Worlds of Hungarian writing: national literature as intercultural exchange

nated, non-homely and difficult to find happiness in for the non-native dwellers. Yet, the cinematography of the late 1920s and 1930s follows the opposite trends. As Stephen M. Norris explains in his chapter on socialist apartments in Moscow, newcomers to the city are forced to overcome the ‘old ways of life’ and are in the end ‘rewarded’ with empty apartments representing the new Soviet spaces that they have to make ‘true’ Soviet history in. Drawing on an extensive filmography, Norris charts the visual archive producing an index ready to be used for further research. The volume ends with a view of the contemporary gendered film production of Russia. Anzhelika Artyukh and Arlene Forman analyse the films of women-directors (Bychkova, Melikian and Meshchaninova), tracing the changes of their style in parallel to the curtailment of liberties of Russian society in general, and the film industry in particular after 2012, but all testifying to the fact that ‘young women do possess enormous creative potential in Russia today’ (305). The volume is abundantly illustrated with historical maps, old postcards and stills from the films (although the figures are rarely directly referenced in the chapters); and if there were space for further improvement, one could engage visual elements using for instance the ‘shot-by-shot’ approach, as well as other methods of analysis in the field of visual studies. All in all, The City in Russian Culture is an engaging starting point which will provide the interested reader with a myriad of further avenues to explore: either by following the works of the authors who have often published a monograph on the topic touched upon in the present volume, or by applying the chosen analytical framework to the city of their choice. The map is now in the hands of the reader to enjoy the journey.