Yale University Press
Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917
Key Metrics
- Orlando Figes
- Yale University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780300081060
- 9.5 X 6.36 X 0.88 inches
- 1.19 pounds
- History > Revolutionary
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
This is the first book in any language to offer a comprehensive analysis of the political culture of the Russian Revolution. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii examine the diverse ways that language and other symbols--including flags and emblems, public rituals, songs, and codes of dress--were used to identify competing sides and to create new meanings in the political struggles of 1917. The revolution was in many ways a battle to control these systems of symbolic meaning, the authors find. The party or faction that could master the complexities of the lexicon of the revolution was well on its way to mastering the revolution itself.
The book explores how key words and symbols took on different meanings in various social and political contexts. Democracy, the people, or the working class, for example, could define a wide range of identities and moral worlds in 1917. In addition to such ambiguities, cultural tensions further complicated the revolutionary struggles. Figes and Kolonitskii consider the fundamental clash between the Western political discourse of the socialist parties and the traditional political culture of the Russian masses. They show how the particular conditions and perceptions that colored Russian politics in 1917 led to the emergence of the cult of the revolutionary leader and the culture of terror.
Author Bio
Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Born in London in 1959, he graduated with a Double-Starred First from Cambridge University, where he was a Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College from 1984 to 1999.
He is the author of seven books on Russian history, including A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924, which in 1997 received the Wolfson Prize, the NCR Book Award, the W.H. Smith Literary Award, the Longman/History Today Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (2002) was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia (2007) was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, the Prix Médicis and the Premio Roma.
His agent is Rogers, Coleridge and White. His books have been translated into 32 languages. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.
Source: orlandofiges.co.uk
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