This study is an engaging interdisciplinary investigation of the sense in the specifically Russian context, which will be useful to those interested in sensory studies, Russian History, everyday culture, literature, and film, as well as those studying discourses on national identity, colonialism, social mobility and social engineering, personal and collective experiences, and memory.
Slavic and East European Journal
... Read moreWith its broad sweep in time and careful attention to issues lying just below the surface, Russian History through the Senses deserves to be read by scholars seeking fresh inspiration from clearly written articles based upon a close examination of new primary sources.
Canadian Slavonic Papers
[A] set of essays that opens doors into long familiar topics and establishes some new and exciting avenues of research ... In addition to its own significant contributions to the history of sensation, this volume suggests that much more worth pursuing may be lurking within the inexpressible realm of the senses.
The Russian Review
This attention to the centrality, and often intersensorality, of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching in how we experience and interpret the external world, as Alexander Martin's excellent introduction underscores, has led to new understanding of key historical questions ... [the book] offers new and enlightening ways to see and think about the experience of Russian and Soviet history.
Journal of Social History
The articles in the book are of uniformly high quality, each richly informative.
EuropeNow
All the essays are lucidly written.
Slavonic and East European Review
A significant contribution to the new history of the senses, this innovative volume offers a panoply of articles showcasing how attention to the senses - touch, smell, sight, hearing, taste - can open up new vistas on some three centuries of Russian history. From travelers' experience of the cold climate in the eighteenth century or the cultural meanings of fermented, sour-tasting Russian rye bread through to soldiers' and nurses' sensory experience of war in the twentieth century, this collection takes readers on a veritable tour of modern Russia, exploring the making of national, imperial, social and gender identities as well as the sensory dimensions of memory, consumption, sociability, and state power. I recommended it to a broad readership.
Susan Morrissey, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine, USA
Russian History through the Senses brings the sensations of the past to life - but this volume also analyses them as a fascinating mirror of cultural meanings. In diverse and stimulating essays the authors make highly original contributions to histories of wars, empire, medicine, economics, cinema, and many other fields of Russian history. Fascinating and stimulating.
Dan Healey, Professor of Modern Russian History, Oxford University, UK
The remarkable collection, with its wide ranging, well researched and theoretically informed essays on the experiences of the senses, complements our literature on emotions and is essential reading for everyone interested in Russian and Soviet subjectivity.
Joan Neuberger, University of Texas at Austin, USA
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