Soviet Myth in Post-Soviet Russia

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-07191-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series

This book examines how the Soviet past is culturally negotiated, reimagined, and recreated in new temporal regimes; how the Soviet project is “recycled” and used as a key component in the construction of a new Russian collective identity; and how it has metamorphosed from a historical dimension to the sphere of myth.

These processes, conceptualized under the term “Soviet myth,” are crucial for understanding the growing nostalgia for the USSR in Russia, recent cultural and ideological developments, and current domestic and foreign policies. The scope of this study extends from the late Soviet period to the present, but most chapters examine the pivotal decade in the formation of the Soviet myth, 2012-2022. Written by experts in the field, the book presents a broad spectrum of examples of how the Soviet legacy has been transmuted into the realm of mythology in visual arts, film, television, urban narratives, music, and video games.

Soviet Myth in Post-Soviet Russia is of value to researchers studying Slavic and Russian studies, in particular post-Soviet culture, languages, literatures, anthropology, and political science.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Engström, Maria

Semenenko, Aleksei

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction, Maria Engström and Aleksei Semenenko

Part 1 Art
2. Very Old Songs about the Most Important: Deconstruction - Nostalgia - Affirmation, Ilia Kalinin

3. Recycling Socialism in Nonconformist Russian Art: Recycle Art?, Klavdia Smola
4. On the Technologies of Interception of Art and Culture in the Putin’s Russia, Keti Chukhrov

5. The Crude Ghosts of Soviet Oil: Dark Petroaesthetics, Maria Engström

Part 2 Film and TV

6. Recycling the Soviet Space Age Imaginary in 21st-century Russian Film, Sputnik's Ghosts, Natalija Majsova

7. Recycling As Restauration in Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dorogie Tovarishchi and Andrei Smirnov’s Za Nas S Vami: Affects vs Ideology?, Mark Lipovetsky

8. Russia’s Dump and Wastelands on screen, Birgit Beumers

9. Alternative Soviet Mythologies: Inside Lapenko, Aleksei Semenenko

Part 3 Architecture and Urban Narratives
10. Soviet Retro-futurism and the New Military Temple Architecture, Masha Panteleyeva

11. Recycling of the Urban Myths in the Contemporary Tourist Industry of St. Petersburg: Welcome to Leningrad, Irina Seits
12. Soviet Myth in the City: The Third Place, Ekaterina Kalinina

Part 4 Music Videos and Video Games
13. The Various Uses of Soviet and Post-Soviet Pasts in Contemporary Russophone Music (2015-2021): A Longing with No Home, Marco Biasioli

14. Commercializing the No(w)stalgia: Soviet Wave and Atomic Heart, Maria Engström

Über Autor(innen)

Maria Engström is Professor of Russian at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses on Russian intellectual history, late Soviet underground culture, queer Russian visual culture, and contemporary Russian conservatism. She coedited The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture, Oxford University Press (2024), and Digital Orthodoxy: Mediating Post-Secularity in Russia (2015). She is coeditor-in-chief of the journal Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Her recent research projects, supported by the Swedish Research Council and the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, examine the formation of Russian civilizational discourse and the aesthetics of neo-reaction.

Aleksei Semenenko is Associate Professor of Russian in the Department of Language Studies at Umeå University. He holds a PhD in Russian literature from Stockholm University. He is the author of Russian Translations of Hamlet and Literary Canon Formation (Stockholm University, 2007) and The Texture of Culture: An Introduction to Yuri Lotman’s Semiotic Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), the editor of Satire and Protest in Putin’s Russia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and Aksenov and the Environs (with Lars Kleberg; Södertörn University, 2012). He has published works on translation, literature, semiotics, and cultural recycling.