Soviet Hieroglyphics

"[The Russian and American contributors] share a very high level of expertise and an impressive command of their material, which ranges from film to billboards to currency. Everything in this book, including the introduction, is worth reading... consistently fascinating... " —Choice

"... a lightning rush of images and ideas that constitute inviting material for future speculation." —Times Literary Supplement

"This collection of essays is a fine, even an exhilarating piece of work. Her brilliant analysis surveys a kaleidoscope of breaks and continuities: betweeen literature and non-print media, high culture and popular culture, homo sovieticus and homo russicus. —Slavic and East European Journal

"Of interest for scholars in several disciplines, Soviet Hieroglyphics provides many insights into recent Russian visual culture." —Canadian Slavonic Paper

These incisive essays describe contemporary Russian culture under conditions of social collapse. Focusing on visual culture, the book highlights the recurrent tension between two opposing tendencies in Russia today: the impulse to eradicate the cultural "hieroglyphics" of the Soviet past and the compulsion to reinscribe those sacred images onto contemporary texts.

NANCY CONDEE is on the faculty of the Slavic Department at the University of Pittsburgh. With her husband, Vladimir Padunov, she has directed the Working Group on Contemporary Russian Culture. She is co-author (with Padunov) of articles on Russian cultural politics in October, Framework, The Nation, and New Left Review and in numerous Russian publications.