Research Catalog

Title

Political animals : representing dogs in modern Russian culture / by Henrietta Mondry.

Author

Mondry, Henrietta

Publication

• Leiden : Brill Rodopi, [2015]
• ©2015

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xviii, 451 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

This book is the first interdisciplinary study of the representation of dogs in Russian discourse since the nineteenth century. Focusing on the correlation between humans and dogs in traditional belief systems, in literature, film and other cultural productions, it shows that the dog as a political construct incorporates various contradictions, with different representations investing the dog with multiple, often-paradoxical meanings - moral, social and philosophical. From the peasantry's dislike of the gentry's hunting dogs and children's cruelty to dogs in Pushkin and Dostoevsky to the establishment of the Soviet dynasties of border guard and police dogs, from Pavlov's laboratory dogs to the monuments to the cosmic dog Laika and the subversive dog impersonations by the contemporary performance artist Oleg Kulik, the book explores the intersections of species-class-gender-sexuality-race-disability and, paradoxically, of Arcadian and Utopian dreams and scientific deeds. This study contributes to the unfolding cultural history of human-animal relations across cultures.

Series Statement

Studies in Slavic literature and poetics ; 59

Uniform Title

Studies in Slavic literature and poetics v. 59.

Alternative Title

Representing dogs in modern Russian culture

Subject

• Dogs > Social aspects > Russia (Federation)
• Dogs in literature
• Russian literature > History and criticism
• Dogs > history

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [391]-421) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 9789042039025
• 9042039027

OCLC

• 899979267
• SCSB-11545252

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library