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Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 (Studies on the History of Society and Culture, Vol 15)
Bolshevik Festivals 19171920 - Studies on the History of Society and Culture, Vol 15 Author:James von Geldern In the early years of the USSR, socialist festivals--events entailing enormous expense and the deployment of thousands of people--were inaugurated by the Bolsheviks. Avant-garde canvases decorated the streets, workers marched, and elaborate mass spectacles were staged. Why, with a civil war raging and an economy in ruins, did the regime sponsor ... more »such spectacles?
In this first comprehensive investigation of the way festivals helped build a new political culture, James von Geldern examines the mass spectacles that captured the Bolsheviks' historical vision. Spectacle directors borrowed from a tradition that included tsarist pomp, avant-garde theater, and popular celebrations. They transformed the ideology of revolution into a mythologized sequence of events that provided new foundations for the Bolsheviks' claim to power.« less