Lovell, Stephen

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LOVELL, Stephen

PERSONAL: Male. Education: King's College, Cambridge, B.A.; University of London, M.A., 1998, Ph.D., 1998.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Department of History, King's College, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: King's College, London, London, England, lecturer in European history. Fellow, St. John's College, Oxford.

WRITINGS:

The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in theSoviet and Post-Soviet Eras, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Alena Ledeneva and Andrei Rogachevskii) Bribery and Blat in Russia: Negotiating Reciprocity from the Middle Ages to the 1990s, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Catriona Kelly) Russian Literature,Modernism, and the Visual Arts, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710-2000, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 2003.

Contributor to Journal of Modern History.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Researching the history of old age in Russia.

SIDELIGHTS: Historian and educator Stephen Lovell specializes in Russian history. Lovell's The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras is the "first comprehensive account" of Soviet reading customs, observed Andrei Rogachevskii in Europe-Asia Studies. According to Mary Stuart in the Slavic Review, "The revolution of the title refers to the restructuring of the relationship between the reading public and the publishing system that occurred between 1986 and the mid-1990s, which resulted in the 'normalization' of print culture in Russia." Stuart added that The Russian Reading Revolution "presents a compelling account of the evolution in print culture in Russia through the period of Soviet power leading up to the 'revolution.'"

In 2000 Lovell coedited Bribery and Blat in Russia: Negotiating Reciprocity from the Middle Ages to the 1990s and Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts. In Europe-Asia Studies, Nordica Nettleton stated that Bribery and Blat in Russia "puts into a social, cultural, and historical perspective that ubiquitous informal process of obtaining goods and services which most individuals familiar with Russia have encountered." Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, a collection of ten essays, "represents an excellent example of an interdisciplinary study of Russian literature of the modernist period," according to Birgit Beumers in the Journal of European Studies.

Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710-2000 was published in 2003. As Lovell "shows in this absorbing study," a contributor in the Economist remarked, "the Russian country cottage has undergone a significant evolution since its beginnings as a simple gift of land bestowed by the state." The Economist reviewer went on to note that Lovell "does a splendid job of telling the story of the dacha, which is by now a hallowed feature of Russian life," adding that "no study of the Russian mentality can be complete without an understanding of a phenomenon which really has no proper equal in any other culture."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 2001, Dmitry Shlapentokh, review of The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras, pp. 1908-1909.

Canadian Journal of History, December, 2001, Alexandra Popoff, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, pp. 577-578.

Choice, October, 2000, N. Tittler, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, p. 314; November, 2003, E. A. Cole, review of Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710-2000, p. 601.

Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2003, Nina C. Ayoub, "Nota Bene," p. A20.

Economist, June 21, 2003, "Country Life: The Russian Summer House," p. 78.

Europe-Asia Studies, January, 2001, Andrei Rogachevskii, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, p. 185; November, 2002, Nordica Nettleton, review of Bribery and Blat in Russia: Negotiating Reciprocity from the Middle Ages to the 1990s, pp. 1173-1175; December, 2003, Jonathan Old-field, review of Summerfolk, pp. 1336-1337.

Journal of European Studies, December, 2000, Birgit Beumers, review of Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, p. 445.

Journal of Modern History, June, 2003, Jonathan Rose, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, p. 480.

Libraries & Culture, summer, 2002, Louise McReynolds, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, pp. 185-186.

Library Journal, March 15, 2003, Harry Willems, review of Summerfolk, p. 97.

Modern Language Review, October, 2001, Stephen C. Hutchings, review of Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, pp. 1168-1170.

Russian Life, September-October, 2003, review of Summerfolk, p. 61.

Slavic and East European Journal, spring, 2001, Jason Merrill, review of Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, pp. 140-141.

Slavic Review, fall, 2001, Joanna Kot, review of Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, pp. 677-678; winter, 2001, Mary Stuart, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, pp. 893-894.

Slavonic and East European Review, April, 2001, Gregory Walker, review of The Russian Reading Revolution, pp. 361-362; April, 2002, Angela Livingstone, review of Russian Literature, Modernism, and the Visual Arts, pp. 328-330.

Times Literary Supplement, April 25, 2003, John Keep, "Allotment Gardeners," p. 36.