Empire from a Distance

Empire from a Distance examines images of Russians, Russia and the Soviet Union in texts of culture. The volume is focused on a cultural perspective, including both historical and contemporary issues. Culture, on the other hand, encompasses, above all, a particularly intriguing area that goes beyond the phenomena of the so-called high culture. Instead of a thousandth interpretation of the works of Russian prose masters from the nineteenth century, the authors offer a fascinating journey through the Eastern cultural topoi manifested in the world of memes or comic book superheroes. There is no shortage of in-depth analyses of individual film titles, excellent comparative studies (both of two reporters and of entire Polish-Spanish cultural configurations), as well as intriguing and unorthodox religious scholarly threads. All this makes reading the book an invigorating and compelling experience.