Performance and Dissatisfaction at Russian Studies Conference
About the author: Alice Underwod is a Stanford PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature and pre-doctoral fellow at the Center of Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at FSI. She traveled to Russia as a recipient of an FSI conference grant.
At the 50th annual Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies Convention in December 2018, my presentation focused on political performance artists and public opinion in contemporary Russia — these being the basis of the “performance and dissatisfaction” alluded to in the blog title (while conferences always involve a degree of performance, the experience was very satisfying).
ASEEES is the largest international annual conference focusing on interdisciplinary research on the post-Soviet space. As a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature, I focus on political and cultural intersections in late-Soviet and contemporary Russia. The theme for this year’s ASEEES Convention was “Performance”; this inspired me to organize a panel on how Russia’s political architects curate a narrative about the state of the nation, its citizens, and how they ought to perform their moral duties. As I have also done research on Soviet-Cuban relations, I also participated on a roundtable discussion of research involving connections between Slavic and Latin America.
The panel I organized, titled “Neo-Traditionalism Goes Viral: Morality and Media in Contemporary Russia,” examined the political, social, and digital repercussions of the rise of traditional values and Russian Orthodoxy in Kremlin rhetoric and contemporary Russian society. The panel’s two other papers discussed, first, a literary contest with online components designed to promote Orthodoxy and conservatism among Russian children, and second, the performance of religious rites in official Kremlin practices and by Putin himself, especially regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
I presented a paper titled “Morality Populism and Performing Dissatisfaction in Russia’s Cyber Sphere,” which explored media-based performances posing non-traditional confrontations to the traditionalist rhetoric employed in political culture. The background to my argument is the Kremlin’s reliance on spiritual bonds (dukhovnye skrepy), family values, and a representation of Europe as “Gayropa” to imply the West’s simultaneous moral and political decay. These strategies are designed to foster a sense of national unity and rally Russian citizens around a pseudo-populist system of shared values and collective memory practices. A besieged fortress mentality and constant reminders of Russia’s preeminence on the global stage fortify these rhetorical strategies.
But there is more to the story of contemporary Russia than what we see in President Putin’s speeches or state media. While Western news sources paint a picture of occasional protest on the streets, there are many Russians who do not subscribe to the Kremlin’s myth-making, but nonetheless accept the status quo or feel that resistance is futile. But on the other end of the spectrum, certain performance artists radically challenge the established order with extreme performances, whose dissemination on social media carves out space for public dissent and broader political dialogue. The most famous example of this is Pussy Riot, whose “Punk Prayer” not only contained apparently immoral content (especially the girls’ “devilish dancing”), but the edited video of which went viral on YouTube, creating a perfect storm culminating in the intensified focus on morality, including new legislation prosecuting “insulting the feelings of religious believers.”
Other performance artists perform even more extreme actions in critiquing Russia’s repressive governance. Pyotr Pavlensky uses self-mutilation as performance art, such as cutting off an earlobe to protest psychiatric punishments for political prisoners, or most famously and excruciatingly, nailing his scrotum to Red Square to critique citizens’ passivity in face of state repression. Another artist, Seroe Fioletovoe, planned a self-conducted orchiectomy, removal of the testicles, while reciting avant-garde poetry in the military zone of Donetsk (instead, the artist was detained for two weeks, but received social media attention while in detention, therefore gaining publicity by virtue of a failed performance). Finally, in a less painful vein, a group of aviation cadets posted a video of them dancing suggestively to the 2002 dance hit “Satisfaction.” The establishment derided the young men for their unmanly and un-Russian behavior, but a wave of response videos from all over Russia spoke to the desire for solidarity in irreverence and lightheartedness — in short, for a bit of satisfaction in a country fixated on a national narrative of power, stability, and seriousness.
As a scholar of Russian culture and politics, I always find the ASEEES Convention a thought-provoking and energizing opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary conversations and delve deeper into my own favored research areas as well as encounter new ones (for instance, one talk on Soviet body-building trends was certainly eye-opening). The highlight was the chance to connect or reconnect with other scholars about related interests, current work, and future collaborations. I am grateful for, as well as satisfied with, the opportunity to present my own research and explore other scholarship in the field of Slavic and Russian studies.
