Anton Weiss-Wendt and Nanci Adler, eds., "The Future of the Soviet Past: The Politics of History in Putin's Russia" (Indiana UP, 2021)
Behind the Cover with Indiana University PressShow Notes
In post-Soviet Russia, there is a persistent trend to repress, control, or even co-opt national history. By reshaping memory to suit a politically convenient narrative, Russia has fashioned a good future out of a "bad past." While Putin's regime has acquired nearly complete control over interpretations of the past, Anton Weiss-Wendt and Nanci Adler's edited volume The Future of the Soviet Past: The Politics of History in Putin's Russia (Indiana UP, 2021) reveals that Russia's inability to fully rewrite its Soviet history plays an essential part in its current political agenda. Diverse contributors consider the many ways in which public narrative shapes Russian culture—from cinema, television, and music to museums, legislature, and education—as well as how patriotism reflected in these forms of culture implies a casual acceptance of the valorization of Stalin and his role in World War II. The Future of the Soviet Past provides effective and nuanced examples of how Russia has reimagined its Soviet history as well as how that past still influences Russia's policymaking. Cynthia M. Horne is a Professor of Political Science at Western Washington University.
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Elad Lapidot is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Lille, France. His work is guided by questions concerning the relation between knowledge and politics. Among his publications: State of Others: Levinas and Decolonial Israel (Indiana UP, forthcoming), Politics of Not Speaking (Albany: SUNY Press, 2025), Jews Out of the Question: A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020), Hebrew translation of Hegel’sPhänomenologie des Geistes (Tel Aviv: Resling Publishing, 2020), Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, edited with M. Brumlik (London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and Etre sans mot dire : La logique de ‘Sein und Zeit’ (Bucarest: Zeta Books, 2010).
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Today we are joined by Pavel Brunssen, a Research Associate and Alfred Landecker Lecturer at the Research Center on Antigypsyism at Heidelberg University and author of The Making of “Jew Clubs”: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Football and Fan Cultures (Indiana UP, 2025).