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Book Chapter

The Presence of Absence. Longing and Nostalgia in Post-Soviet Art and Literature

  • Irina Marchesini

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.

  • Keywords:
  • absence,
  • post-soviet,
  • Kabakov,
  • Fiks,
  • Astvatsaturov,
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Irina Marchesini

University of Bologna, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-7775-4754

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  • Publication Year: 2015
  • Pages: 149-165
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2015 Author(s)

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  • Publication Year: 2015
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

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

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

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

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

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

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