Charms of the cynical reason : the trickster's transformations in Soviet and post-Soviet culture / Mark Lipovetsky.

By:

Lipovet︠s︡kiĭ, M. N. (Mark Naumovich) [author]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Cultural revolutionsPublisher: Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2011Description: 1 online resource (296 pages) : illustrationsContent type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781618111357
1618111353
9781618118509
1618118501
9781934843451
1934843458

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Charms of the cynical reason.DDC classification:

891.73/409352 22

LOC classification:

PG3096.T75 L56 2011eb

Online resources:

EBSCOhost

Contents:

1. At The Heart Of Soviet Civilization: The meaning of the trickster trope; The trickster's politics; The trickster trope and the Soviet subjectivity; Cynical or kynical? -- 2. Khulio Khurenito: the Trickster's Revolution: Modernizing the trickster; The method: overidentification; Why did Khurenito decide to die? -- 3. Ostap Bender: the King Is Born: Ostap as trickster; Social schizophrenia; A kynical king of the cynics -- 4. Buratino: the Utopia of a Free Marionette: Buratino as a mediator; Buratino as an artist; Buratino as a cynic -- 5. Venichka: a Tragic Trickster: The trickster as the underground author; Rituals of expenditure; "I Will Not Explain to You Who Were These Four ..." -- 6. Tricksters In Disguise: The Trickster's Transformations In The Soviet Film Of The 1960s-70s: "Reformed" tricksters in the comedies of the 70s-80s: Gaidai's Tricksters; Riazanov's Detochkin; Daneliia's Buzykin; The art of alibi: Stierlitz as the Soviet intelligent : Who are you working for?; The Imperial Mediator; Stierlitz's Afterlife -- 7. Splitting The Trickster: Pelevin's Shape-Shifters: The society of shape-shifters; Genealogy of the heroine; A fairytale about shape-shifters; The trickster's magic/politics: a bifurcation point; Cynic versus kynic.

Summary: The impetus for Charms of the Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little-explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial Soviet culture, as well as in the post-Soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of Soviet and post-Soviet tricksters, including such "cultural idioms" as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Stierlitz, and others. The steadily increasing charisma of Soviet tricksters from the 1920s to the 2000s is indicative of at least two fundamental features of both the Soviet and post-Soviet societies. First, tricksters reflect the constant presence of irresolvable contradictions and yawning gaps within the Soviet (as well as post-Soviet) social universe. Secondly, these characters epitomize the realm of cynical culture thus far unrecognized in Russian studies. Soviet tricksters present survival in a cynical, contradictory and inadequate world, not as a necessity, but as a field for creativity, play, and freedom. Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the Soviet and post-Soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, contradictions, and by these means its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s. --Book Jacket.

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Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-288) and index.

The impetus for Charms of the Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little-explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial Soviet culture, as well as in the post-Soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of Soviet and post-Soviet tricksters, including such "cultural idioms" as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Stierlitz, and others. The steadily increasing charisma of Soviet tricksters from the 1920s to the 2000s is indicative of at least two fundamental features of both the Soviet and post-Soviet societies. First, tricksters reflect the constant presence of irresolvable contradictions and yawning gaps within the Soviet (as well as post-Soviet) social universe. Secondly, these characters epitomize the realm of cynical culture thus far unrecognized in Russian studies. Soviet tricksters present survival in a cynical, contradictory and inadequate world, not as a necessity, but as a field for creativity, play, and freedom. Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the Soviet and post-Soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, contradictions, and by these means its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s. --Book Jacket.