The Stalin Cult: A Study In The Alchemy Of Power (yale-hoover Series On Authoritarian Regimes)
by Jan Plamper /
2012 / English / EPUB
3.7 MB Download
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.
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.
