Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on the years 1921-1934, this book explores the great upsurge in documentary methods and approaches in the arts and reveals how the documentary impulse influenced the development of Stalinist culture. It is suitable for readers of Russian history, cultural history, literature, and film studies.
Trade ReviewVery stimulating... well-written, deeply researched, theoretically sophisticated and evincing tremendous knowledge of both its topic and of scholarly literature written across eight decades in several different national contexts.
-- John MacKay, Yale University
Well-written, well-argued, and well-researched.... as engaging as it is informative.
-- Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont
Wonderfully stimulating. Papazian demonstrates that the idea of documenting the present with an eye on both the future and the past would become inherently subversive in a political order whose chiefs insisted on continually rewriting history.
-- Jeffrey Brooks, Johns Hopkins University
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction—Authors as Engineers: The Documentary Moment
Chapter One—Operative Mode: Sergei Tretiakov's Art of Fact
Chapter Two—Technological Mode: Dziga Vertov and Kino-Communication
Chapter Three—Realist Mode: Maksim Gorky, the Truth, and the Collective
Chapter Four—Ironic Mode: Mikhail Zoshchenko's Reconstruction of the Reader
Conclusion—A New Documentary Moment?
Terms and Abbreviations
Notes
Works Cited
Index
