Dissident “street art” resisting neo-Soviet discourse: the“Voina” and “Pussy Riot” groups

The link between Moscow art-group “Voina” and the movement of Moscow Conceptualism was clear when, in 2007, it planned a performance with the artist Dmitrii Prigov, called “Voina/War does only unskilled jobs”.  Prigov died before he could take part in the performance but the group “Voina”  has since carried out an ever more spectacular series of  projects, bordering on pornography, as in the notorious performance "Fuck for the Heir Puppy Bear!", staged in February 2008, when five couples had public sex in Moscow’s Museum of Biology. This and other actions were filmed and posted on YouTube and other social networks, immediately going viral. The same M.O. was adopted in the actions of  the group “Pussy Riot”, and in Ukraine by “Femen”.While more traditional media such as TV and radio are government monopolies, access to internet and social media is still free and provides a powerful means for these dissident groups to publicize their performances against the restoration of neo-Soviet ideology and to assert their non-conformist identity. The link between Moscow art-group “Voina” and the movement of Moscow Conceptualism was clear when, in 2007, it planned a performance with the artist Dmitrii Prigov, called “Voina/War does only unskilled jobs”.  Prigov died before he could take part in the performance but the group “Voina”  has since carried out an ever more spectacular series of  projects, bordering on pornography, as in the notorious performance "Fuck for the Heir Puppy Bear!", staged in February 2008, when five couples had public sex in Moscow’s Museum of Biology. This and other actions were filmed and posted on YouTube and other social networks, immediately going viral. The same M.O. was adopted in the actions of  the group “Pussy Riot”, and in Ukraine by “Femen”.While more traditional media such as TV and radio are government monopolies, access to internet and social media is still free and provides a powerful means for these dissident groups to publicize their performances against the restoration of neo-Soviet ideology and to assert their non-conformist identity.

Lo sviluppo dei gendernye issledovanija in Russia nell'ultimo decennio

The Development of Gender Studies in Russia during the Last Decade This paper provides a brief outline of the development of women. s and gender studies in Post-Soviet Russia during the past decade. A series of internet sites linked with Centers for women.s and gender studies are quoted. Moreover, some points of terminology connected with this issue are discussed

La stella Černobyl’. Narrare la catastrofe nucleare

From the Apocalypse: «... there went down from heaven a great star, burning like a flame, and it came on a third part of the rivers and on the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is Wormwood».Another word for Wormwood in Russian is “Černobyl’”. Once Soviet scientists maintained that nuclear power stations were «stars in the heavens of progress» that the government would disseminate within the URSS territory. Behind this pun, one can see the tragedy of the nuclear power station which after it explosion on April 26, 1986, is still nowadays spreading death, ruin and diseases. Is it an omen of the fall of the Soviet Empire? Is it a warning for humankind against its continual exploitation of the resources of the earth?This essay analyses the novel by the Russian dissident Julija Voznesenskaja The Star Černobyl’ (1987) in particular, comparing it with Christa Wolf’s novel Accident (1987), Vladimir Gubarëv's drama Sarcophagus: a Tragedy (1986) and Nobel Prize Svetlana Aleksievič's Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, written ten years after the catastrophe. It is possible to analyse this novel from a feminist perspective: not by chance the main characters are three sisters who, through their testimony and sacrifice, contribute in keeping alive the memory of the tragedy.Nell’Apocalissi leggiamo: «E dal cielo cadde una grande stella, ardente come una torcia; e cadde sopra la terza parte de’ fiumi, e sopra le fonti delle acque. E il nome della stella è ‘Assenzio’».Un altro nome russo dell’Assenzio è “Černobyl’”. A suo tempo gli scienziati sovietici affermavano che le centrali nucleari erano «astri del firmamento del progresso» che il governo avrebbe disseminato su tutto il territorio dell’URSS. Dietro a questo gioco di parole si cela la tragedia della centrale termonucleare che esplose il 26 aprile 1986 seminando morte e distruzione e una scia di malattie che perdura ancora. Una nefasta premonizione del crollo dell’Impero sovietico? Oppure, al di là della contingenza più immediata, un monito sulla catastrofe che attende tutto il Pianeta se si perdura nel dissennato sfruttamento delle sue risorse? Spontaneo il confronto con il romanzo di Christa Wolf L’incidente (1987) o con il dramma Il Sarcofago: una tragedia (1986) di Vladimir Gubarëv. La catastrofe nucleare è stata narrata da diverse prospettive negli oltre trent’anni che sono trascorsi, non ultima Preghiera per Černobyl’ del premio Nobel Svetlana Alexievič. Ci si sofferma in particolare su La stella Černobyl’ (1987) della dissidente russa Julija Voznesenskaja. Molti sono i possibili approcci al romanzo, non ultimo quello da una prospettiva femminista: non a caso protagoniste sono tre sorelle che attraverso la loro testimonianza, e sacrificio, contribuiscono a mantenere viva la memoria della tragedia

Under Children's Eyes: Armenia in Nina Gabrielian's Work

Nina Gabrielian is a Russian writer of Armenian origin who lives and works in Moscow. She has published collections of poems, stories and critical essays. She is also a fine painter and from the early 2000s she has taken part in several exhibitions collective and personal as well. The imaginative world of her paintings is permeated by the memory of Armenia. In her stories and poems there is particular attention to colour and shape. The lyrical hero is constantly recovering the collective memory of the Armenian Genocide, which can take the deceptively innocent appearance of a children's game. In this paper I will investigate the way Gabrielian depicts childhood and memory in her literary work

Chapter Velimir Chlebnikov: dall’utopia neoslava a quella eurasiatica

This paper analyses Velimir Khlebnikov’s early Pan-Slavic and anti-German ideological positions against the background of the Balkan crisis (1908, 1912) and the development of the Neo-Slavophile movement. Furthermore, we illustrate how Khlebnikov’s encounter with Janko Lavrin influenced his linguististic conceptions, which in 1913 led to the publication of a series of articles in the newspaper “Slavyanin”. Finally, we argue that some of these articles already showed a significant shift from his Neo-Slavophile ideas to a new conception, which turns towards the Eurasian continent as the arena for his utopian visions

Chapter Guerra e nazionalismo nel futurismo italiano e nel futurismo russo

This article argues that the traditional picture of Russian Futurists as fiercely opposed to this war does not correspond to reality. We begin by examining the general historical background for Marinetti’s notorious motto “War as the World’s only Hygiene” and identify echoes of this conception in articles that Vladimir Majakovskij published in the autumn of 1914. Nationalistic and panslavic ideas, coupled with anti-German sentiments, characterized the early years of Velimir Chlebnikov’s literary activity; we explore these ideas and Chlebnikov’s gradual passage from this belligerent vision to his utopian project for a world without wars

Un caso di “traduzione estrema”: il palindromo

A CASE OF “EXTREME TRANSLATION”: THE PALINDROME • This article opens with a brief overview of the form and meaning of the palindrome in literature, mathematics and biology. It then focuses on the revival of the palindrome by the Futurist poet Chlebnikov, who in 1912 composed a short poem consisting of palindromes and who later wrote a long poem entirely in palindromic verses devoted to the legendary historical figure of Stenka Razin. The palindrome is a rhetorical device that means more than a mere verbal game in Chlebnikov’s poetics. It reflects his conception of the word as a magic and cosmogonic power which can transform and recreate the world. The palindrome is also a figure suitable for the expression of a time of troubles and revolutions. In the article I discuss the problem of the translation of the palindrome as a type of “extreme” translation (Nasi 2015). In particular two translations of Chlebnikov’s first palindromic poem Pereverten’ are analysed. Kern (1976) approaches the palindrome translating into English the semantics of the single words and ignoring its palindromic structure. The second instance is Oskar Pastior’s translation into German, who decides to “translate” the device itself of the palindrome. This is an exampe of “extreme” translation. Pastior re-writes the text à la Chlebnikov, trying to be consist with the underlying semantics and themes of the original text