CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Kitaeva, Yana |
|---|---|
| Title | Speechwriting als Beruf: The Transformation of Practices of Soviet Speechwriters from the Brezhnev Era to the Early Perestroika Period |
| Summary | The aim of this thesis is to offer a new perspective within the field of Soviet Subjectivity through the concept of the kollektiv proposed by Oleg Kharkhordin and applied to the case study of Soviet Secretary General’s speechwriters from Brezhnev to Gorbachev. Namely, I examine the transformations in speechwriting practices of the kollektiv in the 1970s and 1980s. The kollektiv underwent a process of routinization in the early Brezhnev era, establishing a system of collective writing intended merely to transmit Party directives. This routine, which the contemporaries had described as numbing and uninspiring, had completely changed under Gorbachev. Practically, the routine of the speechwriting had become the continuous process of the creation of new ideas under the supervision of the Secretary General in the mid-1980s. Retrospectively identifying with the “sixties generation,” the speechwriters felt that they were finally allowed to fully express their creative potentials and reform the system from within. Having resulted in the creation of the “New Political Thinking,” this case study does not only show us how these two different approaches to speechwriting reflect the totalitarian and the revisionist perceptions of Soviet Subjectivity; it also shows how the changing self-image of the Soviet state had developed and was transmitted into the international arena. |
| Supervisor | Astrov, Alexander; Siefert, Marsha |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/kitaeva_yana.pdf |
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