Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker’s Music and Soviet Power, 1917-1932, “trace[s] the transformation of pre-Revolutionary Russian music culture into Soviet music culture over the space of fifteen years”[1] focusing on how the music changed and adapted to the communist ideology of the new Soviet Union. It takes us through the tumultuous experimental period from the […]
The Primorsky Oceanarium is an educational center located on the Russky Island in Primorsky Krai, Russia. The main building of the Oceanarium has a modern look and unique shape, meant to symbolize a shell poking out of the blue sea. The oceanarium focuses on educating visitors about Russia’s aquatic zones, meaning ocean, sea, and river […]
Joan Neuberger, This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2019. 404 pp., $48.95 hb. ISBN-13 978-1501732768. A reader familiar with the political discourse surrounding Sergei Eisenstein’s 1944 film Ivan the Terrible would not be blamed for approaching a book aiming to analyze the film in its […]
Aleksei Balabanov is one of Russia’s best known directors of the 1990s and his movies are known for capturing the essence of those turbulent years. Balabanov’s Education and Early Work By Matthew Jensen Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov was born in the town of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) on 25 February 1959. He studied at the Gorky Pedagogical […]
The Museum of Russian Impressionism curators have a mission – in addition to presenting visitors with beautiful and awe-inspiring works, the owners and staff conduct research, education, and events to bring awareness to Russian impressionism as a distinct phenomenon. Their goal is to someday achieve global recognition for the Russian impressionist period and celebrate its […]
Russian Symbolism, a diverse literary and intellectual movement at the turn of the 20th century, played a pivotal role in Russia’s adoption of Modernist culture. Inspired in part by the French and Belgian movements of the same name, Russian Symbolism was also a response to the academic moralism and stiff utilitarianism that dominated Russian artistic […]
The Moscow Kremlin has long been the main symbol of Moscow and Russia – and for good reason. It was with the Kremlin that city of Moscow officially began and from which it grew. The Prince of Moscow, ruling from the Kremlin and drawing on the growing power of his city, united and conquered the […]
In his seminal work, Men Without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929, Eliot Borenstein characterized the period of Russian history immediately following the October Revolution as an era of immense sexual upheaval, arguing that the Soviet Union experienced not one, but two sexual revolutions occurring “at opposite ends of the sociopolitical spectrum … […]
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular composers of all time and produced numerous symphonies, operas, piano concertos, and ballets. The Russian composer’s works can be found today not only in concert halls across the world, but also used in popular culture as recognizable and emotionally affecting pieces. He also remains a constant […]
