After Newspeak - by Michael S Gorham (Hardcover)

About the Book

Michael S. Gorham presents a cultural history of the politics of Russian language from Gorbachev and glasnost to Putin and the emergence of new generations of Web technologies.

Book Synopsis

In After Newspeak, Michael S. Gorham presents a cultural history of the politics of Russian language from Gorbachev and glasnost to Putin and the emergence of new generations of Web technologies. Gorham begins from the premise that periods of rapid and radical change both shape and are shaped by language. He documents the role and fate of the Russian language in the collapse of the USSR and the decades of reform and national reconstruction that have followed. Gorham demonstrates the inextricable linkage of language and politics in everything from dictionaries of profanity to the flood of publications on linguistic self-help, the speech patterns of the country's leaders, the blogs of its bureaucrats, and the official programs promoting the use of Russian in the so-called "near abroad."Gorham explains why glasnost figured as such a critical rhetorical battleground in the political strife that led to the Soviet Union's collapse and shows why Russians came to deride the newfound freedom of speech of the 1990s as little more than the right to swear in public. He assesses the impact of Medvedev's role as Blogger-in-Chief and the role Putin's vulgar speech practices played in the restoration of national pride. And he investigates whether Internet communication and new media technologies have helped to consolidate a more vibrant democracy and civil society or if they serve as an additional resource for the political technologies manipulated by the Kremlin.

Review Quotes

In this book Gorham decided to survey a very dynamic and unstable period of Russian contemporary history that has not yet been studied from the perspective of language culture.... Gorham's innovative work, referring to numerous historical and socio-political contexts, not only enables a better undestanding of the last 25 years of the Russian Federation, but also offers a new perspective on the interrelation between language, culture, and politics.

Micahel Gorham's After Newspeak: Language Culture and Politics in Russia from Gorbachev to Putin is an insightful and thought-provoking cultural history of the Russian language and its close connection to Russian politics in the period from Gorbachev's perestroika to the early years of Putin's third presidential term Meticulously researched, wonderfully written, and full of vivid examples and compelling vignettes, After Newspeak is essential reading for anyone studying Russian politics, language, media, and national identity.

There are very few books analyzing post-Soviet culture from the perspective of politics and vice versa. Michael Gorham's second monograph belongs to this rare and highly valuable breed, as it embraces the period from Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost to the anti-Putin protests of 2011-12. Michael Gorham has written a highly necessary book establishing a new approach to post-Soviet politics through the study of competition between language ideologies and rhetorical models warring for political prominence. Written in a highly accessible manner and rich with unique factual material, it should become an essential part of diverse courses on post-Soviet culture, language, and politics on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

About the Author

Michael S. Gorham is Professor of Russian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Florida. He is the author of Speaking in Soviet Tongues: Language Culture and the Politics of Voice in Revolutionary Russia and coeditor of Digital Russia: The Language, Culture, and Politics of New Media Communication.