The Afterlife of the ‘Soviet Man’: Rethinking Homo Sovieticus (Russian Shorts) - Softcover

Sharafutdinova, Gulnaz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 135016772X ISBN 13: 9781350167728

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023

Synopsis

Almost three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today more often than ever, global media and intellectuals rely on the concept of homo sovieticus to explain Russia's authoritarian ills. Homo sovieticus - or the Soviet man - is understood to be a double-thinking, suspicious and fearful conformist with no morality, an innate obedience to authority and no public demands; they have been forged in the fires of the totalitarian conditions in which they find themselves.

But where did this concept come from? What analytical and ideological pillars does it stand on? What is at stake in using this term today? The Afterlife of the 'Soviet Man' addresses all these questions and even explains why – at least in its contemporary usage – this concept should be abandoned altogether.

About this title

About the Authors

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova is Professor of Russian Politics at King's Russia Institute (King's College London, UK. She is the author of award-winning The Red Mirror: Putin's Leadership and Russia's Insecure Identity (2020) and an earlier monograph, Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism Inside Russia (2011). She is also the co-editor, along with Neringa Klumbyte, of Soviet Society In The Era of Late Socialism, 1964-1985 (2012).

Eugene M. Avrutin is the Tobor Family Endowed Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. He is the author and co-editor of several award-winning books, including Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (2010) and The Velizh Affair: Blood Libel in a Russian Town (2018). Most recently, he edited, with Elissa Bemporad, Pogroms: A Documentary History (2021).

Stephen M. Norris is Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Russian History and Director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University (OH), USA. He is the author and editor of seven books, including A War of Images: Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity, 1812-1945 (2008) and Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory, Patriotism (2012).

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 135016772X
• ISBN 13: 9781350167728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136