Indiana University Press blog

Book reviews: The Great War in Russian Memory

"Was the memory of the Great War somehow reflected in the Soviet cult of the Second World War? These questions are merely an indication of how engaging and welcome Petrone’s book is. This is cultural history at its best." —Journal of Contemporary History

"Overall, this book offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of World War I discourse. . . . After reading The Great War in Russian Memory, there is little doubt that THE Russian experience of war merits closer study in a broader, European context." —Canadian Slavonic Papers

Book review: Mamontov's Private Opera

"Haldey deserves great credit for re-creating this lost world of art for its own sake and restoring it to its proper place in the pages of Russian history. The book joins a growing roster of sound studies that effectively debunk the Soviet and, as is too often the case, the lingering Western assertion that the arts in Russia were merely a primordial swamp of repressed political messages that oozed along with social antagonisms only resolvable through inevitable revolution." —Revolutionary Russia

Book review: Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire

"On the basis of voluminous sources, Veidlinger makes some findings that taken together offer a dramatically new account of the cultural sensibilities of 'everyday Jews' in the late imperial period." —The Journal of Modern History

Book reviews: Kiev, Jewish Metropolis

"Natan M. Meir’s Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859–1914 is a rich social, cultural, and institutional history of Jewish life in one of its most important and hitherto least understood urban centers." —The Journal of Modern History

"Meir’s book provides a broad history of Jewish Kiev in the half-century between the loosening of residence restrictions and the outbreak of the First World War, and gives an exceptionally rich portrait of the complex and changing nature of Kiev’s Jewish community." —Revolutionary Russia

Book review: Domestic Violence in Postcommunist States

"The volume will be of interest to scholars of violence against women and post-communism from a variety of disciplines, but also to on-the-ground practitioners who can draw on the rich lessons learned included in the studies." —Anthropology of East Europe Review

Book review: The Great War in Russian Memory

"Petrone's achievement in this important book is to have set a convincing benchmark for a discussion that will run for many years."—H-Memory

Book review: The Great War in Russian Memory

"Intermingling WWI memories and Russian Revolution mythology, this study provides a brief but fascinating overview of the complexity of Great War memory." —World War I Bridges

Book review: Mamontov's Private Opera

"This is a bracing account of a time when faith in dramatic art was contagious—and worked wonders." —Slavic Review

Book review: Religion, Morality and Community in Post-Soviet Societies

"[T]his volume makes a very timely and well researched contribution to the discussion of religion and politics in the former Soviet Union." —Slavonic and East European Review

Book review: Cinepaternity

"The eleven articles in this anthology provide insightful studies of the Oedipal dynamics dramatized in diverse films beginning in the immediate post-Stalin period." —Slavonic and East European Review