Book
Russian talk: culture and conversation during perestroika
Cornell University Press • Ithaca • Published In 1997 • Pages:
By: Ries, Nancy.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is an interpretive study of how everyday private conversations between Muscovites serve to produce and reproduce a distinctively Russian national character and emotional spirit. The discussion draws on narratives of state repression and economic hardships, and on litanies of complaints over broken hopes and elusive prosperity, collected during a period in which the Soviet Union was undergoing sweeping political and economic reforms just prior to dissolution. Framing the analysis with the perspective of interpretive anthropology, the author finds striking regularities in the central themes, genres, emotionally-loaded symbols, and keywords in the stories of Russians from different walks of life and in different social situations. Taken as a whole, these traits convey the image of a country plagued by extreme economic scarcity, hierarchical power relations, and a deeply "absurd" cultural logic.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Drives and emotions
- Social personality
- Ethos
- Verbal arts
- Form and rules of government
- Political movements
- Ethnopsychology
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Russians
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Eastern Europe
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Teferi Abate Adem ; 2019
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1988-1990, 1992, 1994-1995
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1989-1990
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Moscow, Russia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Nancy Ries
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-214) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 97010136
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Language and culture--Soviet Union
- Oral communication--Social aspects--Soviet Union
- Perestroĭka.