{"product_id":"to-see-paris-and-die-the-soviet-lives-of-western-culture-9780674980716","title":"To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eForeign Affairs\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the AATSEEL Prize for Best Book in Cultural Studies\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Soviet Union was a notoriously closed society until Stalin's death in 1953. Then, in the mid-1950s, a torrent of Western novels, films, and paintings invaded Soviet streets and homes, acquiring heightened emotional significance. \u003ci\u003eTo See Paris and Die\u003c\/i\u003e is a history of this momentous opening to the West. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAt the heart of this history is a process of translation, in which Western figures took on Soviet roles: Pablo Picasso as a political rabble-rouser; Rockwell Kent as a quintessential American painter; Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest Hemingway as teachers of love and courage under fire; J. D. Salinger and Giuseppe De Santis as saviors from Soviet clichés. Imported novels challenged fundamental tenets of Soviet ethics, while modernist paintings tested deep-seated notions of culture. Western films were eroticized even before viewers took their seats. The drama of cultural exchange and translation encompassed discovery as well as loss. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEleonory Gilburd explores the pleasure, longing, humiliation, and anger that Soviet citizens felt as they found themselves in the midst of this cross-cultural encounter. The main protagonists of \u003ci\u003eTo See Paris and Die\u003c\/i\u003e are small-town teachers daydreaming of faraway places, college students vicariously discovering a wider world, and factory engineers striving for self-improvement. They invested Western imports with political and personal significance, transforming foreign texts into intimate belongings. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith the end of the Soviet Union, the Soviet West disappeared from the cultural map. Gilburd's history reveals how domesticated Western imports defined the last three decades of the Soviet Union, as well as its death and afterlife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGilburd, Eleonory:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Eleonory Gilburd is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago.","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412789301522,"sku":"9780674980716","price":35.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_61f91fd6-9de9-4ff7-9341-0de7291d22d9.jpg?v=1729328213","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/to-see-paris-and-die-the-soviet-lives-of-western-culture-9780674980716","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}