Making Martyrs : : The Language of Sacrifice in Russian Culture from Stalin to Putin / / Yuliya Minkova.

• Superior document: Contemporary Western Rusistika
• VerfasserIn: Minkova, Yuliya,
• Place / Publishing House: Brookline, MA : : Academic Studies Press,, 2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Sovremennai︠a︡ zapadnai︠a︡ rusistika.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 pages)

In Making Martyrs: The Language of Sacrifice in Russian Culture from Stalin to Putin, Yuliya Minkova examines the language of canonization and vilification in Soviet and post-Soviet media, official literature, and popular culture. She argues that early Soviet narratives constructed stories of national heroes and villains alike as examples of uncovering a person's "true self." The official culture used such stories to encourage heroic self-fashioningamong Soviet youth and as a means of self-policing and censure. Later Soviet narratives maintained this sacrificial imagery in order to assert the continued hold of Soviet ideology on society, while post-Soviet discourses of victimhood appeal to nationalist nostalgia. Sacrificial mythology continues to maintain a persistent hold in contemporary culture, as evidenced most recently by the Russian intelligentsia's fascination with the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian media coverage of the war in Ukraine, laws against US adoption of Russian children and against the alleged propaganda of homosexuality aimed at minors, renewed national pride in wartime heroes, and the current usage of the words "sacred victim" in public discourse. In examining these various cases, the book traces the trajectory of sacrificial language from individual identity construction to its later function of lending personality and authority to the Soviet and post-Soviet state.

Table of Contents

Front Matter(pp. i-iv) -- Table of Contents(pp. v-vi) -- Acknowledgments(pp. vii-viii) -- Introduction(pp. 1-20) -- Chapter One Werewolves, Vampires, and the "Sacred Wo/men" of Soviet Discourse in Pravda and beyond in the 1930s and 1940s(pp. 21-36) -- Chapter Two Drawing Borders in the Sky: Pirates and Damsels in Distress of Aerial Hijackings in Soviet Press, Literature, and Film(pp. 37-62) -- Chapter Three Our Man in Chile, or Victor Jara's Posthumous Life in Soviet Media and Popular Culture(pp. 63-82) -- Chapter Four Fathers, Sons, and the Imperial Spirit: The Wartime Homo Sacer's Competitive Victimhood(pp. 83-140) -- Chapter Five Robber Baron or Dissident Intellectual: The Businessman Hero at the Crossroads of History(pp. 141-164) -- Conclusion(pp. 165-174) -- Notes(pp. 175-210) -- Bibliography(pp. 211-228) -- Index(pp. 229-237) -- Back Matter(pp. 238-238).