Matthias Meindl

Reiner Aktivismus?
Politisierung von Literatur und Kunst im postsowjetischen Russland
[Pure activism? Politicization of literature and art in post-Soviet Russia]

Das östliche Europa: Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Vol. 6
Böhlau Verlag, Köln, Weimar 2018, 656 pages
ISBN 978-3-412-50382-6

How did the resurgence of authoritarian statehood lead to the development of ‘art activism’ by Vojna and Pussy Riot? How did Limonov’s aestheticist project of the National Bolshevik Party turn into a protest movement that aestheticizes politics and expresses social marginality? How did leftist institutional experiments like the artist group Chto Delat emerge despite the repressive conditions in Putin’s Russia? By looking at the career paths of individual actors, Matthias Meindl traces ‘the political’ in Russian art and literature since the 1990s.

This thesis was accepted as a dissertation by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zurich in the spring semester 2014 at the request of the PhD Commission, Prof. Dr. Sylvia Sasse (principal supervisor) and Prof. Dr. Georg Witte.

In German.

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“The emergence of interdisciplinary artistic-intellectual collectives aiming at long-term practical and pedagogical activity should still be reflected upon. Without a doubt, Meindl’s book is the first major step in this direction.”
Klavdia Smola, Slavic Review 79.1 (2020)

Media Response

11 May 2020
Reiner Aktivismus? Politisierung von Literatur und Kunst im postsowjetischen Russland

Review by Klavdia Smola, in: Slavic Review 79.1 (2020), 244–245