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Author Obolonskiĭ, A. V. (Aleksandr Valentinovich)

Title The drama of Russian political history : system against individuality / Alexander V. Obolonsky ; foreword by Vincent Ostrom
Edition 1st ed
Published College Station : Texas A & M University Press, ©2003

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Description 1 online resource (xxiv, 271 pages)
Series Eastern European studies ; no. 19
Eastern European studies (College Station, Tex.) ; no. 19.
Contents On methodology and general concepts -- The time of troubles: 1606 1612, and the rest of the seventeenth century -- The devastating course of Peter's "modernization": the eighteenth century age of lost opportunities -- Romantic Decembrists and pessimistic philosophers: the dualism of the first generation Russian intelligentsia -- A decisive junction: the epoch of Alexander II -- After the catastrophe: the penultimate Romanov reign -- The evening glow -- The inverted pyramid -- Stalinism: high noon of system-centeredness -- After Stalin: the system yields to fatigue -- At the new crossroads
Summary "Obolonsky has undertaken the formidable task of reinterpreting Russian history from the Time of Troubles to the dismantling of the Soviet system under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and others. He seeks to understand the present and assess the social trends that will shape the future through a careful reconsideration of Russia's past." "Obolonsky structures his analysis of historical trends around two opposing concepts - a system-centered understanding of social existence in which individuals are viewed as "cogs" functioning for the sake of the whole, and a liberal person-centered paradigm in which society seeks to promote the development of the individual. He distrusts all monistic explanations, preferring to utilize a variety of variables - ethical, economic, sociopsychological, cultural - to explain Russian history, and presenting its course as a long-term and ongoing struggle between two competing models of life. Defining several critical junctures from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, Obolonsky focuses on these "historical crossroads", at which the course of history might have been changed either in favor of a person-centered way of life or a system-centered trajectory. Currently, Obolonsky maintains, Russia is again at a challenging crossroad, and the future is still open to each of these two different paths." "Students of Russian history, politics, and culture, and also those interested in the broader issues of twentieth-century society will find this informative magnum opus of a senior Russian scholar insightful and thought-provoking."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-268) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Political rights -- Russia
Political rights -- Soviet Union
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Historical.
HISTORY.
Political rights
Politics and government
Politieke geschiedenis.
SUBJECT Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh88002518
Soviet Union -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125832
Russia -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh92004045
Subject Russia
Russia (Federation)
Soviet Union
Genre/Form collective biographies.
Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
Author Ostrom, Vincent, 1919-2012.
LC no. 2002012708
ISBN 1585449881
9781585449880
1585442240
9781585442249
1299052517
9781299052512
9781603447089
1603447083
Other Titles Drama rossiĭskoĭ politicheskoĭ istorii. English