SUMMARY: This essay is a contribution to the discussion forum "Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise," framed as responses by literary scholars, historians, and political scientists to Sheila Fitzpatrick's essay "Soviet History as Black Comedy." Mark Lipovetsky discusses the function of distancing through irony in the narratives and discourses of Soviet culture, including socialist realism. Резюме: Это эссе является частью форума "Мейнстримные нарративы советской истории и смех от удивления," в котором литературоведы, историки и политологи реагируют на эссе Шейлы Фитцпатрик "Советская история как черная комедия". Марк Липовецкий обсуждает роль иронического дистанцирования в нарративах и дискурсах советской культуры, включая соцреализм.
In his response to the colleagues' critique, Lipovetsky emphasizes the discursive (as opposed to political and/or ideological) character of the intelligentsia community, shaped by the ITR discourse. Developing ideas generated by the discussion and revisiting the trope of "progressor", he introduces a hypothesis of this discursive formation as a version of "internal colonization" (Alexander Etkind). In this capacity, this discourse has obtained a central position in late Soviet culture and, having undergone the transformation, preserved its significance, now predominantly conservative, for post-Soviet culture. В своем ответе на отзывы коллег Марк Липовецкий подчеркивает дискурсивный (а не политический или идеологический) характер интеллигентского сообщества, образованного ИТР-дискурсом. Отталкиваясь от высказанных в дискуссии суждений и развивая троп "прогрессора", он высказывает гипотезу об ИТР-дискурсе как варианте "внутренней колонизации" (А. Эткинд). Именно в этом качестве ИТР-дискурс приобрел одну из центральных позиций в поздней советской культуре и, трансформировавшись, сохранил теперь все более консервативное значение для постсоветской культуры.
In his article, Mark Lipovetsky proposes a critical approach to the scientific intelligentsia of the 1960s, which, according to common opinion, constituted the leading group in the liberal movement of the late Soviet period. The article, however, focuses not on the political but the cultural ideology of this group, which the author defines as the ITR-discourse (ITR - the Soviet-period acronym for scientific/technological specialists). In the author's opinion, this ideology has outlived the Soviet period, shaping the mainstream of post-Soviet liberalism as well. In discussing this cultural ideology (poetics of the discourse), Lipovetsky isolates its characteristics, such as essentialism, resistance to complexity, double confrontation of the authorities and the "masses," and the subsequent exceptionalist position of the intelligentsia. The Strugatsky brothers have effectively summarized this complex of features in the perennial figure of their science-fiction prose (extremely popular among the scientific intelligentsia), the progressor, a representative of the advanced (i.e., communist in the specific ITR interpretation) civilization situated in a backward, medieval/fascist society. This character feels alienated from society and tries to help those in need but well realizes the danger of a large-scale revolutionary invasion. Lipovetsky's article traces the evolution of this character in the Strugatskys' prose. In the author's opinion, Viktor Pelevin's cynical spin doctors emerge as the direct heirs to "progressors," which reflects transformations of the idealistic cultural ideology of the sixties in the post-Soviet period. The article concludes with the proposition that the further effectiveness of the protest movement that started in 2011-2012 will depend on the liberal intelligentsia's ability to overcome the cultural ideology that they inherited from the scientific intelligentsia of the Thaw period. В своей статье Марк Липовецкий предлагает критический взгляд на научно-техническую интеллигенцию 1960-х, по общему мнению, ставшую лидером либерального движения позднесоветского периода. Основное внимание уделяется культурной (а не политической) идеологии этого социального слоя. По мнению автора, именно эта культурная идеология − или дискурс ИТР − пережила советский период, оставаясь мейнстримом и постсоветского либерализма. Описывая эту культурную идеологию (поэтику дискурса), Липовецкий выделяет такие ее черты, как эссенциализм, сопротивление сложности, двойное противостояние власти и "народу" и вытекающую из этого противостояния позицию культурной исключительности. Наиболее емким обобщением этого комплекса стал созданный братьями Стругацкими образ "прогрессора", представителя высокоразвитой (коммунистической - в специфическом для ИТР-дискурса понимании) цивилизации, заброшенного в средневековое/фашистское общество, но знающего о пагубности революционных преобразований. В статье прослеживается эволюция этого образа. По мнению автора, прямыми наследниками "прогрессоров" становятся циничные манипуляторы массовым сознанием, проходящие через творчество Виктора Пелевина, что, как полагает автор, отражает трансформацию культурной идеологии научно-технической интеллигенции 1960-х в постсоветский период. В заключении высказывается предположение о том, что дальнейшее развитие протестного политического движения 2011-2012 гг. возможно только на основе преодоления описанной в статье культурной идеологии.
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- SECTION ONE Performing Bad Behavior -- 1 From the Legs Up: The Rise and Retreat of the Chorus Girl in Interwar Poland -- 2 Un/Taming the Unruly Woman: From Melodramatic Containment to Carnivalistic Utopia -- 3 Performing History as a Story: Faina Ranevskaia and the Art of Remembering -- 4 The Gesture of Alterity: Renata Litvinova and the Mediation of Contemporary Russian Sensibility -- SECTION TWO Committing Sacrilege -- 5 Talking Back and More: Women's Subversive Behavior in Bulgarian and Bosnian Films -- 6 "How Long Can You Go Crushing Bones, I Ask You?": The "Bad Mother" in Liudmila Petrushevskaia's The Time: Night -- 7 Women Who Eat Too Much: Consuming Female Bodies in Polish Cinema -- 8 Bad Mothers in Russian Children's Literature after 1991: Alcoholism, Neglect, and the Problem of Post-Socialist Realism -- SECTION THREE Politicizing Bad Behavior -- 9 Femen: A Litmus -- 10 Beating around the Bush: Pussy Riot and the Anatomy of the Body Politic -- 11 Bad Girls, Apocalyptic Beasts, Redemption: A Tribute to Helena Goscilo -- Contributors -- Index.
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The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture is the first comprehensive English-language volume covering a history of Soviet artistic and literary underground. In forty-four chapters, an international group of leading scholars introduce readers to a web of subcultures within the underground, highlight the culture achievements of the Soviet underground from the 1930s through the 1980s, emphasize the multimediality of this cultural phenomenon, and situate the study of underground literary texts and artworks into their broader theoretical, ideological, and political contexts.
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Discursive practices during war polarize and politicize gender: they normally require men to fulfill a single, overriding task—destroy the enemy—but impose a series of often contradictory expectations on women. The essays in the book establish links between political ideology, history, psychology, cultural studies, cinema, literature, and gender studies and addresses questions such as— what is the role of women in war or military conflicts beyond the well-studied victimization? Can the often contradictory expectations of women and their traditional roles be (re)thought and (re)constructed? How do cultural representations of women during war times reveal conflicting desires and poke holes in the ideological apparatus of the state and society?
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