The article presents theoretical generalization and offers new solutions to the problem of developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes, taking into account the postmodern tendencies which are becoming increasingly common in the post-Soviet countries. The relevance of the article lies in the need to reform today’s education system in the post-Soviet space and develop pedagogical technologies to enhance the effectiveness of preschool education and reveal the creative potential of each child in the context (...) of the postmodernism and the latest achievements in psychology of creativity. The paper aims to develop and theoretically justify a technology for developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes in educational institutions for the postcolonial democracies on the example of Ukraine based on the analysis of relevant scientific sources and teaching placement. The article also substantiates the technology for developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes, which is defined as a model for organizing artistic and aesthetic activity of preschoolers aimed at expanding their cognitive experience and emotional perception of the world, as well as cultivating their aesthetic attitude to its objects and ensuring creative self-expression of each child. The article proves the validity of the open performative postmodernist approach, according to which playing activities, perception and enjoyment from creativity act as the main drivers of the creative activity of primary school children. (shrink)

The legacy of totalitarianism thwarts discourse and practice of academic freedom in post-Soviet universities. For legacy-holders, “academic freedom” causes disorientation, irresponsibility, demoralization and inequity. They see more threats than benefits from empowering decision-makers who are non-compliant with local bureaucracy. For innovators, freedoms enhance flexibility and creativity. However, granting such freedom also reinforces value clashes on campuses and tends to intensify feelings of guilt and shame in regard to actions which show a disrespect of authority and tradition. While both (...) legacy-holders and innovators endeavour to redefine their practices and norms in their teaching, they appear to still struggle to shed their predispositions to a paternalistic and colonial philosophy of education. Presumably curative, their engagement with international networks of scholarship exposes their particular positions of vulnerabilities to that end. Both groups continue to push patriotism and cultural idiosyncrasy in order to hedge their power and status in the global marketplace of ideas. As in the past, a discourse of anti-westernization prevails, shoring up legacies of regulative thinking, indoctrination, and insularity. Progressive academics succeed primarily by taking bold steps to go above and beyond the dominant discourses and norms within their universities and policy-building communities. This article explicates why, in turn, a “surrogate academic freedom” tends to emerge as a conundrum across the post-Soviet higher education space. (shrink)

The author substantiates the principle of the researcher’s distance from the political situation in Russia and the entire post-Soviet space [Makarenko V. P., 2016, pp. 53–77] given that the main characteristics of the Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet state mind come from lie, violence and political mediocrity [Makarenko V. P., Akopyan A. G., Khaled R. K. B., 2020]. The leaders of the Russian Empire (Nicholas II) and the Soviet Union (Stalin) engaged the country in (...) two world wars which implies that even the Russian revolutions did not change the patterns of political thinking of the ruling minorities in Russia [Liven D., 2007]. The purpose of this article is to apply the author's concept of bureaucracy to explain the nature of post-Soviet wars. For this, the fundamental research of Hannah Arendt, the observations of writers, war journalists, and civilian analysts of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the war between Russia and Chechnya in 1994–1996 are being used. The problems of reassessing the links between war and politics, the phenomenon of unknown wars in the history of the USSR and post-Soviet Russia, the reproduction of liars and the process of formation of unrecognized states in the post-Soviet space are considered. (shrink)

The article examines features of the post-Soviet period of social transformation and state building of Belarus in the context of the comparative analysis of the Soviet (communist) and Western (capitalist) development systems conducted by the famous Russian philosopher and sociologist Alexander Zinoviev. The author pays attention to the reasons of the collapse of the USSR, according to A.A. Zinoviev, as well as to the search by the post-Soviet countries, including the Republic of Belarus, for their (...) own ways out of the current crisis. The author states that the most important task of gaining state sovereignty is associated not only with social and economic processes but also with the field of national self-consciousness and the specifics of the formation of national and cultural identity. This cause is related, among other things, with the national philosophy as a stable basis of intellectual cultural creation, the evolutionary formation of worldview and cultural values of people. The author demonstrates a tolerant nature of this process in Belarus which made it possible to avoid acute social conflicts in the country and to avoid the opposition of the Belarusian model of development and culture to the traditions and achievements of neighboring countries and the world civilizational process as a whole. Also the author demonstrates contemporary achievements of the Republic of Belarus in the sphere of socio-economic and scientific-technological development as the basis for further modernization of the country in new geopolitical conditions. The conceptual views of A.A. Zinoviev are multifaceted, they have contributed and continue to play an important role in science, culture, social development, socio-political practice. Zinoviev’s works are very valuable since they are still actual and serve as a good theoretical, ideological, and methodological basis in assessing modernity, including understanding socio-political processes that have developed today in the post-Soviet space, around Russia and Belarus, in relations between the West and the East. (shrink)

The article examines features of the post-Soviet period of social transformation and state building of Belarus in the context of the comparative analysis of the Soviet (communist) and Western (capitalist) development systems conducted by the famous Russian philosopher and sociologist Alexander Zinoviev. The author pays attention to the reasons of the collapse of the USSR, according to A.A. Zinoviev, as well as to the search by the post-Soviet countries, including the Republic of Belarus, for their (...) own ways out of the current crisis. The author states that the most important task of gaining state sovereignty is associated not only with social and economic processes but also with the field of national self-consciousness and the specifics of the formation of national and cultural identity. This cause is related, among other things, with the national philosophy as a stable basis of intellectual cultural creation, the evolutionary formation of worldview and cultural values of people. The author demonstrates a tolerant nature of this process in Belarus which made it possible to avoid acute social conflicts in the country and to avoid the opposition of the Belarusian model of development and culture to the traditions and achievements of neighboring countries and the world civilizational process as a whole. Also the author demonstrates contemporary achievements of the Republic of Belarus in the sphere of socio-economic and scientific-technological development as the basis for further modernization of the country in new geopolitical conditions. The conceptual views of A.A. Zinoviev are multifaceted, they have contributed and continue to play an important role in science, culture, social development, socio-political practice. Zinoviev’s works are very valuable since they are still actual and serve as a good theoretical, ideological, and methodological basis in assessing modernity, including understanding socio-political processes that have developed today in the post-Soviet space, around Russia and Belarus, in relations between the West and the East. (shrink)

This paper discusses the main directions and trends in framing the perceptions of Islam in the post- Soviet countries engaged in the process of so-called “Islamic Revival”. It focuses on the Northern Caucasus region of Russia, Azerbaijan and the countries from Central Asia - a geographical area governed by the tension between the local Muslim traditions and the imported Islamism. It argues that Islamic revival in post-Soviet countries is associated either with the revival of local pre-modern (...) traditions and thus with the localization of post-socialist Muslim space, or with the spreading of Islamism, which is absolutely alien for local Muslim traditions and it is introduced from abroad. (shrink)

This paper addresses the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict in the context of the post-Soviet spatial order, approached in terms of Carl Schmitt’s theory of nomos and Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception. The ‘five-day war’ was the first instance of the violation by Russia of the integrity of the post-Soviet spatial order established in the Belovezha treaties of December 1991. While from the beginning of the postcommunist period Russia functioned as the restraining force in the (...) post- Soviet realm, the 2008 war has made further recourse to this function impossible, plunging the post-Soviet space into the condition of anomie, or the state of exception. This paper interprets this disruptive policy in the post-Soviet space as the continuation of the domestic political process of the ‘management of anomie,’ which has characterized the entire postcommunist period. In the conclusion, we address the implications of the transformation of the international order into the ethos of anomie for rethinking the ethical dimension of global politics.Keywords: Russia; Georgia; postcommunism; anomie; Giorgio Agamben; Walter Benjamin; Carl Schmitt. (shrink)

This article analyses the rhetorical legitimation strategy of post-Soviet Uzbekistan under Islam Karimov as an authoritarian state. I show that the most important mode of legitimation in this case is neither the consequentialist appeal to stability, order or welfare, nor a direct appeal to guardianship, i.e., special knowledge. Rather, Karimov and his court intellectuals seek to advance a conception of 'ideology' as the comprehensive pre-political consensus of the political community. Their concept of 'ideology' is used to advance a (...) political logic whereby the nature of the political community, the purpose of the state, the unifying political telos and the present regime are fused into a single entity. This ontological fusion is presented as a hegemonic reality and occurs at the pre-political level, resulting in the vanishingly small space left over for politics that characterizes authoritarian systems. I then suggest that such analysis of the hegemonic strategy of authoritarian regimes, and above all the teleological conception of politics it advances, is a superior approach to authoritarian legitimation than the search for explicit 'consequentualist' versus 'principled' arguments. (shrink)

This essay examines theoretical arguments surrounding the use of post-colonial theory as a way to fill in the epistemological lacuna in the studies of post-socialism. It reviews the various streams of this theoretical development and employs Edward Said’s notion of “traveling theory” to demonstrate that theoretical claims made by proponents and opponents of this particular comparative perspective are historically, socially, and geographically situated, although not fixed. Disciplinary, national, and institutional affiliations, instead of theoretical justifications, are identified as important (...) factors in the propensity to accept or resist the introduction of post-colonial perspective on Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The essay concludes by acknowledging the potential usefulness as well as the limits of post-colonialism in the conceptualization of the post- socialist space. (shrink)

In the still highly politicized question of rupture or continuity between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, elements of continuity are not hard to find, nor should this be a surprise, since a new state arose in the same geographical space and made use of the economic, intellectual, and demographic resources inherited from the Russian Empire. At the same time, the Soviet Union could not have been more different than the Russian Empire. It rejected a number (...) of key elements of the sociopolitical project that underlay the nationalizing tsarist empire and introduced radically new political and social principles for organizing that space. In particular, the Bolsheviks purposefully engaged in dismantling the tsarist efforts to build a great ethnic-Russian nation to stand at the center of the Russian Empire’s nationalities policy. The irreversible disintegration of post-Soviet space into separate nationalizing states became possible only toward the end of the twentieth century. At the same time, the imperial nature of the modern post-Soviet Russian core permits us to say that the imperial logic has survived. This is where we can find an element of inescapable continuity. We present studies of “continuities” and “ruptures” in modern academic discourse and in an updated format, gravitating toward “empirically nuanced” tools for analyzing multiple historical temporalities. (shrink)

The essay proceeds from the assumptions that for a economic/political integration group to succeed, first, its participants’ motives should ideally be as alike as possible and not oppose one another and, second, their expectations from integration should correspond to the organisation’s capabilities. In light of these assumptions, the study endeavours to assess the Eurasian Economic Union’s (EAEU) potential for stability and development. First, the author analyses the key motives that were driving its member states’ decisions to enter the organisation, compares (...) them with one another and discusses how the countries’ motives influence their conduct in the union. Second, the author confronts those motives against the EAEU’s activities and the general logic of interstate politics on the post-Soviet space to reckon up whether the bloc’s capabilities fit with the expectations of its member countries. Finally, based on that discussion, the author speculates on how the divergence/convergence of EAEU member states’ goals, as well as the (in-)feasibility of their expectations, affect the organisation’s development. (shrink)

Ernest Gellner’s many writings on the Soviet socialist project sought to come to terms with one of the key sociological and ideological arcs of the 20th century: the rise and fall of a utopian experiment, one that for some served as a kind of proof of principle, whose modern intellectual origins were more than 170 years old at the time of its demise. Gellner loved Russia and spent much time there. And he engaged with its 20th century very deeply, (...) although I think from a very distinctive position outside of the Soviet experience. His analyses of the socialist bloc included attention to Soviet Marxism as a developmental ideology, as a secular religion that sacralized the everyday, leaving no room for a certain kind of civil society; and he offered the outlines of an account of its failure – from its revolutionary heroism through the cynicism of its stagnation to the possibilities and constraints of so-called post-socialist space. Along the way, Gellner’s insistent critiques of Soviet Marxism – of both its theoretical and actually-existing varieties – were powerful, sometimes polemical, and latterly self-critical. So what can we now make of Gellner’s rich analyses of the utopia that failed? This paper offers relative departures from pieces of Gellner’s intellectual trail, in the hope that at least part of the significance of the 20th century lies within the lessons that we draw from the utopia that failed. (shrink)

This study analyzes the long-term reasons why Udmurt occupies a restricted linguistic space in the post-Soviet state – the low status of Udmurt, due to Soviet language and other policies; urbanization; population shifts; myths and stereotypes about Udmurts; making Russian compulsory after 1938 – and the consequences of this for the fate of the Udmurt language today (relatively few native speakers). The central argument is that Udmurts have not overcome the Stalinist legacy, which led to the (...) reversal of Lenin’s ‘affirmative action’ policy on non-Russian languages. This stems from the failure of the elites in the Udmurt Republic to pursue an ethnic mobilization strategy to promote the Udmurt language in contemporary Russia. Drawing upon language planning and ethnic policy elsewhere in Russia (Tatarstan) and in the UK (Wales), this article outlines ways to raise the status of Udmurt without generating inter-ethnic conflict, thereby creating a ‘space for all’. (shrink)

In 1991, new political discourses emerged in the Soviet republics that had to reinvent themselves as independent states, redefining their national identity on several dimensions. This process matured ambiguous attitudes toward the former imperial center and different visions over the scopes, perspectives, and claims of a ‘Russian World’ in the former Soviet space, where Moscow still asserted an exclusive political and cultural sphere of influence. In this article, we will review the cases of Armenia and Uzbekistan with (...) peculiar national projects and relationships with Moscow, reviewing their inclusion within the USSR, their path to independence, their post-Soviet relations with Moscow, and the changes during the turning points of 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. (shrink)

This article seeks to historicize both the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the debate on realism occasioned by Russian aggression in Ukraine since 2014. Using the research of Gerard Toal on Russia’s construction of its security interests in the post-Soviet spaces that include Ukraine, the article argues that neorealist geopolitical explanations fail to do justice to the roles of contingency and culture in setting Russia’s so-called ‘red lines.’ It also identifies an agency problem in realism: realists (...) not only fail to do justice to the agency of small states like Ukraine in this conflict but elide the moral and practical agency of decisionmakers like Russian President Vladmir Putin. The article also suggests that the current realism debate is the tip of an iceberg: realism has long had a problem specifying the relation of its theory to its practice. The article concludes by discussing the long shadow of 19th century imperial history over contemporary discussions of spheres of influence and great power status. (shrink)

The Russian Orthodox Church, the biggest centralized religious institution in the post-Soviet space, has been going through major changes in the 2000s. These are connected to qualitative changes in the composition of believers and clergy as well as legal registration of rights on church property obtained from the government in the 1990s. This has led to substantial changes in internal policies, particularly a sharp decrease in the influence of fundamentalists, which had been rising over the previous decade. (...) Moreover, the years of Putin's rule were years of failure in the church's relations with the government, which consistently denied the ROC's most important requests. In this paper we will examine the principal social developments that have been taking place within the Church in the first years of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The summary reveals various areas of Belarusian-Russian collaboration in philosophy: problems of the methodology of scientific knowledge, transdisciplinary synthesis of philosophy and science, philosophical foundations of physics, scientific realism, theory of harmony and self-organization of complex systems, modern epistemological theories, the sociocultural foundations, risks, and prospects of the digital society, human problems in the context of convergent technologies, anthropological foundations of intercultural communication, the world heritage of philosophical thought, the reception of Russian philosophy in the Belarusian intellectual tradition. Special attential (...) is paid to the content, possibilities, and prospects of the agreement on cooperation in the field of scientific and educational activity between the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The areas of mutual interest are scientific research activity, academic work, publishing, humanitarian expertise, training of scientific personnel, interaction of young scientists, career guidance work with schoolchildren, popularization of philosophical knowledge. Under current conditions, the Belarusian and Russian philosophers consider important the studies of civilizational dynamics in the light of the formation of a multipolar world, the philosophical and ethical aspects of the transformation of social practices in the post-COVID era, the philosophical problems of developing artificial intelligence, and the praxeological dimension of philosophical knowledge. Emphasis is placed on the importance of scientific and humanitarian partnership in the development of research and educational potential in the post-Soviet space. (shrink)

The more than thirteen-year co-existence of the Ukrainian state and the Church in the qualitatively new conditions prevailing in the post-Soviet space together with the formation of an independent Ukraine, functioning during this period of state-church relations give reasonably reliable grounds for scientific analysis, a number of generalizations and conclusions regarding the results and conclusions conditions of state policy on religion, church and religious organizations, ensuring in Ukraine the right of everyone to freedom of world view and (...) religion - on the one hand, and repair and optimize -tserkovno and religious life - on the other. (shrink)

Purpose. Based on the comparative analysis of the European and post-Soviet countries, the purpose of the article is to study one of the manifestations of gender discrimination, namely the problem of gender equality in the sphere of labor. It involves the consistent solution to the following tasks: a) to emphasize the basic principles of gender international and legal policy; b) to reflect the praxeological dimension of providing the equal social and economic opportunities for men and women at current (...) level; c) to emphasize the key criterion for ensuring the equality in socio-cultural sphere – equality in political life; d) to study the educational level of women and the possibility of self-realization in employment equal to men. Theoretical basis. The authors proceed from the standpoint that gender equality at the present stage has become a priority of legal policy and an important principle of the state of pro-European orientation. It is characterized in the legal plane, first of all, by the equality of the social roles of men and women, and the overcoming of the gender hierarchy of social ties, in which men are perceived as higher beings by their mental and physical abilities, and their activities are more significant and of priority in comparison with the activities of women. Originality. The authors have substantiated that in many economically developed countries the problem of providing a gender is still relevant, but most of the crisis problems in this area have found their legal regulation. The motivated position of the authors is that the level of education and professionalism of women cannot serve a reason for discrimination against women, which now exists in the economic and political sphere in the post-Soviet space. Conclusions. Gender stereotypes remain the priority in woman’s keeping family household, which creates significant inequalities of women and men at the labor market. Specialized regulatory acts in the field of gender declare the equality of men and women, while labor law defines a number of norms and guarantees that complicate the employment of women. In order to improve the situation we propose to implement a number of measures, such as, creation and financial support of the programs at the state level for supporting maternity, family and childhood; examination of all normative acts and concerning the issue of gender asymmetry, and especially the norms of labor law; introduction of state monitoring of employment and income of persons as to the complying with the principle of gender equality; introduction of quotas for women’s participation in political activities, in the work of the government and parliament, etc. (shrink)

The relevance of the research topic is that various approaches are analyzed on the essence of globalization, which is represented as an objective, qualitatively new process of internationalization and integration of all fields of activity of the modern civilizational structure. Analysis of the literature. The works of A. Appadarui, Z. Bauman, U. Beck, Z. Bzezhinski, F. Braudel, I. Wallerstein, E. Giddens, P. Drucker, M. Castells, T. Levitt, I. Tirikyan, K. Waite, F. Fernandez-Armestro, S. Huntington. In the post-Soviet (...) class='Hi'>space, the ideas of globalization were developed in the works of V. Inozemtsev, V. Stepin, A. Chumakov, P. Vodopyanova, V. Voronkova, O. Punchenko, A. Zelenkova, C. Kirvel, A. Lazarevich, V. Nikitenko, A. Sosnin, A.Utkin and many others. The aim of the article is to concretize the concept of “globalization”, and also through the analysis of tectonic shifts in the world sociological system, to represent the main socio-political, cultural and civilizational dimensions of this concept. Research objectives - in the context of the stated goal, the essence of the social dynamics of a globalizing world is revealed. Research Methodology. The methodology is based on an integrated approach, due to its interdisciplinary nature. The result of the study. Sociodynamics is revealed as the process of its deployment in time and space in conjunction with the social organization of social organization, as well as with social changes and upheavals affecting the progressive course of its development. The contradictory nature of globalization has been proved, its brilliance and poverty are revealed with specific examples. The whole range of problems of globalization as a multidimensional phenomenon is actualized. The reasons that prevented the implementation of the concept of Western ideologists about building a unipolar world and the creation of a single governing body under the auspices of the United States are revealed. Sociodynamics of the global world, in the context of the goal set, is reflected through the prism of the financial and economic dimension; through the formation of frontiers, fraught with the charge of aggravation, instability, risks, dynamic chaos. Conclusions. The mechanisms of regulation of the emerging chaos in social relations - threats, sanctions, crisis fluctuations, the use of “soft power”, conflicts, etc. are substantiated. Such dimensions of sociodynamics as environmental and demographic are described, the negativity of their development at the present stage is revealed. (shrink)

The article contains the conceptual vision of socialist realism as one of the key characteristics of art, transformed in the postmodern cultural era. Social realism is a cultural manifestation of the historical development of Soviet republics, including the Ukrainian SSR. The essence of socialist realism is seen as a manifestation of ideology in the Soviet conditions. Besides, the article considers the phenomenon in the context of postmodernism, relying on the findings of various scholars, and describes the interaction between (...) postmodernism and socialist realism. Despite the general view that postmodernism emerged in the United States and Western Europe in the 1960s-1970s, there could be another way this movement evolved in fine art and architecture. The fact that the artists from the post-Soviet space managed to adapt to the global cultural field of postmodernism so swiftly proves that the totalitarian system failed to eliminate the plurality of opinions. A post-Soviet variant of postmodernism was largely defined by the influence of socialist realism. The recently proclaimed era of post-truth that allegedly started after the new millennium produced fascinating political and artistic experiments in the post-Soviet space. Hence, it would be logical to assume that some previously developed mechanisms were activated there. Post-truth as an instrument of politics in that sense resonates with the socialist realism used as an instrument of class struggle. Research methods include description, synthesis and analysis. (shrink)

The article develops the modern significance of the legal doctrine in the post-Soviet legal system, describes its impact on lawmaking and on judicial practice. The authors argue in favor of the conclusion that the legal doctrine is an independent and important component of the Russian legal system, as it influences structuring and functioning of the legal system, and, being in demand in practice, is implemented in different components of the country’s legal system. In order to strengthen the role (...) and significance of legal doctrine in the post-Soviet space, the authors make a number of certain proposals on consideration of provisions of legal doctrine in lawmaking and in judicial practice. (shrink)

Samizdat, the underground circulation of unofficial and forbidden literature in the Soviet Union, is an example of how censorship can backfire. Ideological restrictions produced walls of monotony in libraries and bookstores, propelling readers to search for more interesting fare. Sensitive texts on religion, philosophy, human rights, and current events, as well as literary works, passed from hand to hand clandestinely from around 1960 until censorship was abolished in the late 1980s. Von Zitzewitz's study is itself interesting fare, uncovering the (...) workings of samizdat as both a distribution network, comparable to that of print culture, and a social network that developed bonds between people who shared a defined purpose outside the public space. By no means did they all think of themselves as dissenters. For many people who lived ordinary Soviet lives, it was simply that “reading samizdat increased [their] individual feeling of freedom and represented a personal act of resistance.”One merit of this book is its point-by-point comparison of the samizdat distribution network to the print-culture production chain of author-publisher-printer-shipper-bookseller-reader. Samizdat had an analogous chain, in which a text made its way from author to reader through a network of people, each performing a specific function—procuring manuscripts, housing them, typing (or photographing) multiple copies, and delivering copies to readers. There were others who served as compilers, translators, collectors, and even editors and “librarians” (although accepting this designation requires abandoning the notion of a library as a stationary physical repository).Since all participants in the network strove to hide their traces from the prying eyes of the security police, samizdat researchers are hampered by a lack of records and evidence. To help fill the information gap, von Zitzewitz (in collaboration with Memorial's Gennadii Kuzovkin) designed a sixty-three-question survey targeting former samizdat participants and posted online in 2017. Tables display statistics (from the first 122 respondents) on demographics (respondents’ gender, place and decade of birth, and education level) as well as information on which authors, genres, and subject matter were most read. Other survey questions were designed to elicit recollections that help us understand what it felt like to participate in samizdat culture, whether as an author or reader, or in some aspect of acquisition or distribution. The many quotations from the survey responses bring to life the intensity of this activity. Receiving a sought-after text with an injunction to return it (or pass it on) the next day might mean reading all through the night to get through hundreds of pages. And while it is intuitive to think of samizdat as walled off from official culture, this study argues persuasively that they were intertwined. There were plenty of gray areas and fuzzy boundaries, too. One owner of samizdat books had several of them confiscated during a KGB search of his apartment, only to find them later for sale in a bookshop.Having begun as a clandestine, makeshift response to the institution of censorship, samizdat became more sophisticated over time, evolving into an institution itself. It arguably contributed to the perestroika reforms and became unnecessary when censorship was given the heave-ho. Subsequently, samizdat activists who had managed the covert production and circulation of entire journals published full accounts of their activity and the operation of their networks. Von Zitzewitz makes good use of these sources and shows admiration for the role these men played. She notes, though, that their detailed descriptions omit names of any of the typists who gave up their leisure hours and nightly sleep for the pleasure of hammering out multiple carbon copies of forbidden literature, usually for no pay. The word typist, given its lowly connotation in both Russian and English, is unfortunate. Typists were samizdat's printing press, and without their commitment and sacrifice the whole enterprise would have collapsed. Von Zitzewitz suggests that it may never have occurred to the samizdat heavyweights to acknowledge them by name. They were just... women. On the other hand, the menial typist designation had its upside. It seems to have resulted in a shorter prison sentence for at least one of them.Von Zitzewitz argues strenuously that samizdat was first and foremost a social network. If you wanted to get hold of, say, The Gulag Archipelago, you needed to know someone with the connections to help you get it. To call samizdat a social network is, of course, to wade into comparisons with today's online social media networks. Von Zitzewitz notes parallels, but she finds that the differences overwhelm the similarities. Samizdat was a social network, but one that depended on mutual trust. (shrink)

Many Slavists will be familiar with Pål Kolstø as a scholar of nation-building and ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet space. Heretical Orthodoxy represents a return to his early, doctoral research...

Many Slavists will be familiar with Pål Kolstø as a scholar of nation-building and ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet space. Heretical Orthodoxy represents a return to his early, doctoral research...

This article is about ‘genogeographic’ maps produced by late-Soviet geneticists and published during post-Soviet time. It focuses on the visual and numerical techniques scientists used to project genetic data onto geographic space. Rather than discussing their representational character, I follow these visuals as ‘folded objects’, describing the layering and realigning of measurements and temporalities as well as the shifts in the practices and meanings of genetics. In the 1970s Soviet biological anthropologists transformed scattered data points (...) by means of spatial statistics into visually coherent maps for a ‘genogeographical atlas’, by interpolating data for the entire USSR territory. Computer-aided modelling rendered ‘populations’ as systemic entities and enacted specific cybernetic versions of population, evolution and difference. Tracing the history of their making helps one in understanding what these folded objects hold in store, in terms of data ranging from Russian imperial and colonial anthropology, through early Soviet traditions, to cold war technologies. Folded into those maps in intricate ways, they have co-shaped post-Soviet human genetics as an ever-active site for possible reinscriptions of difference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mapping Beyond Measure: Art, Cartography, and the Space of Global Modernity by Simon FerdinandDavid TooheyMapping Beyond Measure: Art, Cartography, and the Space of Global Modernity BY SIMON FERDINAND Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019Mapping Beyond Measure is a geographical and theoretical critique of map art and the tradition of modern mapmaking. The book focuses in depth on a few related examples of map art and departs (...) from critical theory and post-Marxist readings of space. Simon Ferdinand emphasizes fine art and art-film as appropriate counterweights to the authoritarian calculation in modern cartography and, unexpectedly, map art’s critique of mapmaking.Mapping Beyond Measure follows the well-trodden path of critiquing a medium, mapping, and map art as irredeemably authoritarian.1 Situated in this approach, Ferdinand argues that map art reproduces modernist cartography’s assumptions even while critiquing mapping. Aiming to subvert this shortcoming, Ferdinand explores Peter Greenway’s semi-abstract map art films that do not prioritize science over artists. Greenway’s films, especially A Walk Through H, are shown as being as close to an idea of mapping beyond calculation as possible. Indeed, for Ferdinand, Greenway’s map art films are an improvement on “postmodern” theorists.Mapping Beyond Measure explores a small, though logically (and practically) related group of map artists. The first three chapters explore differing approaches to map art, from Soviet painting that unintentionally [End Page 126] heralds globalization and map art’s latent desires to dominate the world, to more contemporary map art about looming societal collapse through the death of nature and mass casualties from aerial bombardment of cities. The following two chapters focus on how mapping creates nation-states. These chapters elucidate the tragic inability of map artists to escape globalization and calculation, the latter exasperated by G.I.S. techniques. These map artists serve as an ensemble that spotlights what, to Ferdinand, are inevitable difficulties that ethical practitioners of map art face in escaping the pitfalls of calculation in mainstream mapping.In chapter 6 Ferdinand explains how Greenway’s film A Walk Through H gets as close as possible to challenging map art through semi-abstract, two-dimensional additions to maps and using movie cameras to create an illusion of movement. Thus, the hierarchy of scientists over artists is partially dismantled. Indeed, Ferdinand lauds Greenway for creating alternatives to established political theorists. Interestingly, Ferdinand replaces ontology with the concept of “chorein” suggesting a more fluid conception of mapping that is not available in theories of space or cartographic practices of calculation. Nonetheless, compared to one of the articles referenced, Ferdinand downplays the destructive nature of chorein as a militaristic, colonial use of maritime space to emphasize its creative potential.2Ferdinand’s examples are primarily Eurocentric, even, surprisingly, in the exception: his focus on Japanese map artist Satomi Matoba. Here Ferdinand departs from Eurocentric examples only to focus on Japan—the most privileged nation-state in Asia. Even in this focus on Japan, which also includes Hawai‘i, Ferdinand does not depart from a frame familiar to Europe: World War II. Indeed, the discussion of Pearl Harbor (a U.S. military base) focuses on U.S. foreign policy, not on Hawai‘i. This thematic choice is relevant to other map artists in Ferdinand’s book. Ferdinand’s critique of calculability is based mainly on the consequences of Nazism, as theorized by Stuart Elden. However, Ferdinand’s theoretical interventions on uneven development in maps and map art would have been more substantial with the addition of detailed, localized, narrative accounts of violence suffered by non-white populations in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and various European cities. Instead, we get an anonymous logic of maps that uses the idea of the past and potential [End Page 127] future destruction of cities to assume that everyone suffered to the same extent in World War II.While I am reluctant to criticize a book for not offering a solution to what it critiques, to a certain extent, the solution offered by Ferdinand contradicts his normative critique of calculability. In exploring Alison Hildreth’s map art, Ferdinand praises nuanced, temporally layered artistic explorations of ecological destruction and extinction. Likewise, A Walk Through H, is... (shrink)

More than a decade has passed since North American Indigenous scholars began a public dialogue on how we might “Indigenize the academy.” Discussions around how to “Indigenize” and whether it’s possible to “decolonize” the academy in Canada have proliferated as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada, which calls upon Canadians to learn the truth about colonial relations and reconcile the damage that is ongoing. Indigenous scholars are increasingly leading and writing about efforts in their institutions; efforts include (...) land- and Indigenous language-based pedagogies, transformative community-based research, Indigenous theorizing, and dual governance structures. Kim Anderson’s paper invites dialogue about how Indigenous feminist approaches can spark unique Indigenizing practices, with a focus on how we might activate Indigenous feminist spaces and places in the academy. In their responses, Elena Flores Ruíz uses Mexican feminist Indigenizing discourse to ask what can be done to promote plurifeminist indigenizing practices and North-South dialogues that acknowledge dynamic Indigenous pasts and diverse contexts for present interactions on Turtle Island. Georgina Tuari Stewart proceeds to describe Mana Wahine indigenous feminist theory from Aotearoa before proceeding to develop a “kitchen logic” of mana, which parallels Anderson’s understanding of tawow. Finally, Madina Tlostanova reflects on how several ways of advancing indigenous feminist academic activism described by Anderson intersect with examples from her own native Adyghe indigenous culture divided between the neocolonial situation and the post-Soviet trauma. (shrink)

Writing in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the moral philosopher Bernard Williams considers the opposing claims of Rawlsian liberalism, with its emphasis on pluralism and procedural fairness, and communitarianism, which instead promotes more or less culturally homogeneous societies formed around shared values. Williams shares the communitarians’ critique of Rawls’s theory as excessively abstract, questioning whether a rational commitment to pluralism as the most just social arrangement can serve as a sufficiently binding social force. (...) He simultaneously resists, however, the conservative tendencies of the communitarians, particularly their dismissal of ethically motivated social critique. Grounded in the late philosophy of Wittgenstein, communitarians reject foundationalism, the notion that beliefs can be philosophically justified, instead regarding ideologically driven social arrangements as the result of inherently particular historical and environmental conditions. This perspective precludes rational reevaluation of a society’s status quo; if a society’s adoption of values does not depend on philosophically grounded principles, neither can those values be altered through a process of collective moral reasoning. For Williams, however, because pluralism is a condition of modern life with which even culturally homogenous communities must contend, members of modern societies are aware of alternatives to their own social model, leaving a space for self-critical reassessment. Finally, Williams suggests that the desire of cultural minorities for separate states in the post-Soviet geopolitical landscape underscores the limits of both pluralism and communitarianism, limits that all of us will need to grapple with as we confront the immediate social and political realities of modernity. (shrink)

Not so long ago phenomenon of death was fundamental dimension of human being for continental philosophy. After Second World War postmodern culture deconstructed the “Subject” and the Age of Enlightenment’s values and the phenomenon of death also. It turned into the language game, metaphor, in other words, moved into the space of texts and linguistic. Now people in developed societies behave as if death does not exist. The main hidden barrier to the investigation of human mortal nature – “shame (...) of death” (F. Aries). People shame of aging and therefore death and avoid them. In the modern world there is a domination of technological immortality’s logic, i.e. aging/death is considered as a fatal mistake of Nature, which may be and must be corrected. Collapse of the Soviet communist system was the accomplished logic of immortality of limit-less man, who encountered inevitability of absolute historical and cultural limit. Unfortunately, phenomenon of death of the Soviet and post-Soviet person remained without serious attention of both Russian and West culture. However, from my point of view, logic of Soviet “mangod”, Soviet ideology and empire’s collapse hold answers on most cardinal issues of modern period of world history. The matter is not the returning to the religious values, but next step to the image of mortal being and, therefore, to the mortal human being, who is aware and demand human limits in practice. (shrink)

Topicality of the research topic. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increase in the instability of the structure of ecosocial systems. Technological innovations have led to a sharp deterioration in natural social ecodynamics. The aim of the research is the conceptual modeling of the proliferation of biopolitics from the social sphere to the field of international relations with the subsequent transformation into a systemic factor of the global evolutionary process. Research methods and results. The model is (...) based on our previously proposed concept of a three-module stable evolutionary strategy of technogenic civilization. In relation to the triple spiral of anthropo-socio-technogenesis, i.e., the historical development of the cultural-ecological niche of Homo sapiens, constructed by him, this means the following. Periods of stable progressive growth of evolutionary and civilizational success are replaced by periods of various scales crisis, up to civilizational or even biological-evolutionary singularity. During the crisis, the importance of the political factor increases sharply, and over the past 50 years, this primarily relates to the field of biopolitics. The regional differentiation of the biopolitical sphere reconstruction during the fight against the pandemic will inevitably complicate international relations not only between regions that belong to different cultural and civilizational types. Probably less so, the same problems will affect the reconciliation of differences caused by geopolitical, interethnic, religious and even economic (competition) reasons. The first phase of the adaptive civilizational response is to reduce the degree of connection between the individual socio-cultural elements of modern civilization, i.e., slowing down the globalization process and intensifying interregional conflicts of various contents. In particular, such contradictions will be most acute in the post-Soviet geopolitical space, where the conditions of the civilizational rift are imposed on the conflicts of the transition period. Due to the specifics of modern high technologies, the process will enter the phase of global socio-techno-ecological self-developing systems reconstruction, which includes man as its element. And the obvious conclusion will be the transition of the development of biopolitical issues to a new, no longer international, but global-evolutionary level. In our understanding, transbiopolitics is a political issue related to the rationalization of the global evolutionary process. The latter will become a bearing element of the global process of evolution of the noosphere with the subsequent complication and increase of cohesion between separate sociocultural types which are a part of system of the modern globalizing civilization. (shrink)

The politicization of the intellectuals in the early 1990s now seems like a closed chapter in the history of the Eastern Bloc. Political life became more regulated before experiencing the entry of “unexpected” actors, labeled as “populists”. The academics’ political commitments, movements or believes have been interpreted as expression of “dissidence”, after 1989. The question of resistance, dissidence or opposition to the Soviet‑type socialist regimes caught the attention of many researchers. The social scientists became particularly interested in peripheral presentations (...) and written productions, as intellectual alternatives to the official line. Most of the studies insisted on the political repercussions of these actions, living little doubt on the inherent political sense they carried. Does this heritage, developed over the past three decades, shape the present relation to politics? This article aims to question the relationship that two generations of academics have with politics. Particular affiliations impacted the processes of political and academic transformations. The analysis, based on research carried out in Bulgaria, aims to shed light on the dynamics that cross the “post‑socialist” space and time. (shrink)

The present research is the first part of econometric study of the so called sponsored goods and looks at one of the most common types of such goods namely art products created by theaters, concert organizations and museums. The aim of the paper is to analyse the performance of Russian art organizations to find out to what extend the conditions of their functioning in post Soviet times under the development of market economy, democratization of leisure and changes in (...) consumer preferences influence their economic results. Could Russian theaters, museums and concert organizations be self- sufficient in market economy established in Russian in 1991-2010?The set up task determined the object of the study and the statistical data to be used-40 years time series performance indicators that include equal time intervals-1971-1990 for performing arts organizations and 1991-2010-for theaters, concert organizations and museums. The specifics of calculations presented in the article result from the very approach to the testing of cost disease. Its essence is to reveal the symptoms of this disease in art organizations taken as an element of economy as a whole rather than only as a part of cultural activities. Accordingly a new method of diagnostics of the cost disease is suggested that is based on development of specific indexes measuring the lag of labor productivity, advancing dynamics of wages and priority growth in prices for tickets in relation to the corresponding indexes of macroeconomic dynamics as well as determination of cost disease consequences-the deficit of income of providers of cultural goods. The implementation of such an approach allowed to construct three-dimensional space which coordinates describe the dynamics of performance results of art organizations. (shrink)

Using semiotic and historical methods, the article recovers the ancient Russian concept of ‘state’, which appeared and gained a foothold in the Russian social and cultural space in the fourteen and fifteenth centuries. In the authors’ opinions, this content has determined the basic features for understanding the State in modern post-Soviet Russian society to date. Accordingly, it is important to reassemble the main conceptual threads in the ‘state’ concept during the epoch of Ivan the Terrible, the Muscovite (...) Tsar, the epoch when the ‘state’ concept gained a foothold in Russian political culture. To re-establish the content of the ‘state’ concept, a historical description, an etymological and comparative analysis of this concept, as well as content analysis of the first epistle from Tsar Ivan the Terrible to Duke Andrei Kurbsky were employed. As a result, it was possible to recover the aspects of the ‘state’ concept that continue to be reproduced in post-Soviet Russian culture and predetermine certain elements of modern Russia’s political outlook. This concerns the central role of the ‘sovereign ruler’ in the State, the ideal of the ideological unity, the State’s mission of mediation between man and God, the hierarchy of the State and the sacral role of the ruler at the peak of this hierarchy. (shrink)

In 1989 mass democratic – and later nationalist – movements rose up against governments in Eastern Europe and all communist regimes fell like overripe pears. The very speed and ease of this collapse gave rise to speculations and conspiracy theories in the general public, as well as among those who had taken part in the movements themselves. Why did this all happen at once – so suddenly, why did it all go so smoothly, and who organized it all…?! The “staging” (...) of the democratic revolutions (Central Europe) and their subsequent national ethnic conflicts (Yugoslavia, post-Soviet Caucasus), was blamed on diverse causes: the dark political forces of USA, Russia, EU, Germany, international capital, power-hungry politicians, the secret police, and so forth… In this article I wish to record my own experience, as a student activist during the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution, and as a social anthropologist and war journalist working for several years during the ethnic wars in Yugoslavia and in the Post-Soviet Caucasus. I address the main reasons that prevented understanding the post-communist mass movements and open a space to popular myths and conspiracy theories: 1. tendencies to political theatre, 2. spontaneity and self-organization of mass movements, 3. “mass intoxication” and the internal transformation of the ecstatic actor – activist. Exploring question marks and speculations about these key moments of these mass movements contributes to their understanding. (shrink)

In 1989 mass democratic – and later nationalist – movements rose up against governments in Eastern Europe and all communist regimes fell like overripe pears. The very speed and ease of this collapse gave rise to speculations and conspiracy theories in the general public, as well as among those who had taken part in the movements themselves. Why did this all happen at once – so suddenly, why did it all go so smoothly, and who organized it all…?! The “staging” (...) of the democratic revolutions and their subsequent national ethnic conflicts, was blamed on diverse causes: the dark political forces of USA, Russia, EU, Germany, international capital, power-hungry politicians, the secret police, and so forth… In this article I wish to record my own experience, as a student activist during the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution, and as a social anthropologist and war journalist working for several years during the ethnic wars in Yugoslavia and in the Post-Soviet Caucasus. I address the main reasons that prevented understanding the post-communist mass movements and open a space to popular myths and conspiracy theories: 1. tendencies to political theatre, 2. spontaneity and self-organization of mass movements, 3. “mass intoxication” and the internal transformation of the ecstatic actor – activist. Exploring question marks and speculations about these key moments of these mass movements contributes to their understanding. (shrink)

Post-Soviet Belarus: The Transformation of National Identity The paper deals with the formation of a new national identity in Belarus under conditions of post-Soviet transformation. Under the term of "national identity" the author means the identity of the population of the Republic of Belarus that will be adequate to its status of a newly independent state acquired after 1991. Special attention is paid to the existing major research approaches to the problem of constructing this national identity. (...) According to the author's view, both major approaches are inadequate; the author puts forward a new approach that goes beyond discussions on language and national culture, and corresponds to the concept of plurality of identities. The author describes some paradoxes of national identity based on the opposition of "nation" and "people". These correspond to the Western model of the "creation of modern nations", which is not fully applicable to post-Soviet Belarus. All attempts to apply this model to contemporary Belarus lead scholars to several "cultural paradoxes" that can, however, be explained within a new approach. (shrink)

Research into human trafficking for sexual exploitation often conceptualizes the experience through the lens of migration and/or sex work. Women’s bodies are often politicized and the corporeal experiences of trafficking are neglected. The gendered stigma attached to women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation is clearly evident across cultures and requires further analysis as part of wider societal responses to sexual violence. Through the analysis of letters written by women who have been trafficked and sexually exploited from post- (...) class='Hi'>Soviet countries to Israel, this article argues that conceptualizing women’s bodies as bounded spaces allows an investigation of the transgression of those boundaries and opens up a thought-provoking framework for theorizing experiences of, and social responses to, sexual violence, stigma and social exclusion. It explores themes of pollution and dirt as ways to communicate social exclusion through references to boundaries crossed and spaces rendered abject. Women’s narratives of trafficking are examined utilizing the theory of abjection, and the embodied effects of sexual violence and body boundary transgression are elucidated. This analysis shows that the women in this study articulate an embodied narrative of trafficking that is experienced in relation to body boundaries and expressed through motifs of dirt, smell, disgust and pollution. (shrink)

The article demonstrates that post-Soviet academic debates about theoretical concepts and visions of truth can be usefully interpreted in terms of different “class positions” of knowledge producers. One academic faction is interested in academic freedom, autonomy, and corporate solidarity, as the social and cultural capitals of its members are involved with the global symbolic market. The capitals of the other group are invested into the slightly modified Soviet academic system and local symbolic fields. Intellectuals necessarily are aligned (...) with more powerful social actors and thus become involved in divisions and struggles that they cannot escape. (shrink)

The author argues that the decline of philosophical thought and research in Russia is over. He describes the state of present-day philosophy in Russia, its background, and prospects for development citing concrete examples and little known facts.Any survey of the state of the philosophy in post-Communist Russia is a complicated task requiring accuracy and completness. Whether I succeed in this task remains to be seen, although I shall be content if I manage to present a clear picture. It will (...) of course be subjective and reflect my interests and preferences, remaining in this sense quite incomplete. But I aim to present a concise survey, identifying the most important trends, personalities, and topics of discussion. (shrink)

Author discusses the specifics of the orthodox Marxist-Leninist philosophical principles in the context of ideological pressure in 1970–1980 s. He analyzes the concepts and approaches that have given rise to some new Post-Marxist ideas. He shows that the revision of the orthodox Marxism was possible exclusively due do the delicate usage of Marxist-Leninist conceptual background. He claims that it was necessary to in order to avoid accusations in revisionism and popularization of ideologically alien views. The author pays special attention (...) to activity approach, which was represented in the works by I.S. Alexeev and M.A. Rozov. He argues that the development of this approach was one of the most significant achievements of non-orthodox Marxism in the Soviet era. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of representative strategies in twentieth-century Russian culture. Just as Russia interacted with Europe in the Marquis de Custine’s time via discourse and representation, in the twentieth century Russia re-entered European consciousness by simulating ‘socialism’. In the post-Soviet era, the nation aspired to be admitted to the ‘European house’ by simulating a ‘market economy’, ‘democracy’, and ‘postmodernism’. But in reality Russia remains the same country as before, torn between the reality of its own helplessness (...) and poverty, and the messianic myth of its own greatness. Post-Soviet culture is a product of Stalinist culture. ‘Russian postmodernism’ was created less by artists, writers, poets, and film makers, than by theorists and critics. At the beginning of the 1990s, a need to describe contemporary Russian culture emerged. In this way, ‘Russian postmodernism’ arose from the desire to ‘sell’ projects in the West—from the simple obligation to describe socialist experience in concrete, transferable terms that Westerners could grasp. The nostalgia experienced by the post-Soviet era creates its own simulated postmodernism , in which the matrices of the construction and functioning of culture cease to be connected with specifically Russian (Soviet) history, and instead reproduce Western models almost exactly. We are facing yet another attempt at radical cultural modernization. If the first attempt (revolutionary culture) was the most original and fruitful, and the second (Stalinist culture, Socialist Realism) was less productive but still original, then the third, post-Soviet, attempt (rich in individuality, but lacking in original ideas or style) is for the moment the least productive and original. If we exclude sots-art (conceptualism) from ‘Russian postmodernism’, there would be nothing left. Clearly, an original cultural model in post-Soviet Russia will not take shape until original strategies for processing the country’s cultural past are developed. In their turn, these strategies can only result from a radical transformation of post-Soviet identity into a new, genuinely Russian one. (shrink)

The main intention of this article is to analyze the role of Islam in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and its utilization in the nation-building and state-building processes. It is argued that Islam in post-Soviet Kazakhstan is a cultural phenomenon rather than a religious one and is an important marker of national identity despite the competition of radical movements in the “religious field.”.

Starting with a short review of the postcolonial studies? origins, this paper considers the question of their application in the study of history and contemporary state of the post-Soviet societies. Aspirations of the leading theorists of postcolonial studies not to restrict their field of research on the relation of imperial metropoles and its colonial periphery have not met with the acceptance in post-Soviet societies? academia. With the exception of the famous debates on?the Balkans? that are not (...) the subject of this paper, the paradigm of post-colonialism is rarely used in the interpretation of past and present of the former socialist states. Rejecting the thesis of their own colonial status in most of Eastern European countries is usually based on a rejection of the assumption of the Soviet-style communism?s?civilizing mission?. From the same perspective, the Soviet Union is not considered a colonial metropole, but an occupying force, and the epoch of socialism is interpreted as externally imposed breach of the historical developments based on the European model. On the other hand, the concept of these countries? transition opens up the issue of their colonial status in relation to?Europe? as the center of economic, political and cultural power. Therefore, the postcolonial critique of post-Soviet societies is more often focused on the thematisation of neo-imperial domination and neo-colonial dependency phenomena, than on the explanation of their socialist past. The author?s opinion is that it doesn?t mean that a number of concepts of postcolonial theory - such as?internal colonialism? - cannot be productively used to a fuller understanding of the Soviet past, nor that in the interpretation of post-Soviet realities??hybrid forms? the postcolonial studies cannot be of use. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of representative strategies in twentieth-century Russian culture. Just as Russia interacted with Europe in the Marquis de Custine’s time via discourse and representation, in the twentieth century Russia re-entered European consciousness by simulating ‘socialism’. In the post-Soviet era, the nation aspired to be admitted to the ‘European house’ by simulating a ‘market economy’, ‘democracy’, and ‘postmodernism’. But in reality Russia remains the same country as before, torn between the reality of its own helplessness (...) and poverty, and the messianic myth of its own greatness. Post-Soviet culture is a product of Stalinist culture. ‘Russian postmodernism’ was created less by artists, writers, poets, and film makers, than by theorists and critics. At the beginning of the 1990s, a need to describe contemporary Russian culture emerged. In this way, ‘Russian postmodernism’ arose from the desire to ‘sell’ projects in the West—from the simple obligation to describe socialist experience in concrete, transferable terms that Westerners could grasp. The nostalgia experienced by the post-Soviet era creates its own simulated postmodernism , in which the matrices of the construction and functioning of culture cease to be connected with specifically Russian (Soviet) history, and instead reproduce Western models almost exactly. We are facing yet another attempt at radical cultural modernization. If the first attempt (revolutionary culture) was the most original and fruitful, and the second (Stalinist culture, Socialist Realism) was less productive but still original, then the third, post-Soviet, attempt (rich in individuality, but lacking in original ideas or style) is for the moment the least productive and original. If we exclude sots-art (conceptualism) from ‘Russian postmodernism’, there would be nothing left. Clearly, an original cultural model in post-Soviet Russia will not take shape until original strategies for processing the country’s cultural past are developed. In their turn, these strategies can only result from a radical transformation of post-Soviet identity into a new, genuinely Russian one. (shrink)