Elena Monastireva-Ansdell

Education

Indiana University Bloomington, Ph.D.

Areas of Expertise

• Literature, cinema, and culture of twentieth- and twenty-first century Russia and the former Soviet republics

• Environmental Humanities

• Media constructions of gender, ethnicity, and nationality

• Soviet national mythology in Stalinist, Thaw, and Putin-era cinema

• Post-socialist and postcolonial studies

• Polish Language and Cinema

Current Research

Elena hails from an ethnically and culturally diverse region of southern Russia, the beautiful Adyghei Republic in the Caucasus Mountains. She came of age in the era of Perestroika and Glasnost, which shaped her initial scholarly interests in authoritarian and national mythologies, post-socialist studies and postcolonial critique. Russia’s natural beauty and geographic diversity, as well as her unique and deeply nuanced tradition of engaging, depicting, and thinking about the natural world, provided another source of inspiration and critical study. 

Elena’s first research focus grew out of a deep interest in the Caucasus, past and present, including Tsarist-era imperial ambitions, Soviet colonialism, and post-Soviet interethnic relations and conflict. The site of Russian imperial conquest (1817-64), the region figures famously in literary works by Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy who created an enduring mythology of the “Good Russian Prisoner” peacefully interacting with the “savage” mountain tribes who hold him captive. Elena investigates how this canonical narrative that both naturalizes the Russian presence in the Caucasus and explains the empire’s relations with its non-Russian subjects, has since been used to justify or question post-Soviet Russia’s political and cultural ambitions vis-à-vis her neighbors and ethnic Others.

Beyond Russia, Elena explores the ways in which post-Soviet Central Asian states restructure their relations with the former metropole and negotiate their hybrid post-socialist and postcolonial identities that span Soviet modernity, traditional ethnic customs, pre-Islamic spiritual beliefs, customary and fundamentalist Islam, Soviet-instilled secularism, nomadic pastoralism, and urbanization. Within this larger post-Soviet space Elena investigates postcolonial ecologies, or environmental legacies of the Soviet Nature Transformation project in post-Soviet states, as well as Russia. She is currently examining images of wine and viticulture as decolonizing tools in cinematic constructions of national identity in Soviet and post-independence Georgia. 

Elena teaches all levels of Russian, as well as Russian literature, cinema, and culture courses. Outside of classroom, she enjoys sharing with students her love of Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian, and Central Asian cuisines at the traditional “Friendship of the Peoples” feasts at her home. 

Publications

WORK IN PROGRESS

“’Thou Art a Vineyard’: Viticulture and Winemaking in Post-Stalinist Georgian Cinema.” Long article.

PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS AND ANTHOLOGIES

“Globalizing the Steppe: The Environment and Identity in Ermek Tursunov’s Tengriist Parables.” The Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, January 2024, pp. 1-20.  Https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2023.2298050

“Environmental Contamination and Postcolonial Recuperation in Late Soviet and Post-Independence Kazakhstani Cinema.” In Irina Anisimova, Alyssa DeBlasio and Maria Hristova, eds., Energy/Waste: Approaches to the Environment in Post-Soviet Culture, University of Bergen’s open-access series, Slavica Bergensia, Volume 14, pp. 91-111. Https://doi.org/10.15845/slavberg.21.c133  

”Electricity Within: Islam, pre-Islamic traditions, and Secular Forms of Belief in Contemporary Kyrgyz Cinema.” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Volume 15, 2021, Issue 2, pp. 153-173. Https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2021.1906009

“First/Last Teacher: Recasting Soviet Legacies in Contemporary Kyrgyz Cinema.” The Russian Review, 79 (July 2020). Https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12274    

“Renegotiating the ‘Communal Apartment’: Migration and Identity in Soviet and Contemporary Eurasian Cinema.” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2017. Https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2017.1366061 

“Re/framing the ‘Good Russian Prisoner’: Challenges of Postcolonial Reassessment in Aleksandr Rogozhkin’s Checkpoint.” The Russian Review, 76 (January 2017). Https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12122    

“His Majesty’s Aide (1969).” Birgit Beumers, ed. Directory of World Cinema: Russia 2. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2015

“Trapped in the Prisoner Scenario: The First Chechen War and Sergei Bodrov’s Prisoner of the Mountains.” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Volume 8, Issue 2, 2014. Https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2014.919131 

“Soviet Structuring Myths in The Commissar.” Rimgaila Salys, ed. The Russian Cinema Reader: Volume II, The Thaw to the Present. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013.

“Redressing the Commissar: Thaw Cinema Revisits Soviet Structuring Myths.” Lawrence Baron, ed. Modern Jewish Experiences in World Cinema, Brandeis University Press, 2011

“Redressing the Commissar: Thaw Cinema Revises Soviet Structuring Myths.” The Russian Review, Volume 65/ Number 2 (April 2006). Https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2005.00397

REFEREED ONLINE JOURNALS

“The Quiet Courage of Being Real. Intermission by Anna Kuznetsova, 2022.” KinoKultura, Issue 85 (July), 2024. Https://www.kinokultura.com/2024/85r-kanikuly.shtml

“Antonio Lukich’s My Thoughts Are Silent (Moï думки тихi, 2019): A Ukraine of Many Voices.” KinoKultura, Issue 82 (October), 2023. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2023/82r-my-thoughts.shtml

”Vladimir Munkuev’s Nuuccha (2021, Sakha): Russophobic or Postcolonial?” KinoKultura: A Journal of New Russian Cinema, Issue 76 (April), 2022. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2022/76r-nuuccha.shtml 

“Women without Men: Labor Migration and Uzbek Society in Umid Khamdamov’s Hot bread (2019).” KinoKultura: A Journal of New Russian Cinema, Issue 70 (September), 2020. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2020/70r-issiq-non.shtml

“A Keeper of Light: Ermek Tursunov’s The Projectionist (2018) Spreads the Gospel of Cinema in Post-World War Two Kazakhstan.” KinoKultura, Issue 65 (July), 2019. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2019/65r-kinomekhanik.shtml

“Between the Feminist and the Harem: Patriotism, Empire, and Masculinity in Alena Zvantsova’s The Norseman (2015).” KinoKultura, Issue 61, 2018. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2018/issue61.shtml

“Falling and Burning and Flying Again: Alena Davydova’s Ivan (2016).” KinoKultura, Issue 56, 2017. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2017/56r-ivan.shtml

“A Daughter Worth Ten Sons: Kurmanjan Datka (2014) Models Leadership and National Identity for Contemporary Kyrgyzstan.” KinoKultura, 49, 2015. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2015/49r-kurmanjan-datka.shtml

“Big Dreams and Big Love: Russia and Her Migrants in Larisa Sadilova’s She/Ona (2012).” KinoKultura, Issue 44, 2014. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2014/44r-ona.shtml

“Love Thy Viewer: Aleksandr Gordon’s Brothel Lights (2011), a film for a ‘broad yet deep audience’.” KinoKultura, Issue 37, 2012. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2012/37r-ognipritona.shtml

“Life for the Land: Yurii Feting’s Bibinur and the Genre of the Parable.” KinoKultura, Issue 31, 2011. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2011/31r-bibinur.shtml

“Holy Fools, Nuns and Witches: Gender and Spirituality in Vera Storozheva’s Spring Is Almost Here.” KinoKultura, Issue 27, 2010. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2010/27r-skorovesna.shtml

“This Is No Mirage, This Is a War”: Degeneration of the Soviet ‘Eastern’ Tradition in Keosaian’s Mirage.” KinoKultura, Issue 24, 2009. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2009/24r-mirage.shtml

“One Size Does Not Fit All: Trains, Fashions, Mammals, and the Meaning of Life in Vera Storozheva’s Film Traveling with Pets.” KinoKultura, January 2008. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2008/19r-puteshestvie.shtml

“Lenin, Lovers, and Excess: Stalinist Past, Thaw Story, and Putin’s Russia in Andrei Eshpai’s Ellipsis.” KinoKultura, July 2007. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/17r-mnogotochie.shtml

“Staying Alive in the Age of Blockbusters: War, Youth, Popular Culture, and Moral Survival in Aleksandr Veledinsky’s Film.” KinoKultura, January 2007. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/15r-alive.shtml

“Where Motherland Begins: Andrei Kravchuk’s The Italian (2005).” KinoKultura, January 2006. Http://www.kinokultura.com/2006/11r-italian.shtml

“Karen Shakhnazarov’s A Rider Named Death (2004).” KinoKultura, April 2005. Http://www.kinokultura.com/reviews/R4-05vsadnik.html

“Andrei Proshkin’s The Play of Butterflies (2004).” KinoKultura, October 2004. Http://www.kinokultura.com/reviews/R104motylki.html