Class and Culture in a Changing Society, Moscow Bourgeoisie in Revolutionary Russia

FAIN: FT-10744-70

Louis Menashe
Polytechnic University of New York (Brooklyn, NY 11201-3840)

Social and cultural profile of the Bourgeoisie in pre-Revolutionary Russia, during the period when Russian society was confronted by the broad crisis of modernization. Moscow is focus of study because of its unique historical, cultural and economic role in Russian society and because of the unusual sense of class identity shared by the business strata of that city during the pre-Revolutionary period. Moscow presented a fascinating clash of contrasts: the center of Old Russian secular and churchly civilization, it was now the scene of cultural innovation sponsored by the wealth and initiative of her bourgeois industrialists and financiers. Illuminates the problems of transitional urban classes in contemporary underdeveloped societies.