Vesa Oittinen, Elina Viljanen (eds): Stalin Era Intellectuals. Culture and Stalinism

Vesa Oittinen, Elina Viljanen (eds): Stalin Era Intellectuals. Culture and Stalinism. New York: Routledge 2022. ISBN 9781003219835

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements. The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology, literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism and Soviet culture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction: On Soviet Intellectual Culture during the Stalin Era Vesa Oittinen and Elina Viljanen

2 Fighting Avant-Garde with Phenomenology: Gustav Shpet’s ‘New Realism’ Liisa Bourgeot

3 The Concept of ‘Menshevising Idealism’ and the Stalinisation of Soviet Philosophy Vesa Oittinen

4 The Naked Truth of Fact: Andrey Platonov on the Margins of Factography Maria Chehonadskikh

5 Everyday Symphonism: Boris Asafiev’s Soviet Theory of Popular Music Elina Viljanen

6 Confronting Modernism in the Stalin Era: Mikhail Lifshits as Critic and Philosopher of Culture Sascha Freyberg

7 Maxim Gorky as Spokesman for Proletarian Humanism Jutta Scherrer

8 Sofya Yanovskaya in Defence of Abstractions: Between Soviet Ideology and Bourgeois Idealism Tatiana Levina

9 The Anti-Fascist Cultural Theory of Nikolai Bukharin and the Concept of Socialist Humanism Vesa Oittinen and  Elina Viljanen

10 Nikolay Marr’s Theory of Language and Konstantin Megrelidze’s Historical Science of Thought  Elene Ladaria

11 Between Critique and Conformism: The Languages and Cultures of Caste and Nation in Stalin-era Indology Craig Brandist

12 Stalin and Philosophy in Soviet Russia Marina F. Bykova

13 Stalinism, War, and Artistic Representation of Reality: Konstantin Simonov’s Critique of the ‘System of Silence’ in 1956 Susan Ikonen

EDITOR(S) BIOGRAPHY

Vesa Oittinen is a professor emeritus of Russian philosophy and intellectual history at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). His publications focus on the history of philosophy, especially Spinoza, German classical philosophy and Marxism, and on Russian and Soviet philosophy.

Elina Viljanen is a post-doctoral scholar at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). Holding a PhD in musicology, she specialises in Russian intellectual history of music and Soviet culture.