The Aesthetic Code of Russian Postmodernism

Postmodernist discourse has become central to literary criticism in the 1990s. Unlike many other literary discourses, it was never formally announced, yet beginning in the late 1980s (with Mikhail Epstein’s articles) it took over almost all literary publications and effectively led to a new polarization of literary forces. If, during the first years of Perestroika, literary and cultural factions were divided primarily along political lines, with Western liberal sympathizers and anti-Communists on one side, and nationalist defenders of Communism on the other, then by the middle of the 1990s debate about postmodernism had split the liberals into those who sided with postmodernism and those who backed the “realist tradition.” For example, while the journal Znamia [The Banner] welcomed postmodernist experiments in its pages, such pioneers of 1960s liberalism and the dissident movement of the 1970s and ‘80s as the journals Novyi Mir [New World] and Kontinent [The Continent] tried to exclude the anti-realists in every possible way. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a standard-bearer of Russian anti-Communism from the 1960s onward, expresssed his indignation regarding postmodernism in 1993: Thus we witness, over history’s various thresholds, a recurrence of one and the same perilous anti-cultural phenomenon, with its rejection of and contempt for all foregoing traditions, and with its mandatory hostility toward whatever is universally accepted. Before, it burst upon us with the fanfares and gaudy flags of ‘futurism’; today the term ‘postmodernism’ is applied. . . . There is no God, there is no truth, the universe is chaotic, all is relative -- ’the world as text,’ a text any postmodernist is willing to compose. How clamorous it all is, but also -- how helpful

Literature on the Margins: Russian Fiction in the Nineties

Despite shrinkage in print runs and readership, canonical Literature during the 1990s developed along three major lines that connected writers of various generations in both aesthetics and philosophy: realism, exemplified in Georgii Vladimov\u27s prize-winning novel, The General and His Army (1994); postmodernism, richly represented in the fiction of Vladimir Sorokin, Viktor Pelevin, and Vladimir Sharov; and neosentimentalism, as derived from the naturalism of early perestroika, most consistently embraced by Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and, in his paternal profession de foi, one of Russia\u27s chief theorists of postmodernism, Mikhail Epshtein. All three tendencies aspired to the status of mainstream, which they failed to attain, owing to a fundamental instability that chaos theory has labeled a bifurcation cascade. Inasmuch as that stage, according to specialists in chaos theory, leads to irreversible changes that effect a high level of stability, the outlook for Russian literature at century\u27s end might be less bleak than prophesied by doomsayers

Charms of the Cynical Reason: Tricksters in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture

The impetus for Charms of the Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little-explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial Soviet culture, as well as in the post-Soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of soviet and post-Soviet tricksters, including such “cultural idioms” as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Vasilii Tyorkin, Stierlitz, and others. Soviet tricksters present survival in a cynical, contradictory, and inadequate world, not as a necessity, but as a field for creativity, play, and freedom. Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the soviet and post-Soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, and contradictions, and by these means its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s

Retromania as the Symptom of Trauma: The Past and Present in Sergei Loznitsa’s Schast’e Moe

The article discusses Sergei Loznitsa’s film Schast’e moe (My Joy, 2010) as the most radical critique of the retromaniac glorification of the profound connections between the present-day Russia and its heroic history, especially the Great Patriotic War. Loznitsa presents this connection as a circular narrative that is driven by recurring patterns of violence, which in turn manifest unresolved societal traumas. The patterns of recurrent violence and the circularity of its cycle can be described through Freudian definition of trauma. Loznitsa treats retromania as an objective condition of contemporary Russian society – the one that mythologizes reproduction of these violence-based power relations, not only vertically but also horizontally. This logic is deeply embedded in the film’s structure and the system of recurring motifs, which eventually constitute a surreal picture in which the borders between the past and present are blurred by the permanence of violence in the fabric of society. Keywords: Sergei Loznitsa, violence, historical memory, traum

Postmodern Crises

Postmodern Crises collects previously published and yet unpublished Mark Lipovetsky’s articles on Russian literature and film. Written in different years, they focus on cultural and aesthetic crises that, taken together, constitute the postmodern condition of Russian culture. The reader will find here articles about classic subversive texts (such as Nabokov’s Lolita), performances (Pussy Riot), and recent, but also subversive, films. Other articles discuss such authors as Vladimir Sorokin, such sociocultural discourses as the discourse of scientific intelligentsia; post-Soviet adaptations of Socialist Realism, and contemporary trends of “complex” literature, as well as literary characters turned into cultural tropes (the Strugatsky’s progressors). The book will be interesting for teachers and scholars of contemporary Russian literature and culture; it can be used both in undergraduate and graduate courses

Charms of the Cynical Reason

The impetus for Charms of the Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little-explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial Soviet culture, as well as in the post-Soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of soviet and post-Soviet tricksters, including such “cultural idioms” as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Vasilii Tyorkin, Stierlitz, and others. Soviet tricksters present survival in a cynical, contradictory, and inadequate world, not as a necessity, but as a field for creativity, play, and freedom. Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the soviet and post-Soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, and contradictions, and by these means its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s

Спектакли свободы. Перформативные практики позднесоветского андеграунда

The article considers the origins and history of performizm in Russian culture. The author broadly understands this phenomenon as the theatricalization of everydayness and historical shifts, expressed in the gap between the lifestyle, aesthetic preferences and cultural norms of the majority, and the performances of otherness. The study centers on the analysis of the forms of creative theatrical productions in the 1960s–80s. By drawing on the works of N. Evreinov, who was the first in Russian culture to develop the principles of the theatricalization of his own life — transgressiveness, outrage, and aesthetic (or simply non-pragmatic) motivations -, the author explores the performative turn in Soviet art and makes a distinction between performances, happenings and performative practices. In the performance, there takes place a rethinking of the relationship between ritual (the sacred) and art (the aesthetic) owing to the modelling of the liminal situation as a process of destruction of sustainable binary oppositions. A demonstrative experience of freedom is characteristic of happenings — the spectacle of freedom generates the effect of a shocking transgression. The author attaches particular importance to the group and individual performative practices. The performance style of theatrical rejection, cultivated among the nonconformists of the late Soviet period, embodied a specific pattern of otherness (The Mitki). The author investigates individual performative projects taking D. A. Prigov and Ven. Erofeev productions as an example. The distance separating the author from his image became the object of original performative practices. The author also emphasizes that contemporaries attributed particular importance to the feature of life-creating projects as the embodiment of freedom with all the dangers. The paper concludes that this freedom is paradoxical. It does not reside in self-expression, as in romanticism or modernism, but in the performance of oneself as another, who, due to the illocutive power of performance, replaces the self with the image of the other. The transgressiveness and redundancy of these performances imply a radical rejection of any stable identity, escaping from any frame, and revealing the relativity of each of them. The article considers the origins and history of performism in Russian culture, beginning with a broad understanding of the phenomenon as the theatricalization of everydayness and historical shifts, expressed in the gap between the lifestyle, aesthetic preferences and cultural norms of the majority and the performances of otherness. The study centers on the analysis of the forms of creative theatrical productions in the 1960s– 80s. Drawing on the works of N. Evreinov, who was the first in Russian culture to develop the principles of theatricalization of his own life — transgressiveness, outrage, and aesthetic (or simply non-pragmatic) motivations, the author explores the performative turn in Soviet art and makes a distinction between performances, happenings and performative practices. In the performance, there takes place a rethinking of the relationship between ritual (the sacred) and art (the aesthetic) owing to the modeling of the liminal situation as a process of destruction of sustainable binary oppositions. Happenings are characterized by a demonstrative experience of freedom is characteristic of happenings — the spectacle of freedom generates the effect of a shocking transgression. The author attaches particular importance to group and individual performative practices. The performance style of theatrical rejection, cultivated among the nonconformists of the late Soviet period, embodied a certain pattern of otherness (The Mitki). The author investigates individual performative projects taking D.A. Prigov and Ven. Erofeev’s productions as an example. The object of individual performative practices was the distance separating the author from his image. The author also emphasizes that contemporaries attributed particular importance to such a characteristic of life-creating projects as the embodiment of «freedom with all the dangers». The paper reaches the conclusion that this freedom is paradoxical, and does not reside in self-expression, as in romanticism or modernism, but in the performance of oneself as another, who, due to the illocutive power of performance, replaces the self with the image of the other. The transgressiveness and redundancy of these performances implies a radical rejection of any stable identity, escaping from any frame, and revealing the relativity of each of them.В статье рассматриваются истоки и история перформатизма в российской культуре, начиная с широкого понимания феномена как театрализации повседневной жизни и исторических сдвигов, выражающихся в разрыве между стилем жизни, эстетическими пристрастиями и культурными нормами большинства и спектаклями инакости. В центре исследования находится анализ форм театрализованного жизнетворчества в 1960–80-х годах. Опираясь на работы Н. Евреинова, разработавшего впервые в русской культуре принципы театрализации собственной жизни — трансгрессивность, эксцесс и эстетические (или просто непрагматические) мотивировки, — автор исследует перформативный поворот в советском искусстве. Проведено различие между перформансами, хеппенингами и перформативными практиками. В перформансе происходит переосмысление отношений ритуала (сакрального) и искусства (эстетического) благодаря моделированию лиминальной ситуации как процесса разрушения устойчивых бинарных оппозиций. Для хеппенингов характерно демонстративное переживание свободы — «спектакль свободы» порождает эффект шокирующей трансгрессии. Особое значение придается групповым и индивидуальным перформативным практикам. Культивируемый в среде позднесоветских нонконформистов перфоромативный стиль театрализованной отверженности воплощал определенный рисунок инакости («Митьки»). Индивидуальные перформативные проекты исследованы на примере Д. А. Пригова и Вен. Ерофеева. Объектом индивидуальных перформативных практик становилась дистанция, отделяющая автора от его имиджа. Отмечается, что особое значение для современников имела характеристика жизнетворческих проектов как воплощения «свободы со всеми опасностями». Делается вывод о парадоксальности этой свободы, которая состоит не в самовыражении, как в романтизме или модернизме, а в перформансе себя как другого, который в силу иллокутивной силы перформанса вытесняет «я» образом «другого». Трансгрессивность и избыточность этих перформансов предполагают радикальный отказ от какой бы то ни было устойчивой идентичности, ускользание от всякой определяющей рамки, выявление относительности каждой из них

Трикстер vs. трикстер: «учителя» и «ученики» у Эренбурга, Олеши, Булгакова и Бабеля

The paper explores the fulfillment of the trickster trope in Soviet culture based on four works (The Heart of a Dog by M. Bulgakov, Envy by Yu. Olesha, Julio Jurenito by I. Ehrenburg and The Odessa Tales by I. Babel). The author defines the features of the Soviet trickster: the "integral" character, roguery are an illustration of its cynical philosophy, which is devoid of the pragmatism inherent in cynicism and tends to P. Sloterdijk’s estimation of cynicism — the selfless and shameless performative relegation and ragging of all reputable discourses and symbols. The author has also highlighted three features of the Soviet trickster as a character (Sharikov, Ivan Babichev, Julio Jurenito, Benya Crick): ambivalent, transgressive, and liminal states, thanks to which the trickster embodies dangerous freedom from social norms and boundaries and functions, at the same time, as a mediator; performativity, which turns any gesture and any utterance into a performance; a special bonds with the sacred. Notably, in the prose of the 1920s, the plot portraying the confrontation between fathers-children, students — teachers, puts forward the figure of the trickster as an essential component — as one of the central participants in the debate about a new man and a new world. There is evidence that all variations of the Soviet tricksters have a close linkage with the reception of Nietzscheanism. The analysis of each of the central characters of the works centers around the answer to the question: What does each of the trickster’s role say about the emerging Soviet modernity? The author interprets the two types of the trickster as evidence of the Soviet modernity’ splitting, that emerged in the 1920s. Julio Jurenito and Ivan Babichev represent the type of trickster teachers via whom the modernist concept of personality was adopted. The author offers the treatment of Sharikov and Benya Creek as a type of" plebeian modernity " (Ilya Gerasimov). All the analyzed texts indicate that trickster cynicism is becoming a social norm of the new world, and it is on this basis that the conflict between trickster fathers/teachers and their followers in the next generation breaks out.Исследуется реализация тропа трикстера в советской культуре на материале 4 произведений («Собачье сердце» М. Булгакова, «Зависть» Ю. Олеши, «Хулио Хуренито» И. Эренбурга и «Одесские рассказы» И. Бабеля). Определены особенности советского трикстера: «интегральный» характер, плутовство являются иллюстрацией к его цинической философии, которая лишена свойственного цинизму прагматизма и тяготеет к тому, что П. Слотердайк называл «кинизмом», — бескорыстному и бесстыдному перформативному низведению и вышучиванию всех авторитетных дискурсов и символов. Выделены три черты советского трикстера как персонажа (Шарикова, Ивана Бабичева, Хулио Хуренито, Бени Крика): амбивалентное, трансгрессивное и лиминальное состояние, благодаря которым трикстер воплощает опасную свободу от социальных норм и границ и в то же время функционирует как медиатор; перформативность, превращающая любой жест и любое высказывание в спектакль; особые отношения с сакральным. Отмечено, что в прозе 1920-х годов сюжет о столкновении «отцов и детей», «учеников и учителя» выдвигает в качестве важной составляющей фигуру трикстера — как одного из центральных участников дебатов о новом человеке и новом мире. Доказано, что все вариации советских трикстеров тесно связаны с рецепцией ницшеанства. Анализ каждого из центральных персонажей произведений построен вокруг ответа на вопрос: что каждая из «ролей» трикстера говорит о становящейся советской модерности? Два типа трикстера трактованы как свидетельство расщепления советской модерности, рождавшейся в 1920-х годах. Хулио Хуренито и Иван Бабичев представляют собой тип трикстеров-учителей, через которых происходило усвоение модернистской концепции личности. Шариков и Беня Крик интерпретированы как тип «плебейской модерности» (Илья Герасимов). Все анализируемые тексты свидетельствуют о том, что трикстерский цинизм становится социальной нормой нового мира, и именно на этой почве возникает конфликт между трикстерами-отцами/учителями и их последователями в следующем поколении