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For an entire generation of Soviet youth, Tarzan was a provocative symbol of individualism and personal freedom. Previous scholarship has included Tarzan within the larger counterculture movement of the thaw period (1953–64), but has not specifically examined how this occurred. Joseph S. Nye has coined the term soft power to describe the ability to attract and to co-opt rather than to force another nation into accepting your ideals. Within this rubric, Tarzan's presence in the Soviet Union was simultaneously entertaining and provocative. As literary fare in the 1920s, Tarzan represented an escape from war and revolution and was sanctioned as acceptable reading for Soviet youths. The celluloid Tarzan also represented an escape, but this time from the repressive Stalinist regime and the hardships of post-WWII Soviet society. Raised on both the books and films, a new generation of Soviet youth longed for the individual freedom that Tarzan came to represent. Tarzan's impact in the Soviet Union is one example of western cultural infiltration that contributed to the idealization of American individualism over the Soviet collective within the Soviet Union.

Arguably, the Avant-Garde was engaged in a personalized dialogue with society. Modernism was offering a new language and culture that might foment social change and political action. This is evident in the movement's early infatuation with anarchism and socialism. It is also the reason that many of its practitioners supported the Bolshevik plan to create a new society. In the 1960s, Khardzhiev played a significant role in the rediscovery of Russian Modernism within the Soviet Union, mainly due to his personal relationships, several decades earlier, with many of its leading figures. His intimate knowledge of the various aesthetic experiments, his correspondence and personal associations with figures such as Aleksei Kruchenykh, Daniil Kharms, Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Matiushin and many more, were essential texts, relevant to Soviet and Western scholars. Our volume of collected papers explores his multidimensional legacy. The scholarly essays in this collection are emblematic of the topics discussed at an academic conference held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2-3 June 2017). These contributions by the leading scholars of the period expand the scholarly discourse on art, literature and culture. Although Khardzhiev's lasting influence is the starting point of this collection of essays, the enduring value of this book will be the multiple points of entry for future study of Russia's avant-garde modernism. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Using the lens of cultural analysis, this study examines Pavel Lungin's Taxi Blues as one of the characteristic examples of perestroika cinema. The homosocial theme of the movie is explored in much detail, while using the available historical and comparative materials taken from Russian and Western cultural history. Taxi Blues traces the development of a relationship between a musician and a taxi driver during Russia's perestroika period. The taxi driver 'saves' the musician from alcohol dependency, imprisonment, financial ruin and self-destruction, only to be forgotten once the musician achieves fame abroad. Their relationship demonstrates a reversal of fortune in which economic and social status is conflated with sexual identity. As such, the homosocial relationship of the two men is disrupted when their personal fortunes are reversed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The sexual overtones in the relationship implicitly evoke various cultural stereotypes (degenerate sexual behaviour, Jewish effeminacy) as well as inherent power dynamics (master and slave, teacher and pupil) to engage the explicit issues of social and economic status in a society that has been turned inside out by perestroika.

This volume brings together Russian and American experts to explore fundamental issues in the medical humanities. By examining humanities-focused medical education, health and healthcare, and illness and recovery in Russian culture, this volume presents new insight into what it means to understand another's pain, to heal, and to be human.