The revolutionary ideals of equality, communal living, proletarian morality, and technology worship, rooted in Russian utopianism, generated a range of social experiments which found expression, in the first decade of the Russian revolution, in festival, symbol, science fiction, city planning, and the arts. In this study, historian Richard Stites offers a vivid portrayal of revolutionary life and the cultural factors--myth, ritual, cult, and symbol--that sustained it, and describes the principal forms of utopian thinking and experimental impulse. Analyzing the inevitable clash between the authoritarian elements in the Bolshevik's vision and the libertarian behavior and aspirations of large segments of the population, Stites interprets the pathos of utopian fantasy as the key to the emotional force of the Bolshevik revolution which gave way in the early 1930s to bureaucratic state centralism and a theology of Stalinism.

Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution

History

Stites, Richard

Europe

Oxford University Press

In a series of revolts starting in 1820, four military officers rode forth on horseback from obscure European towns to bring political freedom and a constitution to Spain, Naples, and Russia; and national independence to the Greeks. The men who launched these exploits from Andalusia to the snowy fields of Ukraine--Colonel Rafael del Riego, General Guglielmo Pepe, General Alexandros Ypsilanti, and Colonel Sergei Muraviev-Apostol--all hoped to overturn the old order. Over the next six years, their revolutions ended in failure. The men who led them became martyrs. In The Four Horsemen, the late, eminent historian Richard Stites offers a compelling narrative history of these four revolutions. Stites sets the stories side by side, allowing him to compare events and movements and so illuminate such topics as the transfer of ideas and peoples across frontiers, the formation of an international community of revolutionaries, and the appropriation of Christian symbols and language for secular purposes. He shows how expressive behavior and artifacts of all kinds--art, popular festivities, propaganda, and religion--worked their way to various degrees into all the revolutionary movements and regimes. And he documents as well the corruption, abandonment of liberal values, and outright betrayal of the revolution that emerged in Spain and Naples; the clash of ambitions and ideas that wracked the unity of the Decembrists' cause; and civil war that erupted in the midst of the Greek struggle for independence. Richard Stites was one of the most imaginative and broad-ranging historians working in the United States. This book is his last work, a classic example of his dazzling knowledge and idiosyncratic yet accessible writing style. The culmination of an esteemed career, The Four Horsemen promises to enthrall anyone interested in nineteenth-century Europe and the history of revolutions.

The Four Horsemen: Riding to Liberty in Post-Napoleonic Europe

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

In a series of revolts starting in 1820, four military officers rode forth on horseback from obscure European towns to bring political freedom and a constitution to Spain, Naples, and Russia; and national independence to the Greeks. The men who launched these exploits from Andalusia to the snowy fields of Ukraine--Colonel Rafael del Riego, General Guglielmo Pepe, General Alexandros Ypsilanti, and Colonel Sergei Muraviev-Apostol--all hoped to overturn the old order. Over the next six years, their revolutions ended in failure. The men who led them became martyrs. In The Four Horsemen, the late, eminent historian Richard Stites offers a compelling narrative history of these four revolutions. Stites sets the stories side by side, allowing him to compare events and movements and so illuminate such topics as the transfer of ideas and peoples across frontiers, the formation of an international community of revolutionaries, and the appropriation of Christian symbols and language for secular purposes. He shows how expressive behavior and artifacts of all kinds--art, popular festivities, propaganda, and religion--worked their way to various degrees into all the revolutionary movements and regimes. And he documents as well the corruption, abandonment of liberal values, and outright betrayal of the revolution that emerged in Spain and Naples; the clash of ambitions and ideas that wracked the unity of the Decembrists' cause; and civil war that erupted in the midst of the Greek struggle for independence. Richard Stites was one of the most imaginative and broad-ranging historians working in the United States. This book is his last work, a classic example of his dazzling knowledge and idiosyncratic yet accessible writing style. The culmination of an esteemed career, The Four Horsemen promises to enthrall anyone interested in nineteenth-century Europe and the history of revolutions.

Serf-era and provincial Russia heralded the spectacular turn in cultural history that began in the 1860s. Examining the role of arts and artists in society’s value system, Richard Stites explores this shift in a groundbreaking history of visual and performing arts in the last decades of serfdom. Provincial town and manor house engaged the culture of Moscow and St. Petersburg while thousands of serfs and ex-serfs created or performed. Mikhail Glinka raised Russian music to new levels and Anton Rubinstein struggled to found a conservatory. Long before the itinerants, painters explored town and country in genre scenes of everyday life. Serf actors on loan from their masters brought naturalistic acting from provincial theaters to the imperial stages. Stites’s richly detailed book offers new perspectives on the origins of Russia’s nineteenth-century artistic prowess.

Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

Serf-era and provincial Russia heralded the spectacular turn in cultural history that began in the 1860s. Examining the role of arts and artists in society’s value system, Richard Stites explores this shift in a groundbreaking history of visual and performing arts in the last decades of serfdom. Provincial town and manor house engaged the culture of Moscow and St. Petersburg while thousands of serfs and ex-serfs created or performed. Mikhail Glinka raised Russian music to new levels and Anton Rubinstein struggled to found a conservatory. Long before the itinerants, painters explored town and country in genre scenes of everyday life. Serf actors on loan from their masters brought naturalistic acting from provincial theaters to the imperial stages. Stites’s richly detailed book offers new perspectives on the origins of Russia’s nineteenth-century artistic prowess.

A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces is a comprehensive narrative conceived and developed after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Informed by the burgeoning historiography of the 1990s, the text balances political and economic explorations of everyday life, social roles, cultural dynamics, and gender issues. Many texts on this subject are written from a pre-Confederation point of view that may be unsuitable for today's classroom. This text provides strong coverage of 20th-century Russia and the U.S.S.R. without sacrificing its coverage of earlier historical periods.

A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces

Goldfrank, David

Hughes, Lindsey

Evtuhov, Catherine

Americas

Cengage Learning'

For a description of this text, please see the entry for Evtuhov et al., A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces.

A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces: Since 1800

This book presents a side of Russian life that is largely unknown to the West--the world of popular culture. By surveying detective and science fiction, popular songs, jokes, box office movie hits, the stage, radio and television, Richard Stites introduces the people and cultural products that are household words to the Soviet people. He demonstrates how popular culture has over the past century had more impact on the lives of Russian people and reveals more about their lives than the works of giants of high culture. Richard Stites, Professor of History at Georgetown University, is the author of several books, including Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution.

Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge Russian Paperbacks, Series Number 7)

Cambridge University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stites, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stites, Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stites, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution

Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution

The Four Horsemen: Riding to Liberty in Post-Napoleonic Europe

The Four Horsemen: Riding to Liberty in Post-Napoleonic Europe

Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power

Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power

A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces

A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces: Since 1800

Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge Russian Paperbacks, Series Number 7)

Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge Russian Paperbacks, Series Number 7)