The Slave Soul of Russia : Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering.
Why, asks Daniel Rancour-Laferriere in this controversial book, has Russia been a country of suffering? Russian history, religion, folklore, and literature are rife with suffering. The plight of Anna Karenina, the submissiveness of serfs in the 16th and 17th centuries, ancient religious tracts empha...
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
NYU Press,
1995.
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| Online Access: | Connect to this title online (unlimited users allowed) |
Table of Contents:
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Some historical highlights
- 3. Two key words in the vocabulary of Russian masochism
- 4. Masochism in Russian literature
- 5. Ontogeny and the cultural context
- 6. The Russian fool and his mother
- 7. Is the Slave soul of Russia a gendered object?
- 8. Born in a Bania: the masochism of Russian bathhouse rituals
- 9. Masochism and the collective
- 10. Conclusion.
- 1. Introduction; Masochism and the Slave Image; What Is Russia?; 2. Some Historical Highlights; Religious Masochism; Early Observers of Russian Masochism; The Slavophiles; Masochistic Tendencies among the Russian Intelligentsia; Masochism and Antimasochism; Recent Developments; 3. Two Key Words in the Vocabulary of Russian Masochism; Smirenie; Sud'ba; 4. Masochism in Russian Literature; Selected Masochistic Characters; Dmitrii Karamazov; Tat'iana Larina; Vasilii Grossman's Thousand-Year-Old Slave; 5. Ontogeny and the Cultural Context; Clinical Developments since Freud; Is Masochism Gendered?; The Masochist's Questionable Self and Unquestionable Other; Normalcy and Cultural Variation; The Swaddling Hypothesis Revisited; 6. The Russian Fool and His Mother; A Surplus of Fools; Ivan the Fool; The Fool and His Mother; 7. Is the Slave Soul of Russia a Gendered Object?; Patriarchy Conceals Matrifocality; Ambivalence toward Mothers; Suffering Women; Suffering from Equality; The Double Burden and Masochism; The Male Ego and the Male Organ; The Guilt Factor; Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Developments; 8. Born in a Bania: The Masochism of Russian Bathhouse Rituals; Cleansing Body and Soul; Digression on Russian Birches; The Bania-Mother; The Prenuptial Bath; 9. Masochism and the Collective; What It Means to Be a Zero; Sticking One's Neck Out in the Collective; A Post-Soviet Antimasochistic Trend?; Some Theoretical Considerations; Submission to the "Will" of the Commune in Tsarist Russia; Aleksei Losev: Masochism and Matriotism; Berdiaev's Prison Ecstasy; A Blok Poem: Suffering Begins at the Breast; Dostoevsky's Maternal Collective; 10. Conclusion.