This Collection of Original Essays gives surprising insights into what foodways reveal about Russia's history and culture from Kievan times to the present. A wide array of sources - including chronicles, diaries, letters, police records, poems, novels, folklore, paintings, and cookbooks - help to interpret the moral and spiritual role of food in Russian culture. Stovelore in Russian folklife, fasting in Russian peasant culture, food as power in Dostoevsky's fiction, Tolstoy and vegetarianism, restaurants in early Soviet Russia, Soviet cookery and cookbooks, and food as art in Soviet paintings are among the topics discussed in this appealing volume.

This environmental history of the former Soviet Union explores the impact that state economic development programs had on the environment.

This companion comprises 28 essays by international scholars offering an analytical overview of the development of Russian history from the earliest Slavs through to the present day. Includes essays by both prominent and emerging scholars from Russia, Great Britain, the US, and Canada Analyzes the entire sweep of Russian history from debates over how to identify the earliest Slavs, through the Yeltsin Era, and future prospects for post-Soviet Russia Offers an extensive review of the medieval period, religion, culture, and the experiences of ordinary people Offers a balanced review of both traditional and cutting-edge topics, demonstrating the range and dynamism of the field

An authoritative history of Russia from early Rus' to the reign of Peter the Great.

Was Russia truly an empire respectful of the differences among its constituent parts or was it a unitary state seeking to create complete homogeneity?

Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. A History of Russian Literature provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife with the creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life. The volume proceeds chronologically in five parts, extending from Kievan Rus' in the 11th century to the present day. The coverage strikes a balance between extensive overview and in-depth thematic focus. Parts are organized thematically in chapters, which a number of keywords that are important literary concepts that can serve as connecting motifs and 'case studies', in-depth discussions of writers, institutions, and texts that take the reader up close and personal. Visual material also underscores the interrelation of the word and image at a number of points, particularly significant in the medieval period and twentieth century. The History addresses major continuities and discontinuities in the history of Russian literature across all periods, and in particular brings out trans-historical features that contribute to the notion of a national literature. The volume's time range has the merit of identifying from the early modern period a vital set of national stereotypes and popular folklore about boundaries, space, Holy Russia, and the charismatic king that offers culturally relevant material to later writers. This volume delivers a fresh view on a series of key questions about Russia's literary history, by providing new mappings of literary history and a narrative that pursues key concepts (rather more than individual authorial careers). This holistic narrative underscores the ways in which context and text are densely woven in Russian literature, and demonstrates that the most exciting way to understand the canon and the development of tradition is through a discussion of the interrelation of major and minor figures, historical events and literary politics, literary theory and literary innovation.

A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.