In the "years of stagnation" before glasnost changed the cultural map of the Soviet Union, Iurii Trifonov (1926-1981) defied the rules of censorship. In "Invented Truth," Josphine Woll examines how, within the repressive artistic and political constraints of the Soviet publishing world, Trifonov managed not only to write on controversial tropics such as Soviet history but even to achieve and maintain popular status in doing so.

Woll analyzes the aesthetic strategies Trifonov deployed to transmit his ideas and opinions to Soviet readers and elucidates the major themes of his late fiction:...

Real Images is the first book to investigate, and analyze Soviet cinema of ""the thaw"" from the aftermath of Stalin's death in 1953 to the late 1960s, during Kruschev's rule. Josephine Woll explains how Soviet industry and filmmakers strove to satisfy audiences' hunger for films, while accommodating the political mood shifts that characterized the period. Film and filmmakers played a critical role in the Soviet Union's attempts to get out from underneath Stalinist ideology.