Grasping Russian Cultural History
The currents of Russian political thought from the founding of the Romanov Tsarist dynasty all the way through to the collapse of the Soviet Union coalesced around competitive Slavic and Western influences. During imperial times the various Slavophile and Westernizer camps fought an enduring intellectual battle as to which direction Russia ought to go as a nation. Inheriting this dualistic tradition were purist Bolsheviks who put ideology above all and more pragmatic communists who considered general Russian geopolitical interests vis-à-vis Western Europe (and later North America) to be most crucial. This political debate quickly became all-encompassing as it spread to the question of public and private culture. While the Soviet government managed to develop coherent and self-interested, if ever fluid, foreign and economic policies, the same cannot necessarily be said for cultural matters. Constant censorship, menacing purges, and other oppressive control measures severely limited artistic freedom of expression and humanistic vibrancy. In their quest to completely transform the entirety of a far-flung empire, Soviet leaders beginning with Lenin circumscribed and sought to disassemble and ignore the products of what many hi
Some topics in this essay:
Soviet Russia, North America, Pavel Lebedev-Poliansky, War Peace, Slavophile Westernizer, Rachmaninov Stravinsky, Gogol Turgenev, Tsarist Russia, Provisional Government, West Russia, figes 450, western culture,
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Approximate Word count = 908
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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