Horror & Melodrama: Die sowjetische Vergangenheit in der Populärkultur von Belarus, Ukraine und Russland

Presentation of the volume Appropriating History: The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Popular Culture with editors Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller, and contributors Eva Binder and Oleksandr Zabirko

Melodramatic love stories set in the Gulag, apocalyptic landscapes of ruins, horrifying images of nuclear-contaminated areas—the Soviet visual and cultural-political heritage enjoys great popularity, not only in the West. Especially in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, which were newly founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the shared past is not only a contested subject in public debates, but also a playing field for appropriations in popular culture. What is driving the boom of Soviet relics in genres such as blockbusters, historical or family epics, music videos, video games, or comics? Does the fascination with recent history stem from the search for a new “national idea,” a push to “decolonize” long hegemonic historical myths? Or is it part of a global trend to continually recycle controversial and mysterious historical figures and events? And does this boom also serve historical enlightenment, or is it just a symptom of backward-looking nostalgia, if not a dangerous instrumentalization of history for the present?

The editors of the volume Appropriating History: The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Popular Culture (transcript 2024), Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller (both ZfL), will discuss these questions together with contributors Eva Binder (University of Innsbruck) and Oleksandr Zabirko (University of Regensburg).

Admission is free, and no registration is required.

Fig. above: © Konstantin Sulima