Research Catalog

The Stalin cult : a study in the alchemy of power

Title
The Stalin cult : a study in the alchemy of power / Jan Plamper.
Author
Plamper, Jan, 1970-
Publication
Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution, Stanford University ; New Haven : Yale University Press, c2012.
Supplementary Content
Table of contents

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TextUse in library JFF 14-331Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xx, 310 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. (some col.); 27 cm.
Summary
Between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, one of the most persuasive personality cults of all times saturated Soviet public space with images of Stalin. A torrent of portraits, posters, statues, films, plays, songs, and poems galvanized the Soviet population and inspired leftist activists around the world. In the first book to examine the cultural products and production methods of the Stalin cult, Jan Plamper reconstructs a hidden history linking artists, party patrons, state functionaries, and ultimately Stalin himself in the alchemical project that transformed a pock-marked Georgian into the embodiment of global communism. Departing from interpretations of the Stalin cult as an outgrowth of Russian mysticism or Stalin's psychopathology, Plamper establishes the cult's context within a broader international history of modern personality cults constructed around Napoleon III, Mussolini, Hitler, and Mao. Drawing upon evidence from previously inaccessible Russian archives, Plamper's lavishly illustrated and accessibly written study will appeal to anyone interested in twentieth-century history, visual studies, the politics of representation, dictator biography, socialist realism, and real socialism.
Series Statement
The Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War
Uniform Title
Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Paths to the Stalin cult -- pt. 1. Cult products -- Stalin's image in time -- Stalin's image in space -- pt. 2. Cult production -- The political is personal, art is political : Stalin, the cult, and patronage -- How to paint the leader? Institutions of cult production -- The audience as cult producer : exhibition comment books and notes at celebrity evenings -- Appendix: The statistics of visual representations of Stalin in Pravda.
Call Number
JFF 14-331
ISBN
  • 9780300169522 (cloth : alk. paper)
  • 0300169523 (cloth : alk. paper)
LCCN
2011019576
OCLC
711045596
Author
Plamper, Jan, 1970-
Title
The Stalin cult : a study in the alchemy of power / Jan Plamper.
Imprint
Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution, Stanford University ; New Haven : Yale University Press, c2012.
Series
The Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War
Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Table of contents
Research Call Number
JFF 14-331
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