The City in Russian Culture (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)

Cities are constructed and organized by people, and in turn become an important factor in the organization of human life. They are sites of both social encounter and social division and provide for their inhabitants “a sense of place”. This book explores the nature of Russian cities, outlining the role played by various Russian cities over time. It focuses on a range of cities including provincial cities, considering both physical, iconic, created cities, and also cities as represented in films, fiction and other writing. Overall, the book provides a rich picture of the huge variety of Russian cities. Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- Notes on contributors -- 1 The city in Russian culture: space, culture, and the Russian city -- Part I The constructed city -- 2 The city as legible sanctuary: Siberia's city on a hill: Tobol'sk at the apogee of empire -- 3 The city as a site of urban vision: serf village, industrial town: the creation of Ivanovo-Voznesensk -- 4 The city as translocal space: "Malorossians Have Come!" Ukrainian musicale and the making of the Russian imperial city in the Middle Volga -- 5 The city as a work of monumental culture: the hero-city of Novorossiisk as a site of war myth and memory -- 6 The city as showpiece: Arctic camp, Arctic city: the Gulag and the construction of Vorkuta -- 7 The city as genuine place: the paradoxes of Soviet urbanization: the search for the genuine Soviet city -- Part II The represented city -- 8 The city as narrated space: spatial practices and the narrative of the Russian city -- 9 The city as imagined home: journeys through the socialist city and inside the socialist apartment: space and place in the Moscow text of Soviet film -- 10 The city as created text: writing from the ruins of Europe: representing Kaliningrad in Russian literature from Brodsky to Buida -- 11 The city as imaginary landscape: the geo-cultural images of Sortavala: poetics of place in the North Ladoga region -- 12 The city as gendered space: the rise and fall of the creative capitals: female directors on post-Soviet urban space -- Index