BIBFRAME Work

Title

The art and science of making the new man in early 20th-century Russia

Type

  • Text
  • Monograph

Contribution

Subject

  • Human evolution in literature (LCSH)
  • Sociobiology--Russia--History--20th century (LCSH)
  • Sociobiology--Soviet Union--History (LCSH)
  • Human evolution--Social aspects--Russia--History--20th century (LCSH)
  • Human evolution--Social aspects--Soviet Union--History (LCSH)
  • Art and science (LCSH)
  • Soviet Union--Intellectual life (LCSH)
  • Russia--Intellectual life--20th century (LCSH)

Language

Classification

Content

Supplementary content

Summary

"The idea that morally, mentally, and physically superior 'new men' might replace the currently existing mankind has periodically seized the imagination of intellectuals, leaders, and reformers throughout history. This volume offers a multidisciplinary investigation into how the 'new man' was made in Russia and the early Soviet Union in the first third of the 20th century. The traditional narrative of the Soviet 'new man' as a creature forged by propaganda is challenged by the strikingly new and varied case studies presented here. The book focuses on the interplay between the rapidly developing experimental life sciences, such as biology, medicine, and psychology, and countless cultural products, ranging from film and fiction, dolls and museum exhibits to pedagogical projects, sculptures, and exemplary agricultural fairs. With contributions from scholars based in the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany and Russia, the picture that emerges is emphatically more complex, contradictory, and suggestive of strong parallels with other 'new man' visions in Europe and elsewhere. In contrast to previous interpretations that focused largely on the apparent disconnect between utopian 'new man' rhetoric and the harsh realities of everyday life in the Soviet Union, this volume brings to light the surprising historical trajectories of 'new man' visions, their often obscure origins, acclaimed and forgotten champions, unexpected and complicated results, and mutual interrelations. In short, the volume is a timely examination of a recurring theme in modern history, when dramatic advancements in science and technology conjoin with anxieties about the future to fuel dreams of a new and improved mankind"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Introduction: On words and meanings / Nikolai Krementsov -- Encyclopedic Worldbuilding: Alexander Bogdanov and the cognitive creation of the new man / Michael Coates -- 'The Road to Life': educating the new man / Lyubov Bugaeva -- The new man in the nursery: making Soviet dolls and regulating children's play in the 1920s and 1930s / Olga Ilyukha -- New sciences, new worlds, and 'New Men' / Nikolai Krementsov -- Entertaining sciences, unlikely horrors: the changing image of Man in Soviet popular-scientific literary genres / Matthais Schwartz -- The New Man as a monster of eugenic imagination: the criminal brain in Mikhail Bulgakov's 'Heart of a Dog' and James Whale's Frankenstein / Irina Golovacheva -- 'A School of the Peasantry of the Future': constructing the image of a 'New Peasant' at the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, 1923 / Olga Elina -- Revolutionary evolution in apes and humans in the 1920s: sculpture and constructs of the New Man at the Moscow Darwin Museum / Pat Simpson -- A New Man in the Ethnographic Museum: between the socialist content and the national form / Stanislav Petriashin -- Conclusion. The New Man: one hundred years later / Yvonne Howell.

Authorized Access Point

The art and science of making the new man in early 20th-century Russia

Geographic Coverage

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-12T04:02:12.243601+00:00
  • Agent: cbc
  • Status: c
  • Derived from: 22101404

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-12
  • Cataloger id: Unknown
  • Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
  • Description language: eng
  • Description authentication: pcc

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