What was the 1990s were like In Russia? especially when it compared to OTL with the massive corruption, numerous mafia gangs, and massive wars across Russia
What caused Russian renaissance, what was about it and how that affects Russian culture?
The Russian Republic experienced economic problems during the early 1990s because of the effects of the Tech Recession. This economic recession, which also affected other nations in the early 1990s, was not nearly as bad as the economic problems that manifested after the collapse of the USSR in our world.
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For my reply on the Russian Renaissance, I’m including text from the timeline itself, which has been edited.
The Russian Renaissance refers to a long period of cultural output in the Russian Republic, which began in the early 1970s and lasted until the beginning of the Great Housing Crash in the late 2010s. There were several distinct waves of the Russian Renaissance, which were shaped by the different factors.
The First Wave of the Russian Renaissance began with the publication of Sergei Derzhavin’s novel
Sunrise in 1971. A veteran of the Fourth Pacific War, Derzhavin’s novel followed the adventures of a quad of soldiers fighting against the Japanese in both Siberia and Manchuria. Something of a black comedy, the novel was an instant bestseller in Russia, and later becomes popular in both Germany and the United States as well.
Derzhavin’s work, the first of a trilogy of war novels, followed by
Sunset in 1977 and
Moonrise in 1984, was later seen by many observers and cultural historians as the catalyst of the First Wave of the “Russian Renaissance,” a time of unprecedented artistic, cinematic, and literary output that establishes the Russian Republic as one of the world’s major cultural centers. Lasting, in various waves, well into the 21st Century, the Russian Renaissance was marked by what the Russian historian Alexander Zarubin called, in his 1989 book
For Our World, “…a time of coming to terms with the past, and a time of celebrating life.”
Other famous works stemming from the Russian Renaissance included poet Galina Illyina’s major collections, which were published in 1974, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1992, 2001, and 2009, the “Magic Fantasy” operas of Artur Samoylov and Natasha Ivanova, and the explosion of science fiction inspired by the continuing global Space Chase throughout the 1970s and beyond. Russian music also gains a new global audience during this period of ferment, especially the “New Classical” compositions of Florentina Kharlamova, Vitaly Petrov, and Antonina Sidorova, among others.
Perhaps the most famous Russian film to emerge from the Russian Renaissance’s First Wave was director Vladimir Yurkov’s 1976 science fiction epic
Mother Earths, a story that was told from multiple points of view, and set in the far future on a world colonized both by humans and a race of intelligent bear-like aliens.
The Second Wave of the Russian Renaissance began in 1985 after the end of the Russo-Kazakh War, and was later viewed by most historians as lasting until the beginning of 2001.
This was a period that was marked by the increased popularity of historical novels, the most famous of which was Sergei Derzhavin’s
Alexander Nevsky cycle, a quintet of novels that were published in 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2001 respectively, detailing the life and times of the medieval Russian hero, and ultimately of his triumph in the Battle of the Ice.
The Second Wave of the Russian Renaissance was also marked by an unexpected surge in popularity of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was discredited in the aftermath of the Second Russian Revolution by its close associations with the former Tsarist regime. No longer encumbered as an unofficial agent of the Russian government, the Church’s revival, which was centered around the construction of lavish new churches and cathedrals, massive “revivalist” meetings held around the country, the rise of a new generation of charismatic, community-centered priests—comes to be known as the
Rassvet (“Dawn”) in the Republic. The leaders of this religious revival, most notably Patriarch Sergius of Moscow, became notable for using television as a medium to attract new adherents to the Church.
Patriarch Sergius also approved the creation of the Renewal Party, which entered the Duma in the 1989 Russian elections.
The Second Wave of the Russian Renaissance was also shaped by an increased popularity among the general public of utopian fiction, which was influenced in the 1990s, and into the 2000s and 2010s, by both religious ideas and the ideological beliefs of the Russian Wing of the wider Ecological movement.
Throughout the Second Wave, Russia’s comic operas remained very popular. During this time period, Russian composers begin producing their own Space Operas, to cash in on the popular tours of the Austro-Hungarian productions that were been held throughout the country since the early 1980s. The Space Operas produced in the Russian Republic during the 1980s and 1990s drew from earlier forms of comedic and fantasy operas that were popular in Russia in earlier decades.
The Second Wave of the Russian Renaissance also coincided with the emergence of the musical genre known as Fabrika-Punk in the mid-1990s.
Fabrika-Punk was inspired both by traditional Russian folk music, as well as by popular foreign influences such as Bossa nova, and Hollywood Stomp. Many Fabrika-Punk bands and aficionados dressed in retro-styles from the Second Great War or Second Russian Revolution periods, giving the genre what someone from our world would recognize as a dieselpunk aesthetic.
Fabrika-Punk’s popularity in Russia clashed uneasily with the religious revival of the
Rassvet. The leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned led Fabrika-Punk for supposedly going against religion, while the behavior of many of the devotees of Fabrika-Punk was conducted with the deliberate aim of provoking a reaction from religious Russians, or else their elders.
Fabrika-Punk gradually gained in worldwide popularity, although was until the 2000s that this music inspired widespread devotion, in Brazil, the member states of the European Community, and the United States. Cultural historians also generally lumped Fabrika-Punk in with the wider Staccato subculture that was present in different nations in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
The Third Wave of the Russian Renaissance would later be considered by historians to have begun in April 2001 with the publication of Vasily Bunin’s novel
Cavalry to the Stars. Bunin’s story, which took place on a distant planet contested in a multi-sided struggle for domination by feuding Earth-based mega-corporations and the indigenous alien population, effectively invented the genre of Science Fantasy. Science Fantasy quickly came to dominate the commercial book market in the Russian Republic, and spread in popularity throughout the world during the 2000s and 2010s.
Many science fantasy works inspired by Bunin’s novel were adopted into ballets. Ruslan Pirogov’s Petrograd Ballet staged some of the most spectacular science fantasy-inspired productions in the 2000s and 2010s. Pirogov’s dancers were particular popular throughout Bharat, Brazil, China, the European Community, and the United States.
Another trend in the Russian Renaissance’s Third Wave was that it was more outward looking than the previous two cultural waves. Aside from the international popularity of Fabrika-Punk, it was durinv the 2000s that many modern Russian literary works from the First Wave of the Russian Renaissance were finally translated and published abroad. The Russian Orthodox Church also began to fund overseas missionaries, under the influence of the fervor from the
Rassvet. Most of this activity was directed towards the German Empire, or else Russia’s PESA allies, the Chinese Republic and the United States.
Russian culture was roiled throughout the 2000s and 2010s by widespread social conflict between those who have become caught up in the religious fervor of the
Rassvet and the youthful participants in the Fabrika-Punk subculture. This cultural and social conflict in Russia was heightened further in the late 2000s and throughout the 2010s by the influence from abroad of the music and partying styles associated with Ios Sound.
Another major facet of the Russian Renaissance’s Third Wave was a sudden surge in worldwide popularity for Russian Fabrika-Punk bands. During the 2000s, many Russian Fabrika-Punk groups finally achieved break-out success in the massive Brazilian and US markets. Notable Fabrika-Punk bands during the 2000s and well into the 2010s included Cowshed, Envy, Locomotor Nihilist, The Plastic Barrels, and Red Noon. In both Brazil and the United States, this surge in popularity of Fabrika-Punk became known as the “Russian Invasion.”
Alongside the bands of the Russian Invasion, there were numerous other Fabrika-Punk influenced bands from the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, and Ukraine that began to play the Brazilian and US circuits. Perhaps the best remembered of this set of bands was Kire Risto’s Austro-Hungarian band Bijav.
The Third Wave of the Russian Renaissance did not come to an end until the advent of the Great Housing Crash in the fall of 2019.