The political lives of dead bodies
Subtitle: reburial and postsocialist change
By: Katherine Verdery.
Series: The Harriman lectures; Annual W. Averell Harriman Lecture.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 185
Subjects: Dead -- Political aspects -- Europe, Eastern; Dead -- Political aspects -- Russia (Federation); Body, Human -- Symbolic aspects -- Europe, Eastern; Body, Human -- Symbolic aspects -- Russia (Federation); Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Europe, Eastern; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Russia (Federation); Ancestor worship -- Europe, Eastern; Ancestor worship -- Russia (Federation); Europe, Eastern -- Politics and government; Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government
Description: "Over the Past ten Years, as the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe have given way to new political systems, an unusual pattern has emerged. In each country of the former East Bloc, the bodies of revolutionary leaders, heroes, artists and other luminaries, as well as more humble folk, have been taken from their graves - and in many cases repatriated - to be reinterred in new locations. What forces inspired these exhumations of long-dead spirits of Eastern Europe's past, and what are the effects for the living of removing the bones of the dead from their resting places for ceremonial - or unceremonious - reburial? In The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, renowned anthropologist Katherine Verdery examines Eastern Europe's political transformation, exploring the sacred and symbolic ways that people redefine themselves, their history, and their world when new political orders are installed."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-175) and index.