the Struggle with Literaturocentrism

CHAPTER THREE

Empire of Empty Signs: Unsettling Imitations of “the West”

PART II

CHAPTER FOUR

Imperial Stiob: The Aesthetics of Chauvinism

CHAPTER FIVE

The Return of the Dead: Haunting Traumas and Nostalgic Dreams

CHAPTER SIX

Interpreting Gorbachev’s Birthmark: Conspiratorial Visions of Russian Identity

CONCLUSION

WORKS CITED

Boris Noordenbos is Assistant Professor in Literary Studies at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

This book examines a wide range of contemporary Russian writers whose work, after the demise of Communism, increasingly became more authoritative in debates on Russia’s character, destiny, and place in the world. Unique in his in-depth analysis of both playful postmodernist authors and fanatical nationalist writers, Noorbendos pays attention to not only the acute social and political implications of contemporary Russian literature but also literary form by documenting the decline of postmodern styles, analyzing shifting metaphors for a “Russian identity crisis,” and tracing the emergence of new forms of authorial ethos. To achieve this end, the book connects the fields of postcoloniality, trauma, and conspiracy thinking with post-Soviet studies, an endeavor that has been grossly overlooked until now.

O autorze

Boris Noordenbos is Assistant Professor in Literary Studies at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Blurb

This book examines a wide range of contemporary Russian writers whose work, after the demise of Communism, increasingly became more authoritative in debates on Russia’s character, destiny, and place in the world. Unique in his in-depth analysis of both playful postmodernist authors and fanatical nationalist writers, Noorbendos pays attention to not only the acute social and political implications of contemporary Russian literature but also literary form by documenting the decline of postmodern styles, analyzing shifting metaphors for a “Russian identity crisis,” and tracing the emergence of new forms of authorial ethos. To achieve this end, the book connects the fields of postcoloniality, trauma, and conspiracy thinking with post-Soviet studies, an endeavor that has been grossly overlooked until now.