This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Russian music today has a firm hold around the world in the repertoire of opera houses, ballet companies, and orchestras. The music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergey Rachmaninov, Sergey Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich is very much today’s lingua franca both in the concert hall and on the soundtracks of international blockbusters from Hollywood. Meanwhile, the innovations of Modest Musorgsky, Alexander Borodin, and Igor Stravinsky have played their crucial role in the development of Western music, influencing the work of virtually every notable composer of the past century. Historical Dictionary of Russian Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries for each of Russia’s major performing organizations and performance venues, and on specific genres such as ballet, film music, symphony and church music. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian Music.

Originally published in 1932, this book presents a collection of Russian heroic poems, or byliny, edited and translated into English. The selections run in chronological order from the medieval period through to the nineteenth century, with particular focus on major historic figures such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.

This is an annotated collection of recent studies of Russian folk religion, village organization and family life, including the rituals associated with childbirth, and paying special attention to women's roles and to the specificity of Siberia in Russian culture.

A latecomer continually hampered by government control and interference, the Russian theatre seems an unlikely source of innovation and creativity. Yet, by the middle of the nineteenth century, it had given rise to a number of outstanding playwrights and actors, and by the start of the twentieth century, it was in the vanguard of progressive thinking in the realms of directing and design. Its influence throughout the world was pervasive: Nikolai Gogol', Anton Chekhov and Maksim Gor'kii remain staples of repertories in every language, the ideas of Konstantin Stanislavskii, Vsevolod Meierkhol'd and Mikhail Chekhov continue to inspire actors and directors, while designers still draw on the graphics of the World of Art group and the Constructivists. What distinguishes Russian theater from almost any other is the way in which these achievements evolved and survived in ongoing conflict or cooperation with the State. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Russian Theatre covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on individual actors, directors, designers, entrepreneurs, plays, playhouses and institutions, Censorship, Children’s Theater, Émigré Theater, and Shakespeare in Russia. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian Theatre.

Russia is a dominant force in the world, whose culture has been shaped by its unique position on the margins of both East and West. As Russia faces new cultural challenges from outside its national boundaries, this volume introduces Russian culture in all its rich diversity, including the historical conditions that helped shape it and the arts that express its highest achievements. Newly commissioned essays by leading scholars explore language, religion, geography, ideological structures, folk ethos and popular culture, literature, music, theatre, art, and film. A chronology and guides to further reading are also provided. The Companion offers both historical orientation for the central processes of Russian culture and introductory surveys of the arts in their modern context. Overall, the volume reveals, for students, academic researchers and all those interested in Russia, the dilemmas, strengths, and complexities of the Russian cultural experience.

As the first survey of the history of women in Russia to be published in any language, this book is itself an historic event -- the result of the collaboration of the leading Russian and American specialists on Russian women's history. The book is divided in to four chronological parts corresponding to eras of Russian history: (I) Kievan/Mongol (10th - 15th centuries); (II) Muscovite ( 16th - 17th centuries); (III) 18th century; and (IV) 19th - early 20th centuries. Each part gives coverage to four main topics: (1) The role of prominent women in public life, with biographical sketches of women who attained prominence in political or cultural life; (2) Women's daily life and family roles; (3) Women's status under the law; (4) Material culture and in particular women's dress as an expression of their place in society.

Russian literature arrived late on the European scene. Within several generations, its great novelists had shocked - and then conquered - the world. In this introduction to the rich and vibrant Russian tradition, Caryl Emerson weaves a narrative of recurring themes and fascinations across several centuries. Beginning with traditional Russian narratives (saints' lives, folk tales, epic and rogue narratives), the book moves through literary history chronologically and thematically, juxtaposing literary texts from each major period. Detailed attention is given to canonical writers including Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn, as well as to some current bestsellers from the post-Communist period. Fully accessible to students and readers with no knowledge of Russian, the volume includes a glossary and pronunciation guide of key Russian terms as well as a list of useful secondary works. The book will be of great interest to students of Russian as well as of comparative literature.