Jeffrey Brooks

brooksjp@jhu.edu
Articles by Jeffrey Brooks

Excerpt from Jeffrey Brooks’ “The Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks”

During the century of Russian genius roughly from 1850 to Stalin’s death a panorama of extraordinary cultural richness unfolded, with layer upon layer of innovation in the arts. Visual artists moved outside and beyond the academy to paint the Russian people and landscapes, then farther still to pioneer Primitivism, Constructivism, and Suprematism. Composers, choreographers, and dancers infused ballet with new themes, costumes, sets, and music. Writers offered masterpieces of Realism, honed the modern short story, and went beyond, turning to the fantastic to capture the surrealism of cultural life under Stalin. 

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