necro-utopia - the politics of indistinction and the aesthetics of the non-soviet by alexei yurchak

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2008 by The Wenner-G ren Foundation for Anthropological Researc h. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2008/4902 -0002$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/526098 Current Anthropology V olume 49, Number 2, April 2008 199 Necro-Utopia The Politics of Indistinction and the Aesthetics of the Non-Soviet by Alexei Y urchak Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a “politics of indistinction.” They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary “Soviet citizens,” whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for makin g the collapse of the Soviet state immi nent. Close examinat ion of one such group, the Necro- realists, raises a set of questions that are central for an understanding of momentous and unexpected social transformations such as the “Soviet collapse”: Since members of these groups claimed that anything political was profoundly uninteresting to them and that neither support of nor opposition to the Soviet system was relevant, is it possible to think of them politically at all? Since the language of resis tance and opposi tion does not captu re their alternati ve subjec t positions, what political language is required to describe them? What were the implications of this peculiar “politics” for the Soviet state and its momentous collapse? Is this form of politics relevant today in other contexts? While the collapse of the Soviet state was profoundly un- imagi nable for most Soviet people , it was retr ospect ively experienced and discussed as quite unsu rprising. It became clear after the collap se, around 1990, that certain “alternati ve” selves, lifestyles, and communities that developed during the late Soviet period and differed from oppositional or dissident selves and lifestyles had contributed greatly to creating the condit ions that made the collapse both unimaginable and immanent. These alternative selves and lifestyles were wide- spread among various groups in the Soviet Union of the 1970s and ’80s and especially in the intellectual and artistic circles of Soviet cities. Many members of these groups, especially those of the younger generation, claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary Soviet citizens, both supporters of and dissenters from the system. These groups were relatively unknown to the gen- eral public and isolated from each other, but after the collapse many of them quickly achieved fame and success for their artistic and literary experiments and were commonly seen in Russia as having contributed to the conditions that made the disintegration of socialism possible. Exploring this transformation here, I shall attempt to clarify what kind of subjects the members of these artistic and intellectual groups were and suggest that it is possible to see Alexei Yurchak is Ass oci ate Pro fess or of Ant hro pol ogyat theUnive rsi ty of Cal ifo rni a, Berk eley (Ber kel ey , CA 947 20, U.S .A. [yu rcha k@ berkeley.edu]). This paper was submitted 19 II 07 and accepted 12 VI 07. their activities and their claim of being uninterested in anything political as a form of politics, albeit one that refused to recognize itself in political terms. I will argue that the con- ception of political “resistance” (as a reaction to power that opposes it) is inadequate for the conceptualization of this alternative subversive politics and discuss its effects on the Soviet state and its implications for other contexts. I will start with a few brief ethnographic examples from the period and go on to desc ribe a p eculia r movement of provo cateur s known as the Necrorealists that emerged in Leningrad in the early 1980s. The absurdist and provocative aesthetics of living and acting that they developed was a particularly explicit example of the alternative politics I wish to discuss. This movement, therefore, will serve as a lens though which to analyze this peculiar form of political relation to the state. Non-Soviet Soviets In the early 1980s, before the reforms of perestroika, when the Soviet state was popularly experienced as eternal and im- mutable and its imminent collapse was still unimaginable (see Yurchak 2006), increasing numbers of young Soviet urbanites found it irrelevant whether ideological messages of the Party were true or false and instead occupied themselves with in- terests, values, and pursuits that were neither in support of nor in opposition to that ideology . They avoided talking about “politics,” considering it uninteresting and irrelevant. Inna, then a student at Leningrad University, described her and her friends’ life aroun d 1980 as follo ws: “We never went to vote.

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Page 1: Necro-Utopia - The Politics of Indistinction and the Aesthetics of the Non-Soviet by Alexei Yurchak

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