The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia

Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia

Mikhail Suslov, Per-Arne Bodin (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

376 Seiten

2021
I.B. Tauris (Verlag)
978-0-7556-3647-1 (ISBN)

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More than 700 ‘utopian’ novels are published in Russia every year. These utopias – meaning here fantasy fiction, science fiction, space operas or alternative history – do not set out merely to titillate; instead they express very real Russian anxieties: be they territorial right-sizing, loss of imperial status or turning into a ‘colony’ of the West.

Contributors to this innovative collection use these narratives to re-examine post-Soviet Russian political culture and identity. Interrogating the intersections of politics, ideologies and fantasies, chapters draw together the highbrow literary mainstream (authors such as Vladimir Sorokin), mass literature for entertainment and individuals who bridge the gap between fiction writers and intellectuals or ideologists (Aleksandr Prokhanov, for example, the editor-in-chief of Russia's far-right newspaper Zavtra). In the process The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia sheds crucial light onto a variety of debates – including the rise of nationalism, right-wing populism, imperial revanchism, the complicated presence of religion in the public sphere, the function of language – and is important reading for anyone interested in the heightened importance of ideas, myths, alternative histories and conspiracy theories in Russia today.

Per-Arne Bodin is Professor of Slavic Languages at Stockholm University. Mikhail Suslov is Assistant Professor of Russian History and Politics at University of Copenhagen.

INTRODUCTION: Per-Arne Bodin and Mikhail Suslov
PART 1
Chapter 1: Alternative Russian Revolution: Viacheslav Rybakov and Kir Bulychev, Go Koshino
Chaper 2: Ressentiment and post-traumatic syndrome in Russian post-Soviet speculative fiction: Two trends, Maria Galina
Chapter 3: Telluro-Cosmic Imperial Utopia and Contemporary Russian Art, Maria Engström
Chapter 4: Lazarus on the Ark: Heterotopias in the Novels of Vladimir Sharov and Evgenii Vodolazkin, Muireann Maguire
PART 2
Chapter 5: Conservative science fiction in contemporary Russian literature and politics, Mikhail Suslov
Chapter 6: Othering Russia: Eduard Limonov’s Retrofuturistic (Anti-) Utopia, Andrei Rogatchevski
Chapter 7: Religio-political utopia by Iana Zavatskaia, Anastasia V. Mitrofanova
Chapter 8: “Respectable Xenophobia:”Science Fiction, Utopia and Conspiracy, Viktor Shnirel’man
PART 3
Chapter 9: Church Slavonic in Russian dystopias and utopias, Per-Arne Bodin
Chapter 10: Contested Utopias: Language Ideologies in Valerii Votrin’s Logoped, Ingunn Lunde
Chapter 11: ‘Londongrad’ as a Linguistic Imaginary: Russophone migrants in the UK in the work of Michael Idov and Andrei Ostalsky, Lara Ryazanova-Clarke
PART 4
Chapter 12: ‘Provinces, Piety, and Promotional Putinism: Mapping Aleksandr Prokhanov’s Counter-Utopian Russia’, Edith W. Clowes
Chapter 13: Parameters of Space-Time and Degrees of (Un)-Freedom: Dmitry Bykov’s ZhD, Sofya Khagi
Chapter 14: The new “norma”: Vladimir Sorokin’s Telluria and post-utopian science fiction, Mark Lipovetsky
AFTERWARD: Back to the Future, Forward to the Past? An Afterword on Explorations in Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Kåre Johan Mjør, Sanna Turoma
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Erscheinungsdatum	26.03.2021
Sprache	englisch
Maße	138 x 216 mm
Gewicht	435 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
ISBN-10	0-7556-3647-3 / 0755636473
ISBN-13	978-0-7556-3647-1 / 9780755636471
Zustand	Neuware