Abstracts: Up from the Ashes
Details
Friday, February 27
9:00 am
Reitz Union, Room 349
Symposium Resources
Eliot Borenstein
Professor and Chair of Russian and Slavic Studies
New York University
Ten Years That Shook the World: Demonizing the Grim Nineties
The popularity of Vladimir Putin has been puzzling to many observers. When he took office, Putin's biography and demeanor suggested that he would be an unlikely candidate for a post-Soviet cult of personality. Yet the early years of the twenty-first century saw a veritable Putinmania grip the country (or at least the mass media).
This paper examines the cultural strategies that propped up the Putin phenomenon, particularly the characterization of the 1990s as a new "Time of Troubles." The foundation for this interpretation was established during long before Putin; indeed, the media and culture industries in the 1990s constantly reinforced a growing sense of criminal and moral chaos that could only be countered by a firm and dictatorial response. The Yeltsin era's pervasive culture of imperial collapse paved the way for a new logic of empire.
Julie Buckler
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Harvard University
The Contested Cityscapes of Moscow and St. Petersburg
I will be comparing the changes during the period 2000-present to both the Stalinist period and the Yeltsin period (the latter featuring prominent reconstruction projects for major cathedrals and the completion of Victory Park in Moscow, etc.). I will emphasize some of the major projects in each city -- tricentennial preparations, refurbishing Strelna, the controversial Gazprom tower and Okhta Center in St. Petersburg, and the Moscow-City project, the rebuilt Manezh, the plans for completing Tsarytsino, and the likely scenario for the area around the Kremlin in Moscow. I will also talk about more general trends, such as the destruction of all khrushchevka buildings in central Moscow and the resettling of residents to outlying districts, the dangerous practice of in-fill construction in historic districts of St. Petersburg, etc. And I will talk about the cultural politics, including the power struggles or cooperative efforts between city and federal bodies, the citizen activist groups, the open letter to Putin in 2004 from a large group of prominent cultural figures, the fact that the UNESCO World Heritage sites commission has put a number of Russian sites on its endangered watch list, etc.
Nancy Condee
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Film Studies
University of Pittsburgh
"Nationalist"? "Imperial"? Calling Russia Names
I am interested in the ways that two opposed, but apparently compatible assertions— Russian culture as increasingly nationalist; Russian culture as increasingly imperial—attempt to accommodate each other without contradiction. Returning to recent debates on nation and nation-formation by Ernest Gellner, Anthony Smith, John Breuilly, and others, I approach this question by arguing two things. First, familiar contemporary examples of Russian nationalism—in recent state cinema production, for example—tend to be ill-suited, even opposed, to contemporary understandings of nation-formation. Second, "nationalism" is a productive term precisely because of its strategic failure to distinguish between empire-destroying and empire-preserving variants. Film director Nikita Mikhalkov serves as a useful touchstone in this argument, though my focus is less a portrait of his work than an examination of the contingent advantages of terminological slippage.
Paul D’Anieri
Professor of Political Science and Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
University of Florida
From Superpower to Great Power: The Evolution of Russia’s Foreign Policy Objectives
Increasing tensions between Russia and the west have led many to ask whether a new Cold War is emerging (or to assert that it has already emerged). How did post-Soviet Russia move so quickly from partner of the west back to its role as rival? The evolution occurred in a series of steps as Russian’s initial assumptions about its post-Soviet relationship with the west were proven to be incorrect. By 2000, a high degree of consensus emerged around a new foreign policy agenda, which included revising the terms of the post-Soviet international order both in the region and more broadly. However, the widely held notion that this represents a return to Cold War thinking is problematic. Russia’s new approach more closely resembles a 19th century balance of power policy than a 20th century policy of global ideological competition. Strategically, Russia’s foreign policy is somewhat novel, in that it relies primarily on economic power rather than other forms.
Stuart Finkel
Assistant Professor of History
University of Florida
Problematic Pages: Pain and Glory in Russian Historical Memory
On December 4th, 2008, masked policemen raided the St. Petersburg offices of the human rights organization 'Memorial' and seized hard drives containing thousands of documents and images chronicling victims of Stalin-era repression. Activists view this as another in a string of attempts to intimidate their efforts to shed light on the darker portions of Russia's recent history. And yet, as this paper will show, the desire to portray Russia as having a proud and glorious recent history is problematic even for the authorities searching for a national patriotic consensus. While Vladimir Putin only grudgingly admitted that Stalin's legacy contained "problematic pages," he has also delivered a laudatory eulogy at the funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who first exposed the horrors of the Gulag to the world. The problematic nature of utilizing Stalin as a figure of patriotic national consensus has further been demonstrated by the results of the recent "Imia Rossiia" competition. While Stalin led in early rounds of the voting, the eventual winner, the 13th Century Prince Alexander Nevsky, provides a significantly more unproblematic slate onto which to project patriotism and national pride. While Memorial's efforts to expose Stalin's crimes may still be unwelcome, and the achievements of the Soviet period extolled, the pain first memorialized by Anna Akhmatova still finds a voice as well.
Mischa Gabowitsch
Postdoctoral Fellow
Princeton University Society of Fellows
Fighting Russian Nationalism: Antifascist Youth Culture in Russia Today
The public appearance of ethnic Russian ultra-nationalism in the 1980s led to the emergence of small groups of “antifascist” intellectuals who tried to resist it. On a much broader scale, the rise of a neo-Nazi skinhead scene has politicized youth street subcultures across the country and produced a new antifascist movement. The new generation of activists, born during or after perestroika, blend Soviet traditions of “patriotic” antifascism with anarchist ideas as well as subcultures linked to hardcore punk and other musical styles. They engage in violent and sometimes fatal clashes with radical nationalist youth and are closely watched by the authorities. Based on extensive fieldwork in several Russian cities, this talk discusses the new Russian antifascism as both a cultural and a political phenomenon.
Michael Gorham
Associate Professor of Russian Studies
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
University of Florida
Mediating the Russian Nation: A Discourse Analysis of Vladimir Putin’s Annual ‘Conversation with the Russian People’
As one who was catapulted from nowhere into a position of supreme power in a matter of months over the summer and fall of 1999, Vladimir Putin, more than any other contemporary Russian leader, knows the power of the media in telling stories and forging images. One of the most curious examples of his use of what has come to be known as “political technology” appears in the form of his annual “conversation with the Russian People,” or the “Direct Line with the President of the Russian Federation” (“Priamaia liniia s prezidentom RF”) – in part due to its multimedia format and in part due to the consistency with which Putin has used it over his tenure as president. My analysis of the six editions of the event that transpired between 2001 and 2007 of Putin’s presidency suggests how and why this high-tech mediation of the Russian nation has proven so potent a means of transmitting impressions of both national revival and imperial aspiration.
Dragan Kujundzic
Professor of Germanic and Slavic, Film and Media Studies
University of Florida
The vEmpire Strikes Back: Milosevic With Putin
My paper will explore the entrance of Russia and Serbia into capitalism and the coincidence of this with certain imperial aspirations of both rulers, and their effects. I would like to analyze in particular the dissolution of Yugoslavia, although I will make references to Russia's ambiguous capitalism which passes under the sign of nationalist and imperial revival.
Lynn Patyk
Adjunct Assistant Professor of History and Slavic Studies
University of Florida
The Terrorist Can-Can Can’t (Bring Down the Empire): Karen Shaxnazarov’s “Rider Named Death”
After the events of September 11, 2001, Vladimir Putin unequivocally joined “with us” in the Bush administration’s declared War on Terror. The war on terror and the defense of human rights has subsequently served as the rhetorical raison d’ etre for Russia’s most aggressive interventions in its post-Soviet imperial periphery: Chechnya and Georgia. Given this neo-imperialist script, what is the fate of the cultural memory of Russia’s own home-grown revolutionary terrrorists and their attempts to topple the empire? My paper will examine the celebrated director (and general director of Mosfilm) Karen Shaxnazarov’s 2004 film “The Rider Named Death,” which was based on Boris Savinkov’s 1909 novella, The Pale Steed. Billed as a “historical thriller” “The Rider” premiered to great media fan-fare. In asking “why this film adaptation at this time?” I will analyze the plot alterations and cinematic metaphors ( e.g. the dance hall can-can as the backdrop for terrorist conspiracy) that render Savinkov’s highly ambiguous condemnation of political violence both a jerry-rigged cultural memory of Russian revolutionary terrorism and a prophesy of Russia’s sure victory over its contemporary terrorist Others.
Kevin M. F. Platt
Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Comparative
Literature
University of Pennsylvania
History, Discipline and the Tyrant: Ivan IV, Peter I and Stalin in Post-Soviet Russia
This paper offers and examination of current revivals of distant (Ivan IV, Peter I) as well as less distant tyrannical leaders in Russia (Stalin). I chart the trajectory of history and memory regarding these figures since the collapse of the Soviet Union, during which period they have made appearances not only in literature and mass culture (including most recently the Name of Russia competition), but also in advertising rhetoric, as devotional figures in religious sects and, perhaps most importantly, as objects of celebration and identification in patriotic political rhetoric and educational contexts. My analysis will be concerned with the question of how figures such as these, bearing ambivalent historical reputations associated not only with national greatness but also with terror and tyranny, contribute to collective identity in contemporary Russia.
Galina Rylkova
Associate Professor of Russian Studies
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
University of Florida
The ‘Name Russia’ Project as an Exercise in Contemporary Myth- and History-Making
It is hard to imagine any other Russian leader who has been more preoccupied with the interpretation of the Russian past than Vladimir Putin, be it the remote past of the Polish invasion of the 17th century, the less remote past of the Brezhnev era, or the most recent past of the Georgian conflict of August 2008. In this paper I will focus on the national, government-sponsored project “Name Russia” (Imia Rossiia) that was aimed at choosing a name (i.e. the name of a historical figure) that most Russian citizens would feel comfortable to identify with. The winner was chosen in December 2008 and he is Prince Alexander Nevsky (1220-1263). I will discuss the selection process and, more specifically, the contributions of various “biographers” (professional historians, mass-media professionals, cultural figures, and common people) who were commissioned to provide persuasive portrayals of the 12 “finalists.” Alexander Nevsky (who collected 313,650 votes) was followed by Petr Stolypin, Joseph Stalin, Alexander Pushkin, Peter the Great, Alexander Suvorov, Vladimir Lenin, Dmitrii Mendeleev, Fedor Dostovevsky, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Alexander II. In conclusion, I will offer some thoughts on the ongoing modifications to the perceived Russian national identity.
