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QRR server moderators Rachel and Ella interview Aster Glenn Gray about spotlight book Honeytrap, her Cold War forbidden romance that's full of charm! Warning for spoilers and brief mentions of suicide. Books and media mentioned: To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture by Eleonory Gilburd Little Golden America by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya von Bremzen The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I by Emily Mayhew They Shall Not Grow Old directed by Peter Jackson
Guest: Eleonor Gilburd on To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture published by Harvard University Press. The post The Soviet Lives of Western Culture appeared first on The Eurasian Knot.
Guest: Eleonor Gilburd on To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture published by Harvard University Press. The post The Soviet Lives of Western Culture appeared first on SRB Podcast.
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonory Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonory Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author and commentator Ilya Ehrenburg published the novel that would give a name to this era, “The Thaw,” which probed the limits of cultural expression, now expanded by Khrushchev’s political pivot. One of the critical hallmarks of The Thaw is an almost immediate deluge of foreign culture into the Soviet Union, which for most of the population was entirely new: in pre-revolutionary Russia, culture was the prerogative of wealthy aristocrats and intellectuals, and for the much of the first three decades of the nascent Soviet state, access to foreign culture was strictly forbidden. Suddenly, the vast country was flooded with international books, films, paintings, and music. The impact was seismic, and the reverberations are still felt today. To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture(Harvard University Press, 2018), by Eleonor Gilburd, is a deep dive into this phenomenon, which spans period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gilburd looks at the perfect cultural and social storm created by the combination of more liberal politics, foreign culture and the technology to make it accessible to 11 time zones. But Gilburd doesn’t limit herself to the impact of culture on the Soviet population, rather she examines the ways in which Soviet cultural interpreters made foreign cultural artifacts “about us.” In Gilburd’s study, we see how translators dug deep into Russian street language to bring Holden Caufield to the page, how film distributors brought Fellini’s neorealism to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and how Ilya Ehrenburg gently reintroduced a nation to the beauty of French Impressionism. This is as much a story of translators, commentators, and curators as it is of their audience. “To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture” was short-listed for the 2019 Pushkin House Prize. Eleonor Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of Soviet History and the College at the University of Chicago, and the author of “The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s.” She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkley in 2010. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor’s, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How do we explain the influx of Western culture to the Soviet Union?Clem Cecil talks with Eleonory Gilburd, author of ‘To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture'. The Soviet Union was a notoriously closed society until Stalin's death in 1953. Then, in the mid-1950s, a torrent of Western novels, films, and paintings invaded Soviet streets and homes, acquiring heightened emotional significance.This podcast episode was edited and produced for Pushkin House by Borimir Totev.Music featured in this episode: Blue Dot Sessions - Softly Villainous, Blue Dot Sessions - Watercool Quiet.