A general theory of Russian space: A gay science and a rigorous science

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Volumn 22, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 523-553

  Medvedev, Sergei ^a  

^a FINNISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS   (Finland)

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EID: 21944441757     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437549702200404     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. The quatrain cited by Russophiles all over the world is: Russia cannot be embraced by mind Or measured by common measure It is a thing in its own right One can only believe in Russia. A century later, poet Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov somewhat demystified the national symbol: Papua-New-Guinea cannot be embraced by mind Or measured by common measure It is a thing in its own right One can only believe in Papua-New-Guinea.
2. A. Yu Livshits, A. V. Novikov, A. V. and L. V. Smirnyagin, "Regional'naya strategiya dlya Rossii" (A regional strategy for Russia), Region: ekonomika i sotsiologiya 3 (1994): 31-56;
3. Vladimir Kagansky, "Sovetskoye prostranstvo: konstruktsiya i destruktsiya" ("The Soviet Space: Construction and Destruction"), in Sergei Chernyshov, ed. Inoe. Khrestomatiya novogo rossiiskogo samosoznaniya (The Different. Anthology of the New Russia's self-consciousness), pp. 89-127, vol. 1:
4. Rossiya kak predmet (Russia as an object), (Moscow: Argus, 1995), at p. 125.
5. Kagansky, note 2, p. 125.
6. Russian supremacy was proclaimed in a famous toast pronounced by Stalin to "the most prominent of all nations of the Soviet Union," to "the leading Russian people" at a dinner celebrating victory over Germany in May 1945. Bolshevik, no 10 (1945): 1-2.
7. Livshits, Novikov, and Smirnyagin, note 2: 35.
8. The only exception is "Moscow, the mother of Russian cities"; but this is a common idiom used almost in all nation-states: cf., the Czech "Praha, matka mest."
9. Nikolai Berdiayev, "O vechno-babiem v russkoi dushe" ("On the always-womanish in the Russian soul"), in "Sud'ba Rossii" ("The Destiny of Russia") (Moscow: Sovetsky pisatel', 1990), pp. 36-40. Originally, baba was the a name of a married, especially older, peasant woman, and in many cases this word has a humiliating meaning, different from the neutral zhenshina, woman.
10. For an original analysis of Russia's national economic model from spatial perspective, see Vladimir Chervyakov, "The Russian National Economic Elite in the Political Arena," in Klaus Segbers, Stephan de Spiegeleire, eds., Post-Soviet Puzzles: Mapping the Political Economy of the Former Soviet Union, vol. I: Against the Background of the Former Soviet Union (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995), pp. 205-282.
11. For analysis of the administrative/territorial structure and for concepts of "the bourgeois revolution of regions," "the society of regions," and phenomenology of the Soviet space, see Kagansky, note 2; Kagansky, "Russian Regions and Territories," in Klaus Segbers and Stephan de Spiegeleire, eds., Post-Soviet Puzzles: Mapping the Political Economy of the Former Soviet Union, vol. II: Emerging Geopolitical and Territorial Units: Theories, Methods and Case Studies (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995), pp. 49-56;
12. Sergei Medvedev, "Post-Soviet Developments: A Regional Interpretation. A Methodological Review," in Segbers, and Spiegeleire, idem., pp. 5-48.
13. Kagansky, note 2, 92.
14. The concept of "the administrative market" in the USSR, together with the notion of "administrative currency," was developed by Vitaly Naishul and Simon Kordonsky. See Naishul, "Vysshaya i poslednyaya stadiya sotsializma" ("The Highest and Ultimate Stage of Socialism"), in Pogruzheniye v tryasinu (Sinking into a quagmire) (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1991);
15. Naishul, "Liberalizm i ekonomicheskiye reformy" ("Liberalism and economic reforms"), Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodniye otnosheniya 8 (August 1992): 35-54;
16. Kordonsky, "Nekotorye sotsiologicheskiye aspekty izucheniya khozyaistvennykh otnoshenii" ("Some sociological aspects of studying economic relations"), in Teoreticheskiye problemy sovershenstvovaniya khozyaistvennogo mekhanizma (Theoretical aspects of improving economic mechanisms) (Moscow: VNIISI, 1986);
17. Kordonsky, "Paradoksy realnogo sotsializma" ("Paradoxes of the real socialism"), Voprosy filosofii 3 (March 1991): 75-94;
18. Kordonsky, "The Structure of Economic Space in Post-Perestroika Society and the Transformation of the Administrative Market," in Segbers and Speigeleire, note 9, vol. I: Against the Background of the Former Soviet Union, pp. 157-204.
19. For application of the simulationist paradigm for the analysis of Soviet/Russian space, see Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992);
20. Groys, Utopia i obmen (Utopia and exchange) (Moscow: Znak, 1993);
21. Mikhail Ryklin, "Metamorphoses of Speech Vision," in Between Spring and Summer. Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), pp. 135-145;
22. Ryklin, "La conscience dans la culture du discours," in Les Temps Modernes (Paris: Automne, 1992);
23. Ryklin, Terrorologiki (Terrorologics) (Tartu-Moscow: Eidos, 1992);
24. Sergei Medvedev, "USSR: Deconstruction of the Text. At the Occasion of the 77th Anniversary of Soviet Discourse," in Segbers and Speigeleire, vol. 1, notes 9 and 11, pp. 83-120.
25. False wooden facades, constructed along the roads by Grigory Potemkin, a favorite of Empress Catherine II, in order to make her believe, as she traveled in the Ukraine, that the countryside was rich and flourishing.
26. "The All-Union Exhibition of Achievements of People's Economy."
27. See Jean Baudrillard, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities - Or the End of the Social and Other Essays (New York: Semiotext[e], 1983), p. 10;
28. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 179-180.
29. This formula was proposed in the 1840s by the minister of education, Count Sergei Uvarov, as an official ideology of the ruling regime.
30. A ritual triple epithet applied to the Communist Party and inscribed on party membership cards.
31. Sergei Soloviev, Istoriya Rossii s drevneishikh vremen (The history of Russia from the ancient times), vols. 1-15 (Moscow: Nauka Publishers, 1959-1966), vol. 7, p. 46. The idiom "it smells of Russia" (Rusiyu pakhnet), originating in the folklore and taken up by Russian literature (cf., Derzhavin's dym otechestva ["the smoke of fatherland"]), appears to be quite important for a culture lacking a spatial sense. Russia, it says, is so immeasurable and plain, there are so few landmarks, that in fact it cannot be properly seen, but rather is smelled.
32. Vassily Klyuchevsky, Sochineniya [Works], vol. 1-8 (Moscow: Nauka, 1956-1959), vol. 4.
33. This recalls a Soviet anecdote from the 1930s: a party activist is assigned to organize a kolkhoz in the countryside; several days later, he sends a telegram, "The kolkhoz is organized. Send in the farmers." Another anecdotal dialogue, from the later Soviet period, runs: "Can we build a Swedish model of socialism in the USSR?" "Of course we can, but where can we find so many Swedes?" As in the case of St. Petersburg, we see a purely semiotic approach to reality (which Baudrillard calls a "precession of the model"): first comes an abstract institution, a form, and only afterwards the authority fills it with human content. In fact, the entire Russian space can be interpreted as an ideal form, an intention of the authority, the people having not yet been sent in.
34. In today's Moscow, the institute of propiska is actually being revived by mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Most Muscovites readily welcome this move.
35. Vladimir Paperny, Kultura Dva (Culture Two) (Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye, 1996).
36. For the interplay of "horizontal" and "vertical" in Russian architecture, see I. E. Grabar, Istoriya russkogo iskusstva (The history of Russian art) vols. 1-5 (Moscow: I. Knebel, 1910-1915),
37. I. E. Grabar, Istoriya russkogo iskusstva (The history of Russian art) vol. 3 (1912), pp. 5-199.
38. Culture Two completely codifies people and places, turning the Russian territory into a space of total etiquette. In this sense, the Soviet civilization of the period of Culture Two can be compared to other highly codified cultures, like the Jewish or the Chinese, which created strict rules for all occasions in life. Thus, we read in the Mishnah that on Saturday night a tailor must not go out with a needle; in the Book of Rituals it is written that a guest must drink the first glass with a serious look and the second one with a respectful and happy face. The same strict etiquette can be found in the Soviet practices. During Lenin's lifetime, and later in the 1920s, names of members of the Politburo were listed in alphabetical order, but starting from Stalin's fiftieth birthday in December 1929, his name appeared first, and then followed others in alphabetical order (see Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, Tekhnologia vlasti. Protsess obrazovaniya KPSS. Memuarno-istoricheskiye ocherki (Technology of power. The process of formation of the CPSU. Memoirs and historical essays) (München: Izdanie Tsentral'nogo Ob'edineniya Politicheskikh Emigrantov iz SSSR [TsOPE], 1959), p. 156. In the same manner, lists of literature in Soviet academic works, defying rules of the alphabet, strictly followed the ideological etiquette. First came Marx and Engels, then Lenin, then the incumbent general secretary of the CPSU and Politburo members, then Russian authors in alphabetic order, and finally names in unwelcome roman typeface. By the same token, rules of applause at party congresses and meetings were codified: junior Politburo members were met by "long applause," middle rank were greeted by "stormy applause," top people deserved "long stormy applause, everyone stands to their feet," and the general secretary got "long stormy applause turning into ovation. Everyone raises to their feet. Shouts "Hooray! Long live our leader comrade Stalin/Malenkov/Khrushchev/Brezhnev, etc."
39. Looking back at the essential lack of ideology behind perestroika, one has to admit that there was perhaps one vague romantic idea in the spirit of the Prague Spring: to unleash forces of chaos ("natural," or healthy" forces, in Gorbachev's lexicon) and to put them into the service of a socialist state. However, these forces turned out to be as ungrateful as a Prague Golem. Once invoked to life, they turned against their creator and devoured the state that was supposed to control them.
40. For example, for Stephen Krasner a "strong state" means something completely different: "(T)he power of the state (is) in relation to its own society. This power can be envisaged along a continuum ranging from weak to strong. The weakest kind of state is one which is completely permeated by pressure groups. Central government institutions serve specific interests within the country, rather than the collective aims of the citizenry as a whole. . . . At the other extreme from a state which is completely permeated by political pressure groups is one which is able to remake the society and culture in which it exists; that is, to change economic institutions, values, and the pattern of interaction among private groups." Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest. Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 57, 60. Placed within this paradigm, Russia has almost always been an essentially weak state, unable "to remake society and culture" by means of total control.
41. See Stephan De Spiegeleire, "Levels and Units of Analysis," in Segbers and Speigeleire, vol. 1, notes 9 and 11, pp. 43-82, esp. 62-65.
42. Chervyakov, note 8, p. 207.
43. Nezavisimaya gazeta estimates the cost of the 1996 presidential campaign for Russia at $20 billion; Tatiana Koshkareva, "Ekonomika predvybornogo protsessa" ("Economics of the election process"), Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 24, 1996.
44. In Kordonsky's opinion, "the all-out corruption and bribery which is gradually destroying (and virtually replacing - S.M.) the multi-level structure of imperial rule is a much lesser evil than another revolution (i.e., the violent change in the social structure and in property relations)." Kordonsky, "The Structure" note 11, p. 160.
45. Symptomatically, a brief and stormy period of Russian literary postmodernism, nourished by the underground conceptualism of the 1970s and 1980s (Ilya Kabakov, Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov, Vladimir Sorokin, et al.), and peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s, seems to be almost over, giving way to the Culture Two-type "new sentimentalism" among many former conceptualists (e.g., Timur Kibirov). Referring to the famous Energizer battery ad ("they keep going, and going, and going"), critic Vyacheslav Kuritsyn ironically commented on this new development, "Energizers of the postmodernist bunny have become critically low."
46. Following the logic of change between Cultures One and Two, and the metaphor of Jewish history, the Second Temple will be demolished as well. On its site, triumphant Chechens will erect a mosque and Russians will be left with a Wailing Wall by the Moskva River. See Sergei Medvedev, "Svyato mesto pusto" (The holy place is empty), Nezavisimaya gazeta, January 15, 1997.
47. Yu M. Lotman, Kultura i vzryv (Culture and explosion) (Moscow: Gnozis, 1992), pp. 257-260.
48. "The process that we witness can be described as switching from the binary into a ternary system. However, one cannot but notice the peculiarity of the moment: this transition is being understood in the binary notions. In practice, two possible ways are being worked out. One of them, which had led Gorbachev to the loss of power, lay in substituting reforms by declarations and plans and leading the country into a dead-end fraught with the most gloomy forecasts. The other one, which expressed itself in various plans like '500 days' or other projects for the fast transformation of the economy, is aimed at 'curing like by like,' at curing explosion by explosion." Lotman, note 31, pp. 264-265.
49. A. I. Klibanov, Narodnaya sotsial'naya utopia v Rossii. Period feodalizma (The popular social Utopia in Russia. The Period of Feudalism) (Moscow: Nauka, 1977);
50. N. I. Kostomarov, Ocherk domashnei zhizni i nravov velikorusskogo naroda v XVI i XVII stoletiyakh (Study in domestic habits and ways of the great Russian people in the 16th and 17th centuries) (St. Petersburg: Tipografia Karla Wolfa, 1860);
51. P. N. Miluykov, Ocherki po istorii russkoi kultury (Essays in the history of Russian culture), vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1897).
52. Andrei Fadin, "Modernizatsiya cherez katastrophu? (Ne bolee chem vzglyad)" ("Modernization by catastrophe? [Just a point of view]"), in Sergei Chernyshov, ed., Inoe. Khrestomatiya novogo rossiiskogo samosoznaniya (The different: Anthology of the new Russia's self-consciousness), vol. 1: Rossiya kak predmet (Russia as an object) (Moscow: Argus, 1995), pp. 321-342, at 322.