Benjamin Sher
Russian Translator
My main thesis is built directly on Kondakov’s speculative leap that post-Soviet society gives us reason to believe that the traditional, unstable binary model of Russian society built on mutually exclusive extremes or “vzaimoiskliuchaiushchie krainosti”, i.e., a dialectic of centripetal and centrifugal forces functioning as the fundamental paradigm of the totalitarian, maximalist Russian mentality is in the process of being supplanted by a more neutral, relativistic, pluralistic, open cultural model, in which popular culture plays the dominant role (Chapter 11, section 1, especially page 298, middle of the first paragraph: “Paradoksal’nym obrazom... imenno ‘obydennaia kul’tura’ obladaet neosporimym statusom naibol’shei universal’nosti... i ‘kul’tura povsednevnosti’ vykhodit na pervyi plan sotsiokul’turnykh interesov sovremennoi Rossii...”). Kondakov does not merely state the fact that the new, triumphant mass culture of post-Soviet society has replaced the traditional elite culture that has dominated Russia throughout most of its history. He has given it his blessing: on page 308 he speaks of this mass culture, this “meshchanstvo” (or, as he calls it somewhere else, the “culture of indifference”) as the hope of Russia, that is, as its salvation, as its way of escaping from and overcoming the endless cycles of alternating extremes that have characterized Russian culture throughout its history:
(Section 2, page 308, paragraph 2). “Vo vremena... takie tendentsii nazyvalis’ ‘meshchanstvom’, stikhiei obyvatelia, melkoburzhuaznoi ‘bezdukhovnost’iu’... Mozhet byt’, eto kakaya-to inaya dukhovnost’, nekoe ‘inobytie’ dukha, zachatki ‘tret’ei kul’tury’” .
Personally, I am NOT convinced. This is all too
reminiscent of Kondakov’s discussion earlier in the book of the historically—
politically, esthetically and morally—doomed “golden mean” (zolotaya seredina)
that has been traditionally derided and mocked by all sides— the doomed Cadets,
Mensheviks and other reformers. Kondakov believes that this “third culture” and
with it the new “ternary” rather than binary model will provide a more stable
foundation for
At any rate, Kondakov’s observations apply to “Emerging Trends” in the following way: the new elite culture of post-Soviet Russia (that is, the fine arts as opposed to the popular arts, in the sense that in every culture, including our own Western consumerist culture, there is a fundamental distinction, however blurred at times, between the enduring works of the fine arts and the escapist productions of popular culture) is clearly emerging from the bowels of this new dominant “bourgeois” mass culture. The new literature, the new music, the new painting, the new drama and the new cinema that have emerged since 1991 start either from an interpretation of the old elite paradigms (e. g., confronting the Communist legacy in “Burnt by the Sun”) or by drawing their inspiration from the new mass culture (e. g., Vladimir Sorokin’s novels, which combine the scandalous, risqué and violent with tremendous stylistic sophistication and tour de force).
In my opinion, the main focus of “Emerging Trends” should indeed be the fine arts and NOT popular arts in and of themselves. I would recommend focusing on those works of literature, music, the visual arts, etc., that are drawn from and sustained by the dynamism of popular culture and those works which confront and challenge the past, as in the case of “Burnt by the Sun” or some of the music of composers such as Alfred Schnittke (some of the “montage” where elements of the old are combined, or rather yoked with elements of the new) rather than bothering with works that merely rehash or imitate the past.
This brings us finally to Kondakov’s brilliant discussion
of postmodernism in
“Esli zapadnyi postmodern est’ rezul’tat individual’nykh tvorcheskikh iskanii individualov, stremiashchikhsia peresmotret’ zastyvshie normy i tsennosti, kontseptsii i stili v dukhe kul’turnogo pliuralizma i svobodnogo samoopredeleniya lichnosti v mnogomernoi demokraticheskoi kul’ture, to rossiiskii postmodern porozhden kolliziiami posttotalitarnogo razvitiia rossiisko-sovetskoi kul’tury (stolknoveniem ofitsial’noi kul’tury i neofitsial’noi, prototalitarnykh i antitotalitarnykh tendentsii v kul’ture, ideologii i obydennogo soznaniia, religii i ateizma, nauki i psevdonauchnykh, spekuliativnykh teorii, iskusstva i kicha), chto pridaet emu nesravnenno bolee dramaticheskii i perelomno-krizisnyi kharakter....”
Once again, this helps us to understand the literature of
Vladimir Sorokin, which I know only secondhand from Kameyama’s remarkable essay
“Terror teksta ili tekst terrora: k problematike
telesnosti u Vladimira Sorokina” (
1) O totalitarnom, ili o vnutrennei rane
Sorokina.
2) Terror protiv teksta: vsesilie i smert’ avtora.
3) Otsechenie, ili chast’ tela kak mirovaia tragediia.
4) Terror protiv tela i ego desemantizatsiia.
5) Terror protiv istorii.
In my personal opinion (I am speculating, of course), the vibrant, enduring classics of tomorrow, be it in literature, music, the visual arts, etc., will come, as they always have in the past, from artists who draw upon materials, motifs and themes of the LIVING culture of their day. In view of the tremendous chasm between the old elite cultures that have given us the classics of yesterday and the new elite culture which is struggling to be born, it is no surprise that the works of gifted new artists who insist on writing out of their living reality may shock, scandalize, even horrify the reader (or viewer or listener) who is totally unprepared for it. However, what ultimately counts is the quality of the work itself. We must trust the artists as they bring forth new works that, depending upon the genius of their creator, will be equal to those of the past.
When I read some other works on post-Soviet culture such
as Shalin’s “Russian Culture at the Crossroads”, I was in despair because the
verdict was clear: in the new
Benjamin Sher
September, 2002