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donate Summary of NZ 65 (3/2009)
The 65th issue of NZ consists of several related thematic blocks. The opening topic – "Education of feelings: the Soviet ethos" – is devoted to various aspects of "Soviet" experience, first of all ethical. It includes research on Soviet hygiene by Konstantin Bogdanov, a remarkable selection of interviews on love and marriage with Soviet women of different generations, research on female intelligent happiness by sociologist Rozaliya Cherepanova from Chelyabinsk, an article on atheistic education in the USSR by the American researcher Victoria Smolkin, and an analysis of the Leningrad blockade conversations in 1941-1942 by Sergey Yarov.
The conversation between the Parisian writer Andrey Lebedev and the writer and representative of the third wave of Russian emigration Evgeny Ternovskiy is about the moral objectives of the Moscow intellectuals of the 1960s.
Soviet as an object of the post-Soviet reception is discussed by Natalia Samutina and Boris Stepanov in "Politics of culture". Ethics, not of the Soviet society but of the post-Soviet researchers of the Soviet Stalin period is the topic of notes by the historian Pavel Polyan on the conference "History of Stalinism: Results and Research Perspectives" held in Moscow in December 2008.
Another major theme of the issue is the correlation between special and universal in connection with the ideological construction Russian exclusiveness. A more detailed analysis of the topic can be found in the section "Russian beauty: the national in modern art". This part consists of articles by Ellen Rutten on "the Russian project" at the Groningen museum (in particular the sensational painting exhibition by Ilya Repin) and Alexander Bobrikov on the scandalous artist Alexander Belyaev-Gintovt who maintains ultranationalist moods in Russia. The Italian Slavists Damiano Rebecchini and Nina Colantoni talk about exhibitions of modern Russian art in Milan. Stanislav Savitsky, Thomas Campbell, Phillip Dontsov, Andrey Klyukanov, George Witte, Sergey Khachaturov and Gleb Ershov discuss the so-called "Russian beauty". The philosopher Igor Smirnov has chosen a curious topic for his essay "On toilet seats, or Why I am the patriot".
"Federalism, society, state" is the third thematic section of the issue. The NZ editor Andrey Zakharov provokes the reader to consider the RSFSR federalism as an example to follow; the research by Eduard Scherbenko is devoted to the attitude of the Ukraine citizens to their own state institutions; Andrey Makarychev questions whether "the return of a policy in the sphere of federal relations of the present Russia is possible".
We would also like to draw your attention to the regular headings "Sociological lyrics" (Aleksey Levinson) and "Humanitarian economics" (Evgeny Saburov). In the "Culture of politics"-section Andrey Ranchin shares his views of the Russian education reform and in particular on the Uniform Graduation Examination.
We round off with our regular reviews: "New books" and "Russian intellectual journals review" (Vyacheslav Morozov and Petr Rezvykh). Of special interest is the review by Alexander Boroznyak on the important research into the history of the Leningrad blockade carried out by the German Historian Jörg Ganzenmüler. And Tatyana Bonch-Osmolovskaya has read Stephen Fry in America by the British writer, actor and comedian Stephen Fry about his travel across the United States.
Published 2009-07-02
Original in Belarusian
Contributed by Neprikosnovennij Zapas
© Neprikosnovennij Zapas
© Eurozine
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