University of Pittsburgh Press
How the Soviet Man Was Unmade: Cultural Fantasy and Male Subjectivity Under Stalin
Key Metrics
- Lilya Kaganovsky
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Paperback
- 9780822959939
- 8.9 X 6 X 0.7 inches
- 0.85 pounds
- Literary Criticism > Russian & Former Soviet Union
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In How the Soviet Man Was Unmade, Lilya Kaganovsky exposes the paradox behind the myth of the indestructible Stalinist-era male. In her analysis of social-realist literature and cinema, she examines the recurring theme of the mutilated male body, which appears with startling frequency. Kaganovsky views this representation as a thinly veiled statement about the emasculated male condition during the Stalinist era. Because the communist state was full of heroes, a man could only truly distinguish himself and attain hero status through bodily sacrifice-yet in his wounding, he was forever reminded that he would be limited in what he could achieve, and was expected to remain in a state of continued subservience to Stalin and the party.
Kaganovsky provides an insightful reevaluation of classic works of the period, including the novels of Nikolai Ostrovskii (How Steel Was Tempered) and Boris Polevoi (A Story About a Real Man), and films such as Ivan Pyr'ev's The Party Card, Eduard Pentslin's The Fighter Pilots, and Mikhail Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin, among others. The symbolism of wounding and dismemberment in these works acts as a fissure in the facade of Stalinist cultural production through which we can view the consequences of historic and political trauma.
Author Bio
Lilya Kaganovsky is the Richard and Margaret Romano Professor of Slavic, Comparative Literature, and Media & Cinema Studies, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Kaganovsky received her B.A. in Literature from U.C. Santa Cruz in 1992, with a specialization in English, American, and Russian Literature.
She received her M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Columbia University in 1994; and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with an Emphasis in Film Studies from U.C. Berkeley in 2000.
She has been at the University of Illinois since 2001, where she is affiliated with the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory, the College of Media, the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society, and the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies.
Source: University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
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