Culture and Intelligentsia Project collects documents and research on the role that intellectuals play in generating, transmitting, and transforming society in fledgling democracies. Special attention is paid to the intelligentsia’s discourse and emotionally charged behavior that perpetuate, not always consciously, models of being found in a given culture. The project started in 1992 when UNLV hosted the First Nevada Conference on Russian Culture. Sponsored by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, MacArthur Foundation, Nevada Humanities Committee, Russian Academy of Sciences, and National Public Opinion Center in Moscow, the event brought to Las Vegas scholars from several countries who presented the results of their studies on Russian society and culture and who continue to track the fate of reforms in emerging democracies. The participants examined the causes that impeded the formation of democracy in postcommunist societies, using pragmatist ideas as their guide. The results of this collaborative effort have been published in a book titled Russian Culture at the Crossroads. Paradoxes of Postcommunist Consciousness. The Second Nevada Conference on Russian Culture was convened in November of 1997 with the assistance and funding from the UNLV College of Liberal Arts, National Public Opinion Center in Moscow, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Vista Group, Excalibur Resort and Casino, Inc., and LHN Inc. This conference paved the way to International Festival of Russian Art and Culture that was staged in Las Vegas in the year 2000. As the festival report indicates, this event featured writers, poets, musicians, visual artists, and renowned experts on Russian art who illuminated the special place of Russian artistic intelligentsia in democratic reform. Below you will find forums, conference reports, and supplementary materials written in preparation for the events, along with the articles, interviews, memoirs, diaries, and biographical materials highlighting the lives and works of public intellectuals. See International Biography Initiative for further detail.
| The First Nevada Conference on Russian Culture |
Dmiitri Shalin, troduction: Continuity and change in Russian culture (Eng)
Boris Paramonov, Russia in search of its history (Eng)
Igor Kon, Public morality and private responsibility (Eng)
Yuri Levada, Public opinion and the resurgence of political culture (Eng)
Alexander Etkind, Ambivalence and resistance to social change (Eng)
Dmitri Shalin, The end of Russian intelligentsia? (Eng)
Jerry Pankhurst, Faith in soviet and post-soviet Russia (Eng)
Svetlana Boym, From communal living to private life (Eng)
Zara Abdullaeva, Russian folklore and mores (Eng)
Maurice Friedberg, 'New soviet man' in the mirror of literature (Eng)
Daniil Dondurei, Russian artists facing the trial by freedom (Eng)
Vladimir Magun, Work ethics under perestroika (Eng)
Program of the First Nevada Conference on Russian Culture
|
| The Second Nevada Conference on Russian Culture |
Mikhail Epstein, Russian spirituality and the theology of negation (Eng Rus)
Andrei Ariev, The culture and art of the Silver Age (Eng)
Marietta Chudakova, The survival of art and the art of survival in Stalin's Russia (Rus)
Natalia Ivanova, Literary criticism as an art form (Eng)
Alexander Genis, Russian literary prose in the late 20th century (Eng)
Alexander Zholkovsky, The Russian literary canon in contemporary perspective (Eng, Rus)
Mark Lipovetsky, Postmodernism and the Russian literary tradition (Eng)
Boris Paramonov, Russian literature in the Christian context (Eng)
Ekaterina Degot, Russian art in the second half of the 20th century (Eng)
Oksana Bulgakova, The Russian cinematic tradition (Eng)
Vladimir Paperny, Russian architecture between anorexia and bulimia (Eng)
Dmitri Shalin, The art of dissent: Parody, travesty and irony in late soviet culture (Eng)
Program of the Second Nevada Conference on Russian Culture
|
| The Third Nevada Conference on Russian Culture |
Oksana ulkgakova & Dietmar Hochmuth, America Made in Russia: Images of America in Russian Cinema (Rus, Eng)
Natalia Ivanova, Las Vegas interview (Rus)
Vitaly Komar, Las Vegas interview (Rus)
Timur Kibirov, Las Vegas interview (Rus)
Aleksandr Kushner, Poetry reading (Rus)
Vladimir Paperny, Las Vegas Interview (Rus)
Dmitri Prigov, Poetry reading (Rus)
Lev Rubinstein, Las Vegas Interview (Rus)
Dmitri Shalin, A guided tour of the visual art exhibition I and II (Eng)
Yuri Shevchuk, Interview at the Russian art festival (Rus)
Yuri Shevchuk, Las Vegas Concert (Rus)
Vladimir Tarasov, Musical performance (Rus)
Russian Art Festival, Media coverage of the visual art exhibition
Program of the Third Nevada Conference on Russian Culture
|
| The Fourth Nevada Conference on Russian Culture |
Dmitri Shalin, Communication, Democracy, and Intelligentsia (Eng)
Lev Gudkov, 'Intelligentsia' – the vanishing phenomenon and its aftermath (Rus, Eng)
Mikhail Epstein, Intelligentnsia, intellectuals,
and the uses of social intelligentsia (Rus, Eng)
Leonid Gozman, Subjective notes on the objective situation among Russian intelligentsia (Rus, Eng)
Andrei Piontkovsky, Postintelligentsia and the moral catastrophe of Russian society (Rus, Eng)
Dmitri Shalin, Russian intelligentsia in the age of counterperetroika (Eng)
Gassan Gusejnov, Intelligentsia exhumed: Nationalist Currents among Russian Intelligentsia (Rus, Eng)
Mark Lipovetsky, Intelligentsia & cynicism: Political metamorphoses of postmodernism (Rus, Eng)
Natalia Ivanova, Independent literary groupings after perestroika (Rus, Eng)
Sergei Iourienen, Intelligentsia and Emigration: Personal risks, strategic possibilities (Rus, Eng)
Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Reading as a Heroic Act: Intelligentsia and uncensored literature (Rus, Eng)
Aleksandr Genis, Propaganda and the illusion of freedom: Intelligentsia as a captive of history (Rus, Eng)
Viktor Shenderovich, Intelligentsia and the Gospel according to Mathew (Rus, Eng)
|
| Articles |
| Society |
B. Dubin, Russia and Beyond (Rus)
S. Filatov & A. Strukova, Toward Russian Protestantism (Rus)
B. Firsov, Mental Worlds of Contemporary Russian Society (Rus)
S. Firsov, Reflections on the Nature of Power in Russia (Rus)
E. Ikhlov, Russia in the 21st Century (Rus)
A. Ivashchenko, Russian Peasantry in Three Different Perspectives (Rus)
J. Kocka, Civil Society in Europe: Its Historical Roots and Prospects East and West (Rus)
A. Khramchikhin, Russia and the West -- Why Do They Need Each Other? (Rus)
V. Kagansky, Russia as Eurasia: a Fictitious Pathway (Rus)
A. Popov, Why Do We Need an Empire? (Rus)
B. Rodoman, Capitalism and Russian Reality (Rus)
D. Shalin, Soviet Civilization and Its Emotional Discontents (Eng)
D. Shalin, Ten Years of Russian Reform (Eng)
D. Shalin, Is Illiberal Democracy Taking Roots in Russia? (Eng)
D. Shalin, Democracy According to Putin (Eng)
F. Shelov-Kovediaev, Russia at the Global Crossraods (Rus)
V. Starostin, Russia's Military Might: Is it a Good Thing? (Rus)
M. Stepaniants, Ethnodenominational Processes in Russia: Islam (Rus)
V. Torchilin, What Sort of Society is Emerging in Russia? (Rus)
A. Yanov, Civilizational Instability of Russia (Rus)
A. Yanov, Three Scenarios for Russia (Rus)
E. Zibnitsky, The Legacy of Slavophiles and Contemporary Russia (Rus)
|
| Culture |
A. Averintsev, Paideia: From the History of European Culture (Rus)
M. Berg, The Hamburg Account (Rus)
D. Dondurei, Nikita Mikhalkov's Trial Balloon
B. Dubin, Literary Culture Today (Rus)
M. Epstein, Hassid and Talmudist, an Essay on Pasternak and Mandleshtam (Rus)
M. Epstein, From Post- to Proto -- The Manifesto for the New Century (Rus)
M. Epstein, Philosophy of the Body: Haptics (Rus)
M. Epstein, Philosophy of the Body: Erotology (Rus)
M. Epstein, Life as a Narrative and Thesaurus (Rus)
M. Epstein and S. Iourienen, Encyclopedia of Youth (Rus)
A. Etkind, Pushkin, Tocqueville, and Democracy in Russia (Rus)
A. Gorbovsky, Magic and Power (Rus)
K. Isaakov, Love and Freedom: The Paperny Family Experience (Rus)
T. Ivanova, The Other Side of Fiction (Rus)
M. Lipovetsky, ed. Homo Scriptor: Festschrift for the 70th Birthday of Mikhail N. Epstein (Rus)
M. Lipovetsky, PMS -- Postsmodernism Today (Rus)
D. Shalin, Skazkobyl: Notes on the Recessive Genes of Russian Culture (Rus)
|
| Intelligentsia |
A. Altunian, Troubled Times (Rus)
D. Bak, Goodby to Heraclites (Rus)
M. Edelstein, Goodby to the Sixties (Rus)
M. Epstein, Amerussia: Biculturalism and Freedom (Rus)
A. Etkind, New Historicism, The Russian Version (Rus)
B. Firsov, Intelligentsia and Intellectuals the End of the Twentieth Century (Rus)
L. Gudkov, Concerning Boris Dubin (Rus)
L. Gudkov, Sociological Perspectives on Russia's Educated Elite (Rus)
V. Kardin, The Shift: Marking an Era (Rus)
Y. Karyakin, Changing Your Convictions (Rus)
D. Khmelnitsky, Conceptualism from the Realist's Perspective (Rus)
S. Korneev, The Survival of Intellectuals in Mass Culture (Rus)
Y. Levada, The 1970's -- Limits and Frames (Rus)
M. Masarsky, Middle Class and Intelligentsia (Rus)
P. Miliukov, A History of Russian Intelligentsia (Rus)
D. Postel, The Life and the Mind: Do Biographies of Philosophers Tell Us Much About Philosophy? (Eng)
A. Rubtsov, Liberalism and Liberals
| | |