Description
Book SynopsisThis volume contributes to a growing reevaluation of the Brezhnev era, helping to shape a new historiography that gives us a much richer and more nuanced picture of the time period than the stagnation paradigm usually assigned to the era. The essays provide a multifaceted prism that reveals a dynamic society with a political and intellectual class that remained committed to the ideological foundations of the state, recognized the challenges that the system faced, and embarked on a creative search for solutions. The chapters focus on developments in politics, society, and culture, as well as the state's attempts to lead and initiate change, which are mostly glossed over in the stagnation narrative. The volume challenges the assumption that the period as a whole was characterized by rampant cynicism and a decline of faith in the socialist creed and instead points to the persistence of popular engagement with the socialist ideology and the power it continued to wield within the Soviet Uni
Trade ReviewThis is a welcome addition to the body of literature reexamining the Brezhnev era. It portrays an engaged citizenry in dialog with public institutions and a state still capable of innovation from science to foreign affairs. -- Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University
Long disregarded as merely an interim and an ‘era of stagnation,’ the Brezhnev years were the second longest period and one of the most consequential times in Soviet history. Its legacies are still evident in Russia today. Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era, which transcends preceding scholarship on those years, is a much needed revisionist book of new information, approaches, and interpretations. Subjects range from high politics, economics, and society to culture, from private lives to public policy, and the collection includes an excellent introductory overview by Dina Fainberg and Artemy Kalinovsky. Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era is an important contribution to our understanding both of Soviet and post-Soviet history. -- Stephen F. Cohen, Princeton University and New York University
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Stagnation and its Discontents, Artemy M. Kalinovsky and Dina Fainberg Part I: Ideology between Public and Private Spheres Chapter 1: Consumers as Citizens: Revisiting the Question of Public Disengagement in the Brezhnev era, Natalya Chernyshova Chapter 2: The Life and Death of Brezhnev’s Thaw: Changing Values in Soviet Journalism after Khrushchev, 1964–1968, Simon Huxtable Chapter 3: People on the Move during the “Era of Stagnation”: The Rural Exodus in the RSFSR during the 1960s–80s, Lewis H. Siegelbaum Chapter 4: Brezhnev’s “Little Freedoms”: Tourism, Individuality, and Mobility in the Late Soviet Period, Christian Noack Chapter 5: Everything Was over before It Was No More: Decaying Civilization in Late Stagnation Cinema, Andrey Shcherbenok Part II: The Soviet Union and the West: Exchange, Imagination, and Competition Chapter 6: Stagnation or Not? The Brezhnev leadership and the East-West Interaction, Sari Autio-Sarasmo Chapter 7: Stagnant Science? The Planning and Coordination of Biomedical Research in the Brezhnev Era, Anna Geltzer Chapter 8: If You're Going to Moscow, Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair (and Bring a Bottle of Port Wine in Your Pocket) the Soviet Hippie "Sistema" and Its Life in, despite and With "Stagnation," Juliane Fürst Chapter 9: Norton Dodge in Lianozovo: Transnational Collaboration and the Making of the Unofficial Soviet Artist, Courtney Doucette Chapter 10: Changing Dynamics: From International Exchanges to Transnational Musical Networks, Simo Mikkonen
