BiblioVault - Books about Russia (Federation)

The Paleolithic of Siberia: NEW DISCOVERIES AND INTERPRETATIONS
Edited and Compiled by Anatoli P. Derev'anko: Demitri B. Shimkin and W. Roger Powers (American Editors). Translated by Inna P. Laricheva
University of Illinois Press, 1998
Library of Congress GN772.22.R9P37 1998

      This major work, the result of collaboration among scholars who worked
        at dozens of sites from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, is the
        first volume in English to summarize the massive quantity of archaeological
        data on the Paleolithic occupation of Siberia. Written by leading Russian
        experts and edited by scholars including the late Demitri Shimkin, the
        book presents the results of field studies conducted over some twenty-five
        years.
      It traces the routes of human migration throughout Eurasia, shows Siberian
        lithic industries as they evolved from the Early through the Middle and
        Late Paleolithic, and correlates them with reports from Mongolia, China,
        Japan, and America.
      "A major, singular contribution. . . . Several more geographically
        or temporally restricted texts exist, but none I've seen can match the
        breadth or depth of this massive work."
        -- John W. Olsen, coeditor of Paleoanthropology and Paleolithic Archaeology
        in the People's Republic of China
      "A much needed work marked by uniformly high scholarship and clear
        writing, this will be a standard reference of value for years to come."
        -- J. M. Adovasio, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute and Archaeology
        Research Program, Mercyhurst College

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Panorama: Intermediate Russian Language and Culture
Benjamin Rifkin, Evgeny Dengub, and Susanna Nazarova
Georgetown University Press, 2017
Library of Congress PG2112.R54 2017 | Dewey Decimal 491.782421

E-Textbooks are now available to purchase or rent through VitalSource.com! Please visit VitalSource for more information on pricing and availability.

As of January 1, 2021, Smart Sparrow Companion Websites are no longer available for any of our textbook programs. New companion websites are coming soon, and will be hosted by Lingco. Instructors may sample the new companion websites now by visiting GUPTextbooks.com/companionwebsites. The full websites will be available for fall 2021 course adoption.

Until the new companion websites become available, eBook Workbooks with exercises from the Smart Sparrow Electronic Workbook are available for purchase on the GUP website and VitalSource.com, as are Workbook Answer Keys. They will both be sold in eBook format only.

Panorama moves intermediate-level students of Russian toward advanced proficiency by engaging them in a systematic and comprehensive approach to Russian grammar with texts from a variety of genres, including proverbs and sayings to immerse students in Russian culture.

By reading and listening to Russian literary classics and contemporary nonfiction texts, students develop a contextual understanding of Russian culture and forms of expression that grow their command of vocabulary, grammar, and complex syntax. The textbook includes comprehensive in-class vocabulary and grammar exercises and discussion topics as well as reading texts (for work in class and at home), summative oral and written exercises, and compelling color photos.

An additional eBook Workbook (sold separately) includes essential homework exercises to practice vocabulary, grammar, listening, and speaking. eBook Workbook Answer Keys are also available for purchase for instructor use, or for students to check their own work.

Features of Panorama:

• Content can be used in one semester/two terms or for a full year• Modular structure allows instructors flexibility to assign chapters in their own sequence• Authentic photojournalist photos to prompt discussion exercises for each chapter topic• Summative exercises for each chapter test student mastery of the grammar topics, vocabulary, and cultural competence related to the chapter theme in a written essay format• Most grammar examples and exercises are drawn from the Russian National Corpus• Readings include blogs, blog comments, articles, and interviews, exposing students to current Russian culture and language. • Audio needed for completing homework exercises is available for free at www.press.georgetown.edu

For Teachers:

Exam copies of the textbook, Workbook, and Workbook Answer Keys are available free of charge to instructors and must be requested separately. Textbook exam copies can be ordered on this page. To request digital exam copies of the Workbook and Workbook Answer Keys, please visit the pages for each of those products, or visit VitalSource.com.

A free online Teachers Manual is also available and features supplementary activities and texts, including ideas for group activities, research projects, songs and video clips for each chapter, audio files of native speakers reading the literary classics from each chapter, and guidance to create a syllabus and exam, with a sample syllabus and sample chapter test. Available at www.press.georgetown.edu.

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Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama
Birgit Beumers and Mark Lipovetsky
Intellect Books, 2009
Library of Congress PN2724.B46 2009 | Dewey Decimal 891.72

The so-called “New Russian Drama” emerged at the end of the twentieth century, following a long period of decline in dramatic writing in the late Soviet and post-Soviet era. In Performing Violence, Birgit Beumers and Mark Lipovetsky examine the representation of violence in these new dramatic works by young Russian playwrights. Reflecting the disappointment in Yeltsin’s democratic reforms and Putin’s neoconservative politics, the plays focus on political and social representations of violence, its performances, and its justifications.

As the first English-language study of Russian drama and theatre in the twenty-first century, Performing Violence seeks a vantage point for the analysis of brutality in post-Soviet culture. While previous generations had preferred poetry and prose, this new breed of authors—the Presnyakov brothers, Evgeni Grishkovets, and Vasili Sigarev among them—have garnered international recognition for their fierce plays. This book investigates the violent portrayal of the identity crisis of a generation as represented in their theatrical works, and will be a key text for students and scholars of drama, Russian studies, and literature.

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The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture
James Cracraft
University of Chicago Press, 1988
Library of Congress NA1186.C73 1988 | Dewey Decimal 720.947

In this highly original book James Cracraft provides a major case study of the cultural revolution in Russia initiated by Peter the Great, tsar and first emperor (1682-1725). He recounts in fascinating detail how modern standards of architecture supplanted traditional norms in Russia following a massive injection of European expertise and indicates how, thereby, the modern Russian built world came into being. The first comprehensive study of the Petrine revolution in Russian architecture to be published in any language, the book includes nearly 250 illustrations, many of them original photographs appearing here for the first time.

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Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales
Balina/Goscilo/Lipovetsky
Northwestern University Press, 2005
Library of Congress GR203.17.P65 2005 | Dewey Decimal 398.20947

A compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that show how the Russian fairy tale acquired political and historical meanings during the Soviet era

We were born to make fairy tales come true. As one of Stalinism's more memorable slogans, this one suggests that the fairy tale figured in Soviet culture as far more than a category of children's literature. How much more-and how cannily Russian fairy tales reflect and interpret Soviet culture, especially in its utopian ambitions-becomes clear for the first time in Politicizing Magic, a compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that demonstrate the degree to which ancient fairy-tale fantasies acquired political and historical meanings during the catastrophic twentieth century.
Introducing Western readers to the most representative texts of Russian folkloric and literary tales, this book documents a rich exploration of this colorful genre through all periods of Soviet literary production (1920-1985) by authors with varied political and aesthetic allegiances. Here are traditional Russian folkloric tales and transformations of these tales that, adopting the didacticism of Soviet ideology, proved significant for the official discourse of Socialist Realism. Here, too, are narratives produced during the same era that use the fairy-tale paradigm as a deconstructive device aimed at the very underpinnings of the Soviet system. The editors' introductory essays acquaint readers with the fairy-tale paradigm and the permutations it underwent within the utopian dream of Soviet culture, deftly placing each-from traditional folklore to fairy tales of Socialist Realism, to real-life events recast as fairy tales for ironic effect-in its literary, historical, and political context.

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Portrait of a Russian Province: Economy, Society, and Civilization in Nineteenth-Century Nizhnii Novgorod
Catherine Evtuhov
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011
Library of Congress DK651.G6E94 2011 | Dewey Decimal 947.4107

Several stark premises have long prevailed in our approach to Russian history. It was commonly assumed that Russia had always labored under a highly centralized and autocratic imperial state. The responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs was ultimately assigned to the profoundly agrarian character of Russian society. The countryside, home to the overwhelming majority of the nation’s population, was considered a harsh world of cruel landowners and ignorant peasants, and a strong hand was required for such a crude society.
   A number of significant conclusions flowed from this understanding. Deep and abiding social divisions obstructed the evolution of modernity, as experienced “naturally” in other parts of Europe, so there was no Renaissance or Reformation; merely a derivative Enlightenment; and only a distorted capitalism. And since only despotism could contain these volatile social forces, it followed that the 1917 Revolution was an inevitable explosion resulting from these intolerable contradictions—and so too were the blood-soaked realities of the Soviet regime that came after. In short, the sheer immensity of its provincial backwardness could explain almost everything negative about the course of Russian history.
   This book undermines these preconceptions. Through her close study of the province of Nizhnii Novgorod in the nineteenth century, Catherine Evtuhov demonstrates how nearly everything we thought we knew about the dynamics of Russian
society was wrong. Instead of peasants ground down by poverty and ignorance, we find skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen, and enterprising tradespeople. Instead of an exclusively centrally administered state, we discover effective and participatory local government. Instead of pervasive ignorance, we are shown a lively cultural scene and an active middle class. Instead of a defining Russian exceptionalism, we find a world recognizable to any historian of nineteenth-century Europe.
   Drawing on a wide range of Russian social, environmental, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, and synthesizing it with deep archival research of the Nizhnii Novgorod province, Evtuhov overturns a simplistic view of the Russian past. Rooted in, but going well beyond, provincial affairs, her book challenges us with an entirely new perspective on Russia’s historical trajectory.

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Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice
Julia Barrett
University of Chicago Press, 1995
Library of Congress TA1501.J68 | Dewey Decimal 621.3660947

This witty sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice follows the fate of Georgiana Darcy, Mr. Darcy's younger sister, who must choose between two suitors, a well-placed navy captain and a brash young architect. Masterfully adapted to Austen's original nineteenth-century style, Presumption brings back to life the book's most memorable characters, the Bennets, Darcys, Collins, and de Bourghs.

"An elegant emulation and continuation of Pride and Prejudice. . . . Jointly composed by two admirers of Jane Austen, the book often achieves crisp replication of her style. . . . Presumption shows how sequel-writing can, like parody, be a sharp exercise in literary appreciation."—Peter Kemp, Times Literary Supplement

Julia Barrett is a pseudonym for Julia Braun Kessler and Gabrielle Donnelly.

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Pro-dvizhenie: Advanced Russian through Film and Media
Alyssa DeBlasio
Georgetown University Press, 2023
Library of Congress PG2127.M68D43 2023 | Dewey Decimal 491.7

An advanced, student-centered textbook that uses popular media to explore diverse perspectives from across Russian-speaking cultures

Pro-dvizhenie is a student-centered, inquiry-based textbook designed to build Advanced-level Russian proficiency through engagement with timely topics that encourage reflection and examination. Whether exploring the role of technology in relationships, learning about indigenous communities of Russia, or reflecting on what it means to live well, Pro-dvizhenie uses popular Russian film, TV, and media as a springboard for various types of activities, including skill-building exercises, essay writing, and group projects. Students are encouraged to challenge assumptions and make intercultural connections throughout while developing ACTFL Advanced-level skills such as argumentation, narration, and collaboration.

Students benefit from extensive activities and resources, including audio and video of diverse voices and viewpoints from across Russia, available to stream on the Press website. A full-service textbook for instructors, Pro-dvizhenie includes extensive online instructors’ resources, such as additional grammar and vocabulary assignments, writing and group project prompts, grading rubrics, and answer keys. A modular structure and activities at various levels of difficulty give instructors the flexibility to select material in the book based on their class’s needs, making Pro-dvizhenie perfectly suited for mixed-level classrooms. The textbook can be used over one semester or over the course of a full year.

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Protest and the Politics of Blame: The Russian Response to Unpaid Wages
Debra Javeline
University of Michigan Press, 2003
Library of Congress HD5047.2.J38 2003 | Dewey Decimal 331.210947

The wage arrears crisis has been one of the biggest problems facing contemporary Russia. At its peak, it has involved some $10 billion worth of unpaid wages and has affected approximately 70 percent of the workforce. Yet public protest in the country has been rather limited. The relative passivity of most Russians in the face of such desperate circumstances is a puzzle for students of both collective action and Russian politics. In Protest and the Politics of Blame, Debra Javeline shows that to understand the Russian public's reaction to wage delays, one must examine the ease or difficulty of attributing blame for the crisis.
Previous studies have tried to explain the Russian response to economic hardship by focusing on the economic, organizational, psychological, cultural, and other obstacles that prevent Russians from acting collectively. Challenging the conventional wisdom by testing these alternative explanations with data from an original nationwide survey, Javeline finds that many of the alternative explanations come up short. Instead, she focuses on the need to specify blame among the dizzying number of culprits and potential problem solvers in the crisis, including Russia's central authorities, local authorities, and enterprise managers. Javeline shows that understanding causal relationships drives human behavior and that specificity in blame attribution for a problem influences whether people address that problem through protest.
Debra Javeline is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University.

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