Evgeniy A. Dobrenko

Dobrenko

PhD in Philology, 

Professor at the University of Venice (Italy)

Education: 

Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Odessa State University (1984)

PhD thesis:

Analytical Trends in Modern Soviet Prose and the Work of Yuri Trifonov in the 1960s-80s: the Problem of Typology and Poetics (1987)

Research interests:

Soviet and post-Soviet literature and culture, Stalinism, socialist realism, Soviet national literatures, Russian and Soviet cinema, critical theory and history of Soviet culture.

Awards and distinctions: 

  • Winner of the Efim Etkind Award for the best book about Russian culture
  • Winner of the AATSEEL Award for outstanding contribution to the development of science.

Teaching Activity:

Odessa State University, Russian State University for the Humanities, Duke University, Stanford University, Amherst College, University of California, University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, University of Venice

 

Academic publications — over 250 publications.

Selected publications

Monographs

  • Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution. New Haven, Yale University Press; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. 270 p.
  • Political Economy of Socialist Realism. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007. 408 p.
  • Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2005. 152 p.
  • The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2001. 484 p.
  • The Making of the State Reader: Social and Aesthetic Contexts of the Reception of Soviet Literature. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1997. 374 p.
  • The Metaphor of Power: Literature of the Stalin Era in Historical light. München: Sagner, 1993. 405 p. (Series “Slavistische Beitr”. Vol. 302)
  • Isaac Babel’s “Red Cavalry”. Moscow, Rossiiskii universitet Publ., 1993. 120 p. (with G. Belaia, I. Esaulov)

Books (author, editor-compiler)

  • State Laughter. Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022.
  • Late Stalinism: The Aesthetics of Politics. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2020.
  • “It's Just Letters on Paper…" Vladimir Sorokin: After Literature. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ., 2018. In Russ.
  • Socialist Realism in Central and Eastern European Literatures under Stalin: Institutions, Dynamics, Discourses. London, Anthem Press, 2018.
  • Russian Literature Since 1991. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  • A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism: The Soviet Age and Beyond. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. 424 p.

  • The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011. 326 p.

  • Non-canonical Classic: Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov (1940–2007). Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ., 2010. 784 p.

  • Petrified Utopia: Happiness Soviet Style. London, New York, Anthem Press, 2009. 308 p.

  • Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917–1953. New Haven, London, Yale University Press, 2007. 576 p. (Series “Annals of Communism”)

  • The Landscape of Stalinism: Тhe Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003. 315 p.

  • Criticism of 1917–1932: Library of Russian Criticism, ed., with introduction and comm. by E.A. Dobrenko. Moscow, AST Publ., 2003. 463 p.

  • Soviet Wealth: Articles About Culture, Literature, and Cinema. Collection of Articles in Honor of the 60th Anniversary of Günther. St. Petersburg, Akademicheskii proekt Publ., 2002. 448 p.

  • The Socialist Realist Canon. St. Petersburg, Akademicheskii proekt Publ., 2000. 1040 p.

  • Endquote: Sots-Art Literature and Soviet Grand Style. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2000. 241 p.

  • Socialist Realism without Shores. Durham, London, Duke University Press, 1997. 369 p.

  • Getting Rid of Mirages. Social Realism Today. Moscow, Sovetskii pisatel Publ., 1990. 413, [1] p.

Selected essays

  • “Hegemony of Brotherhood: The Birth of the Soviet Multinational Literature, 1922–1932.” Codex manuscriptus, issue 5. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2024, pp. 15–128. https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-15-128
  • “Socialist Realism.” The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Ed. by Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich, Emma Widdis. Cambridge, CUP, 2024. pp. 147–163.
  • “Satire.” The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Ed. by Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich, Emma Widdis. Cambridge, CUP, 2024. pp. 215–216.
  • “The Novel II.” The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Ed. by Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich, Emma Widdis. Cambridge, CUP, 2024. pp. 607–623.
  • The Great Imitator: Russian History from “Potemkin Villages”to “Kuban Cossacks”. Ab Imperio, 2023, no. 4, pp. 65–72.
  • “Reading Stalinism: Stalinist Culture as a Research Field in the West.” The Reception of East Slavic Literatures in the West and the East, Firenze, Firenze UP, 2023. pp. 211–224.
  • “The Soviet Cold War Literary Imagination.” The Palgrave Handbook of Cold War Literature, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. pp. 489–507. (Co-authored with Vladimir Dobrenko)
  • “The Readers’ Milieu 1917–1920s.” Reading Russia. A History of Reading in Modern Russia, vol. 3. Milan, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of Università degli Studi of Milan, 2020. pp. 15–42. (Co-authored with Abram Reitblat)
  • “When Comintern and Cominform Aesthetics Meet: Socialist Realism in Eastern Europe, 1956 and Beyond.” Comintern Aesthetics. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2020. pp. 420–448.

Scopus / Web of Science Publications

  • “Katerina Clark (1941–2024): Literary History as a Device.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 25, no. 3, 2024. pp. 668–675.
  • “Soviet Multinational Literature as an Imperial Project and as a Challenge to the Empire.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 4, 2024, pp. 245–254.
  • “The Cornerstone of Soviet Literature: RAPP and the Literary Process of the 1920–30s as a Research Field (Historiographical Introduction).” Slavic Literatures, vol. 146–148, 2024, pp. 1–43.
  • “Hegemony of Brotherhood: The Birth of Soviet Multinational Literature, 1922–1932.” Slavic Review, vol. 81, no. 4, 2022. pp. 869–890.
  • “Introduction.” Slavic Review, vol. 81, no. 4, 2022. pp. 865–868. (Co-authored with Klavdia Smola)
  • “From the History of Literary Institutions to the Institutional History of Literature.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3, 2022, pp. 229–231.
  • “Laughing Stalinism: The Fate of the Comic in a Tragic Age.” Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 65, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1–20.
  • “Judgement Day of Russian Literature. Post-Classical Novel: The Canon and Transgression.” Philological Class, vol. 25, 2020, no. 3, pp. 9–22.
  • “Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space.” Slavic review, vol. 78, no. 3, 2019, pp. 862–863.
  • “Annushka Already Spilled the Butter.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 158, 2019,pp. 357–370.
  • “The Art of Hatred: ‛Noble Fury’ and Violence in the Russian Culture of the World War II Period.” Russkaia Literatura, no. 3, 2019, pp. 217–228.
  • “The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution.” Novyi mir, no. 12, 2017, pp. 183–189.
  • “Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 144, 2017, pp. 542–546.
  • “Prigov and the Gesamtkunstwerk.” Russian review, vol. 75, no. 2, 2016, pp. 209–219.