Russia and Soul: An Exploration

Dale Pesmen

Published by Cornell University Press 2000

Russia and Soul

An Exploration

Dale Pesmen

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501729386

Overview
Contents

About this book

This ethnography of everyday life in contemporary Russia is also an examination of discourses and practices of "soul" or dusha. Russian soul has historically appeared as a myth, a consoling fiction, and a trope of national and individual...

Author / Editor information

Dale Pesmen received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and is a visual artist and independent scholar.

Reviews

Victor A. Friedman, University of Chicago:

This is the best book about Russia ever written. By using dusha as her organizing principle, Dale Pesmen has captured what it is like to be Russian and to live in Russia. Russia and Soul is so readable that when I open it at any page I have difficulty putting it down. It is like a mandala, drawing you into itself and causing you to contemplate the nature of existence.

The book provides some wonderful insights into Russians' recent struggles with their own identities.

Nancy Ries, Colgate University:

Dazzlingly original and penetratingly insightful, this is a volume of singular erudition, bound to be a touchstone for all future studies of Russian culture, society, philosophy, and literature. Dale Pesmen has peered into the seeming cliché of Russian soul to reveal an intricate cosmology, one that profoundly shapes social behavior and self-creation.

Dale Pesmen... is sensitive, perceptive, responsive, curious, and obsevant. Judging from her account, she has learned excellent Russion. She presents a vivid picture, which an experienced Russian hand witth recognize as authentic, of Russian habits and conversations in a mid-sized Siberian city. Her powers of illuminating description of places, situations, and people are admirable.

Dale Pesmen has written a beautiful book about a grand but hard-to-grasp topic: the soul. The specific soul under investigation here is dusha, a specific Russian one, but Pesmen is careful not to preclude affinities with the souls of peoples from other countries. Soul, essentially, is about life, and so if Pesmen's book.

Certainly the best and most intricate book ever written about how crucial, barely definable words in the Russian language... combine to shape the Russian character... As Pesmen unpacks her rich material with marvelous learning and verve, the indomitable spirituality of the Russian personality after 70 years of Soviet misery and 10 of capitalist corruction emerges.

A brilliant book that is highly recommended.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Dedication and Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Nate on Transliteration, Translation, and Names Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Glossary Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
PART I. SITUATING SOUL
Introduction: Is soul a thing? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
1. O.M.S.K. Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
PART II .AGAINST AND FOR DUSHA
2. In Public Transportation and in the Soul: You call this life? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3. A Channel between Worlds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
4. The Language of Music and the Russian Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
5. The Baths: A Celebration for Soul and Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Story: For Anna Viktorovna Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
PART III. EVERYONE WANTS SOMETHING, BUT ONLY THROUGH SOMEONE
Two Stories: Decency (Oleg), Generosity (Grisha) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
6. Do Not Have a Hundred Rubles, Have Instead a Hundred Friends Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Story: Pulling Something Out of a Hat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
7. Like the Trojan Horse's Gut: Hospitality and Nationalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
8. Standing Bottles, Washing Deals, and Drinking for the Soul Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
9. If You Want to Live, You've Got to Krutit'sia: Crooked and Straight Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
PART IV. AUTHORITY
10. Depth, Openings, and Closings Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Story A Second Soul Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
11. If You Want to Know a Man, Give Him Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
PART V. TOGETHERNESS
12. Those who Poke into My Soul: Dostoevsky, Bakhtin, Love Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
13. We Lost Some Neatness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	280
PART VI. CONCLUSIONS
Two Discussions: Semantics and National Character I Homo Sovieticus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Conclusions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307
Epilogue: Non-Russian Souls Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 384
Keywords: Labor History; Anthropology; Soviet & East European History

eBook

Published: August 6, 2018
ISBN: 9781501729386