This article explores the phenomenon of nostalgia for the Soviet era found in contemporary Russian society and manifested both in contemporary art, such as in the installations of Il'ja Kabakov, Sergej Volkov, and Jevgenij Fiks, and in modern literature, especially in the prose of Andrej Astvacaturov. Such regret for a bygone past primarily mourns not the apparatus of the Soviet state, but the routine and the quality of familiar daily life. Insights from the fields of visual studies and trauma studies undergird this exploration of the relationship between a work of art's visual composition and its representation of toska, memory, and material culture in the Soviet era. By juxtaposing artwork with literary prose, we reveal the significant role had by 'reflective' toska-nostalgia (as defined by Svetlana Boym, 2001) in the formation of post-Soviet identity.
University of Bologna, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-7775-4754
Chapter Title
The Presence of Absence. Longing and Nostalgia in Post-Soviet Art and Literature
Authors
Irina Marchesini
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.07
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
Book Subtitle
Case Studies from Russian and Russian-Jewish Culture
Editors
Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
194
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4
ISBN Print
978-88-6655-821-7
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-6655-822-4
eISBN (xml)
978-88-9273-384-8
Series Title
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
Series ISSN
2612-7687
Series E-ISSN
2612-7679