Search

In this review of "Diffuziia evropeiskikh innovatsii v Rossiiskoi imperii: Materialy vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Ekaterinburg, 10-11 noiabria 2009g." (The diffusion of European innovation in the Russian Empire: Papers from the All-Russian Research Conference in Ekaterinburg, November 10-11, 2009. Ed. E.V. Alekseev), Aleksandr Kamenskii explains that the term "diffusionism," originating with the German ethnologist Fritz Graebner, is used by the different authors in the collection to refer to various manifestations of influence from one culture to another. As Kamenskii points out, the presenters at the Ekaterinburg conference used a variety of approaches to the question of how Western culture has informed socio-cultural developments in Russia, and the result is a lack of coherence, an overly broad scope of analysis, inconsistent use of terminology, and even fundamental disagreements on methodology and essential questions from one essay to the next. Kamenskii also takes issue with a number of facts and assertions appearing in several of the essays. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]

This article presents a review of "The History and Culture of Russian and East European Jewry: New Sources, New Approaches," a collection of conference papers abot location and variety of primary sources, and questions of searches for self-identity. Aspects of sourcing include difficulties finding documents in archives, systematizing information, and dividing Jewish history into eras. Self-identification questions cover such topics as responding to censuses, literary representations of Jews, and the Russian Jewish diaspora. Gennadii Kostyrchenko addresses an under-researched topic: the Jewish Autonomous Republic in Crimea, its ties to the United States, and the "Crimean letter" signed by Solomon Mikhoels. This volume contains many useful materials on Jewish history, literature, and anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]

This article presents a review of "Visual Anthropology: New Views on Social Reality," a collection of 26 papers that explore Russian and Baltic academic visual research in relation to various disciplines, including history. The book is divided into four sections, examining such varied topics as methods for viewing the Soviet past, analysis of photographs of newlyweds in urban settings, and how people describe family photographs. Also included are pieces on sociological analysis of film, pornographic imagery in post-Soviet society, Soviet journals' visual standards, and masculinity in Aleksei Balabanov's film "Brat" ("Brother"). The book poses numerous questions about historiography and visual anthropology, a growing trend, but it is likely to have a niche appeal because of its focus on photographic and film documents. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]

The collection "Women’s Oral History: Gender Research" edited by Andrea Peto, is the second volume of papers produced within the Open Society Institute’s International Women’s Program, which collects and analyzes oral histories by women in the former Soviet Union for educational and research purposes. This volume addresses women of ethnic minorities, women in conflict and post-conflict situations, women and Islamic practice, and the impact of post-Soviet transition on women. The reviewer, Anika Walke, points out that this volume has some real shortcomings. The introduction, written not by the collection’s editor, but by the American director of the program, fails to explain the selection of texts or outline the academic, ideological, and historical parameters of the publication. Nevertheless, individual contributions to the collection make it a valuable source of cultural information on the lives of women at this time of political and cultural transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]