Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:42:43.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parahistory: History at Play in Russia and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jeffrey Brooks  and
Boris Dralyuk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines a variety of popular engagements with history made possible by new technologies, namely the Internet and video games. We term these nondisciplinary appropriations of history parahistorical. Parahistory is an international phenomenon, but it is articulated differently in various national contexts. Russian parahistorical pursuits provide insight into both the phenomenon at large and the peculiarities of the Russian state's and population's attitudes toward history and historical memory. On the basis of a contextualized survey of Russian parahistory, we argue that historians cannot afford to ignore these uses of history beyond the academy which can teach us a great deal about the nature and broader implications of our discipline.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 77 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Thanks to Miguel Aon, Georgiy Chernyavskiy, Peter Jelavich, Elaine May, Thomas Gaiton Marullo, Gabrielle Spiegel, and Christopher Stolarski for reading early versions. Our special thanks to Karen Brooks, Dina Khapaeva, Nikolay Koposov, Richard Wortman, Harriet Murav, and our anonymous reviewers for comments on a recent one.

1. Valery, Paul, “Litterature,” CEuvres, ed. Hytier, Jean, 2 vols. (Paris, 1957-60), 2:549.Google Scholar Originally published in Commerce, no. 19 (1929). Translation by Scott, Clive, in “Symbolism, Decadence and Impressionism,” in Bradbury, Malcolm and McFarlane, James, eds., Modernism: A Guide to European Literature, 1890-1930 (London, 1976), 207.Google Scholar Emphasis in the original.

2. Huizinga, Johan, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (London, 1949).Google Scholar

3. See Combs, James E., Play World: The Emergence of the New Ludenic Age (Westport, 2000), 118.Google Scholar

4. Sicart, Michael, Play Matters (Cambridge, Mass., 2014), 99.Google Scholar See also Upton, Brian, The Aesthetic of Play (Cambridge, Mass., 2015).Google Scholar

5. Clark, Katerina and Holquist, Michael, Mikhail Bakhtin (Cambridge, Mass., 1984)Google Scholar; Panzhkov, N. A., Voprosy biografii i nauchnogo tvorchestva M. M. Bakhtina (Moscow, 2010), 362-77.Google Scholar

6. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, trans. Iswolsky, Helene (Bloomington, 1984), 7.Google Scholar

7. Sicart, , Play Matters, 3, 10-11.Google Scholar

8. Huizinga, , Homo Ludens, 40.Google Scholar

9. Brotchie, Alastair, Alfred Jarry. A Pataphysical Life (Cambridge, Mass., 2011), vii viii, 27-34.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., 33.

11. Mendelsohn, Daniel, “Moral Conqueror: Mary Renault in the Grip of Alexander the Great,” Times Literary Supplement, November 29, 2013, 1.Google Scholar

12. Review of Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, Publishers Weekly, August 17,2009, at http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-8068-1 (last accessed November 25, 2015).

13. W.W. Norton ' Company, Inc., at http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Master-and-Commander/ (last accessed November 25,2015).

14. Sukhikh, I. N., ed., Roman L. N. Tolstogo “Voina i mir” v russkoi kritike (Leningrad, 1989).Google Scholar

15. Shaw, Harry E., The Forms of Historical Fiction: Sir Walter Scott and His Successors (Ithaca, 1983), 22.Google Scholar

16. Evans, Richard J., Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History (Waltham, 2013), 93.Google Scholar

17. Akunin, Boris, Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, trans. Bromfield, Andrew (New York, 2007), 271.Google Scholar

18. For more on the uses of the past in Akunin's novels, see Baraban, Elena V., “A Country Resembling Russia: The Use of History in Boris Akunin's Detective Novels,” Slavic and East European Journal 48, no. 3 (2004): 396-420 Google Scholar; Khagi, Sofya, “Boris Akunin and Retro Mode in Contemporary Russian Culture,” Toronto Slavic Quarterly, no. 13 (Summer 2005), at http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/13/khagil3.shtml (last accessed November 25, 2015)Google Scholar; Norris, Stephen M., “Boris Akunin (Grigorii Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, 1956),” in Stephen M., Norris and Sunderland, Willard, eds., Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present (Bloomington, 2012), 327-36Google Scholar; and Norris, Stephen M., Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory, and Patriotism (Bloomington, 2012), 73-95.Google Scholar

19. Beeler, Carolyn, “Napoleon Defeated in Leipzig, Again,” Yahoo News (Singapore), October 21, 2013, at http://www.sg.news.yahoo.com/napoleon-defeated-leipzig-again-175021890.html (last accessed December 14, 2015).Google Scholar The event was widely covered and photographed. See also Becky Evans, “Thousands of History Fanatics Re-enact the Bloody Battle of Nations 200 Years after Coalition Forces Defeated Napoleon,” Daily Mail Online, October 20,2013, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2469195/Battle-Nations-Thousands-history-fanaticsenact-fight.html (last accessed November 25, 2015), and “In Pictures: Battle of Leipzig, Napoleonic Re-enactment,” BBC News, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24601870 (last accessed November 25,2015), for pictures of the smiling reenactors.

20. Beeler, “Napoleon Defeated in Leipzig, Again.“

21. Ibid.

22. Wikipedia, s.v. “List of Historical Reenactment Groups,” last modified December 2, 2015, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_reenactment_groups (last accessed December 2,2015).

23. See Vikipediia, s.v. “Istoricheskaia rekonstruktsiia,” last modified May 4, 2015, at http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/McTopMiiecKaH_peKOHCTpyKUMH (last accessed November 25, 2015). See also the map of events on the front page of Kameraden.ru, one of the major online forums for voennye rekonstruktory, fans of “military reconstruction,” at kameraden. ru (last accessed November 25,2015).

24. Jonathan Earle, “Putin Urges Patriotism on Borodino Battlefield,” Moscow Times, September 3, 2012, at http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-urges-patriotismon-borodino-battlefield/467531.html (last accessed November 25, 2015). See also Rolf, Make, Soviet Mass Festivals, 1917-1991, trans. Klohr, Cynthia (Pittsburgh, 2013), 17-18.Google Scholar

25. Earle, “Putin Urges Patriotism.“

26. A proper historical study of “military-historical reconstruction” in Russia has yet to be written, though there is a dissertation on the movement as a “sociocultural phenomenon“: I. V. Glukharev, “Dvizhenie voenno-istoricheskoi rekonstruktsii kak sotsiokul ‘turnyi fenomen” (Kandidat nauk, State Academy of Slavic Culture, 2000). Some information can also be found in the memoirs and on the St. Petersburg University faculty webpage of historian 0. V. Sokolov, the de facto leader of the movement. See “Memuary o voennoistoricheskoi rekonstruktsii,” http://Napoleonic.ru, at napoleonic.ru/6M6jiHOTeKa/coKOJiOBo- B-MeMyapbi-o-BoeHHO-MCTopMiiecKOM-peKOHCTpyKii,MH (last accessed November 25, 2015); and Kafedra istorii Novogo i noveishego vremeni: Sokolov Oleg Valer'evich, at http://novist.history.spbu.ru/sokolov.html (last accessed November 25, 2015). Another leading forum for Russian military reenactors is Forum voenno-istoricheskikh rekonstruktorov, at livinghistory.ru (last accessed November 25, 2015). For an overview of the larger roleplaying movement, see Barchunova, T. and Beletskaia, N., “Are Play Regiments Really for Play? Militarian Practices in Novosibirsk: Simulation of Military Actions in Role-Playing Games for Young People and Militarized Games for Adults,” Anthropology ' Archeology in Eurasia 48, no. 3 (Winter 2009-10): 9-30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Barchunova, Tat'iana and Beletskaia, Natal'ia, “Without Fear and Reproach: The Role-Playing Games Community as a Challenge to Mainstream Culture,” Sibirica 4, no. 1 (2004): 116-29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Zhurnal “Krylatyi vestnik,” at http://www.kvestnik.info/journal/index.htm (last accessed November 25, 2015)

28. Barchunova, Tat'iana and Beletskaia, Nataliia, “Organized Patriotism versus Spontaneous Tolerance: Militarian Games in Novosibirsk,” Kultura 1 (April 2007): 12.Google Scholar

29. Valerie Sperling, “Making the Public Patriotic: Militarism and Anti-Militarism in Russia,” in Laruelle, Marlene, ed., Russian Nationalism and the National Reassertion of Russia (London, 2009), 218-71.Google Scholar

30. Ibid, 251.

31. See, for instance, the image of Girkin accompanying Bogdana Evseeva, Tamara Balaeva, and Tat'iana Dubovaia, “Polkovnik GRU iz Slavianska Girkin voeval protiv Napoleona i za belogvardeitsev,” Vesti reporter, April 28, 2014, at http://vesti.ua/donbass/49676-polkovnik-gru-iz-slavjanska-girkin-nosit-rimskie-laty-i-vojuet-protiv-napoleona (last accessed November 25,2015).

32. Oleg Kashin, “The Most Dangerous Man in Ukraine Is an Obsessive War Reenactor Playing Now with Real Weapons,” trans. Ilya Lozovsky, New Republic, July 22, 2014, at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118813/igor-strelkov-russian-war-reenactor-fights-realwar-ukraine (last accessed December 14,2015).

33. David Remnick, “After the Crash,” New Yorker, July 17, 2014, at http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/after-the-crash (last accessed December 14,2015).

34. See, for instance, the comments by ultranationalist Egor Prosvirnin in Alexey Eremenko, “In Ukraine, West's ‘Terrorists’ Are Russia's Heroes,” Moscow Times, July 27, 2014, at http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/in-ukraine-west-s-terrorists-are-russias-heroes/504127.html (last accessed November 25, 2015). Interestingly, an August 2, 2014, rally in support of the insurgents failed to draw the ten thousand attendees its organizers had anticipated. One commentator explained, “The low attendance may suggest that the Russian government is not going out of its way to promote the separatist leaders, as progovernment rallies are usually reinforced by bussed-in protesters. Indeed, given some reports of fears of Strelkov's possible role as a rival to Putin for the affections of nationalist Russians, the Kremlin may not wish to endorse a rally dominated by such adulatory portrayals of the separatist military leader.” Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, “Russia This Week: Siberian Group Seeking Greater Autonomy is Censored (28 July-2 August),” Interpreter, at http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-this-week-british-public-inquiry-into-litvinenkopoisoning-death-to-open/ (last accessed November 25, 2015).

35. See, for instance, Iggy Ostanin's analysis of Girkin's posts on reenactment forums, “Russia against the World: Igor Strelkov's Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” Interpreter, August 4, 2014, at http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-against-the-world-igor-strelkovs-self-fulfillingprophecy/ (last accessed November 25, 2015). In his posts pre-dating the conflict, Girkin discussed—among other things—using historical emblems like the St. George ribbon to stir patriotic fervor and manipulate the Russian masses.

36. Kansteiner, Wulf, “Alternate Worlds and Invented Communities: History and Historical Consciousness in the Age of Interactive Media,” in Jenkins, Keith, Morgan, Sue, and Munslow, Alun, eds., Manifestos for History (London, 2007), 131-48.Google Scholar

37. Elliott, Andrew B. R. and Kapell, Mathew Wilhelm, “Introduction: To Build a Past That Will ‘Stand the Test of Time'—Discovering Historical Facts, Assembling Historical Narratives,” in Kapell, Mathew Wilhelm and Elliott, Andrew B. R., eds., Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History (New York, 2013), 1-3.Google Scholar

38. Mackay, Daniel, The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art (Jefferson, 2001), 72.Google Scholar

39. “GameBox: General War-Bring You Back to World War II,” YouTube video, 2:10, posted by GAMEBOX, March 31, 2014, at http:www.//youtu.be/mS0hq7tlRA0 (last accessed December 14,2015).

40. Quoted in Angelo Horvath, “Fallout Games History Overview,” Vault-Tec: Fallout Blog, at http://www.thevaulttecinc.com/2014/05/fallout-games-history-overview.html (last accessed December 14, 2015). For the trailer, see “Fallout 3 Trailer,” YouTube video, 3:03, posted by Bethesda Softworks, May 13,2013, at http://www.youtu.be/07alGVlC9SM (last accessed December 14,2015). The game is set in 2277, two hundred years after a nuclear war. The Lone Wanderer leaves a shelter that had been sealed since the war to fight supermutants and an abhorrent U.S. government. Fallout wiki, s.v. “Fallout3,” last modified November 30,2015, at http://www.fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3 (last accessed December 1,2015).

41. Reisner, Clemens, ‘“The Reality behind It All is Very True': Call of Duty: Black Ops and the Remembrance of the Cold War,” in Kapell, and Elliott, , eds., Playing with the Past, 248.Google Scholar

42. Grant, Christopher, “Interview: Call of Duty: Black Ops Producer Dan Bunting,” Joystiq, May 28, 2010, at http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/interview-call-of-duty-blackops-producer-dan-bunting/ (last accessed November 25,2015), quoted in ibid., 248-49.Google Scholar

43. See data from marketing research group SuperData, “Conquering the $1.1B Russian Online Games Market,” SuperData Research (blog), September 4, 2013, at http://www.parasuperdataresearch.com/blog/conquering-russian-online-games-market/ (last accessed November 25, 2015), and RT's reporting on data from a Mail.ru survey, “Russian Gaming Goes Ballistic Worth Estimated $1.3bn,” RT Business, lune 10, 2013, at http://www.rt.com/business/russian-video-games-value-466/ (last accessed November 25,2015).

44. Data from Newzoo and Mail.ru, analyzed and summarized in “Exploring the Video Game Market in Russia,” thinkRUSSIA, lanuary 16,2014, at http://www.thinkrussia.com/business-economy/exploring-video-game-market-russia (last accessed November 25, 2015).

45. See Eddie Makuch, “World of Tanks Reaches 1.1M Concurrent Players, Still Nowhere Close to League of Legends,” Gamespot, lanuary 21, 2014, at http://www.gamespot.com/articles/world-of-tanks-reaches-1-lm-concurrent-players-still-nowhere-close-to-leagueof-legends/1100-6417254/ (last accessed November 25, 2015).

46. See “Gosduma zapretit antirossiiskie igry,” Izvestiia, February 6,2014, at izvestia. ru/news/565248 (last accessed November 25, 2015); and “Duma zapretit antirossiiskie igry,” Ridus, February 6, 2014, at http://www.ridus.ru/news/154223 (last accessed November 25, 2015). See also one Russian player's somewhat bemused reaction to the attack on World of Tanks, “Gaming in Russia: Propaganda against Videogames,” Kinja, February 8, 2014, at http://omeniel.kinja.com/gaming-in-russia-russian-propaganda-against-videogames-1518483574 (last accessed November 25, 2015).

47. Mutatis mutandis, this can be compared to the American military's promotion of war games. See Stahl, Roger, Militainment, Inc.: War, Media, and Popular Culture (New York, 2010).Google Scholar

48. “Zadachu vospitaniia patriotizma pravitel'stvo reshit igraiuchi,” Izvestiia, October 4, 2013, at http://www.izvestia.ru/news/558084 (last accessed November 25,2015). This article attracted American media attention and was summarized in Vladimir Kozlov, “Russian Government to Produce ‘Patriotic’ Video Games” Hollywood Reporter, October 7,2013, at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/russian-government-produce-patriotic-video-644289 (last accessed November 25, 2015), and Michael Peck, “Russian Government Demands ‘Patriotic’ Video Games,” Forbes, October 11, 2013, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2013/10/ll/russian-government-demands-patriotic-games/ (last accessed November 25,2015).

49. Data from Newzoo, reported and analyzed in William Usher, “75 Percent of Russian Gamers Get Their Games Illegally,” CINEMABLEND, September 13, 2011, at http://www.cinemablend.com/games/75-Percent-Russian-Gamers-Get-Their-Games-Illegally-35054.html (last accessed November 25,2015).

50. “John Deere Simulators: Frequently Asked Questions,” at http://www.deere.com/en_US/docs/services_and_support/sim_FAQ.pdf (last accessed December 1,2015). Hilgers, Philipp von, War Games: A History of War on Paper, trans. Benjamin, Ross (Cambridge, Mass., 2012), 19-21.Google Scholar

52. Hilgers describes this in a chapter titled “Historiography in Real Time,” chap. 4 in ibid.

53. See Stahl, Militainment, Inc., particularly chap. 4, “War Games.“

54. There is a literature on the psychological effects of playing violent video games and how such games desensitize players to actual violence. See, for example, Anderson, Craig A., Gentile, Douglas A., and Buckley, Katherine E., Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (Oxford, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar They attribute Sega Genesis's success at the expense of Nintendo in the 1990s to the platform's more violent one-on-one fighting games, such as Double Dragon and Mortal Combat.

55. Lupton, Deborah, Risk, 2nd ed. (London, 2013), 4.Google ScholarPubMed Iurii Lotman also explores risk and culture in Iu. M. Kul'tura i vzryv (Moscow, 1992).

56. Arnoldi, Jakob, Risk: An Introduction (Cambridge, Eng., 2009), 9-10.Google Scholar

57. Fichtelberg, Joseph, Risk Culture: Performance and Danger in Early America (Ann Arbor, 2010), 1-13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58. Lowood, Henry, “Impotence and Agency: Computer Games as a Post-9/11 Battlefield,” in Jahn-Sudmann, Andreas and Stockmann, Ralf, eds., Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games without Frontiers, Wars without Tears (Basingstoke, 2008), 86.Google Scholar

59. See, e.g., “Igra prestolov treiler (parodiia),” 5:48, posted by “TheGamethrones,” December 15,2011, at http://www.youtu.be/ptBHFNewocY (last accessed December 1,2015).

60. Dana Jennings, “In a Fantasyland of Liars, Trust No One, and Keep Your Dragon Close,” New York Times, July 14, 2011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/books/a-dancewith-dragons-by-george-r-r-martin-review.html (last accessed December 1, 2015). Jennings writes, “So, yes, winter is still coming. Tolkien is dead. And long live George Martin.” Daniel Mendelsohn also notes the book and television series’ power in “The Women and the Thrones,” New York Review of Books, November 7, 2013,40-42, at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/11/07/women-and-thrones/ (last accessed December 1,2015).

61. A Google search of “game of thrones series and book differences” performed in July 2015 yielded much discussion online and in print. Commentators on personal blogs, in comment sections, and in forums discuss graphic violence, sex, gender roles, and much else.

62. Ben Milne, “Game of Thrones: The Cult French Novel That Inspired George RR Martin,” BBC New Magazine, April 4, 2014, at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26824993 (last accessed December 1,2015).

63. An early example is the essay collection J. C. Squire, ed., If It Had Happened Otherwise (London, 1931), featuring essays by Winston Churchill, G. K. Chesterton, and others. On this subject, see also Kansteiner, “Alternate Worlds and Invented Communities,” 143.

64. See Evans, , Altered Pasts, 66, 91.Google Scholar

65. Lebow, Richard Ned, Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World without World War /(New York, 2014).Google Scholar

66. Schmitt, Eric-Emmanuel, La part de I'autre: Roman (Paris, 2001).Google Scholar

67. See, for example, Hawthorn, Geoffrey, Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Eng., 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which surveys the recent literature; and Ferguson, Niall, ed., Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (New York, 1999).Google Scholar

68. For an overview of the genre's popularity in the late and early post-Soviet eras, see Nemzer, Andrei, “Nesbyvsheesia: Al'ternativy istorii v zerkale slovesnosti,” Novyi mir, no. 4 (1993): 226-38Google Scholar; reprinted in Andrei Nemzer, Zamechatel'noe desiatiletie russkoi literatury (Moscow, 2003), 19-42. For an overview of the genre's development through the early twenty-first century, see S. V. Sobolev, Al'ternativnaia istoriia: Posobie dlia khronokhichkhaikerov (Lipetsk, 2006).

69. For a brief overview of the genre and the debate, see Marsh, Rosalind J., Literature, History and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia, 1991-2006 (Bern, 2007), 271-73.Google Scholar

70. See Etkind, Alexander, “Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied: Magical Historicism in Contemporary Russian Fiction,” Slavic Review 68, no. 3 (Fall 2009): 631-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71. See Khapaeva, Dina, Goticheskoe obshchestvo: Morfologiia koshmara (Moscow, 2008).Google Scholar A summary of her key arguments, especially relating to “historical memory,” can be found in Dina Khapaeva, “History without Memory: Gothic Morality in Post-Soviet Society,” Eurozine, February 2,2009, at http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2009-02-02-khapaeva-en.html (last accessed December 1,2015); originally published in German as “Geschichte ohne Erinnerung: Zur Moral der postsowjetischen Gesellschaft,” Merkur, no. 11 (2008). See also her debate with Etkind's and Mark Lipovetsky's interpretations in Dina Khapaeva, “Neliudi i kritiki (reaktsiia na dialogM. Lipovetskogo i A. Etkinda’ Vozvrashchenie tritona: Sovetskaia katastrofa i postsovetskii roman’),” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 98 (2009), at nlo http://www.//books.ru/sites/default/files/old/nlobooks.ru/rus/magazines/nlo/196/1490/1504/index.html (last accessed November 2015, 2015); as well as Lipovetsky's reply in the same issue, Mark Lipovetskii, “V zashchitu chudishch (otvet Dine Khapaevoi),” at http://nlobooks.ru/sites/default/files/old/nlobooks.ru/rus/magazines/nlo/196/1490/1506/index.html (last accessed December 1,2015).

72. “Knizhnaia seriia ‘Voenno-istoricheskaia fantastika,'” Laboratoriia fantastiki, at http://fantlab.ru/series713 (last accessed December 1, 2015).

73. See Literaturnyi forum “Vvikhre vremen,” at http://forum.amahrov.ru (last accessed December 1, 2015).

74. Gleick, James, Chaos: Making a New Science, rev. ed. (New York, 2008), 20-22.Google Scholar

75. Ibid., 23.

76. Marshak, S., Dom, kotoryi postroil Dzhek: Angliiskie detskie pesenki, Must. VI. Konashevich (Petersburg and Moscow, 1924).Google Scholar A first-edition copy of the book was sold at auction in late 2013. For a picture of the cover, see “Marshak, Samuil Yakovlevich. 1887-1964. Dom kotoryi postroil Dzhek [The House That Jack Built]. Petersburg and Moscow: GIZ, 1924,” Bonhams, at http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21029/lot/1083/ (last accessed December 1, 2015).

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. The picture is reproduced in Yuri Vasnetsov: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours, Book Illustrations, Lithographs, Theatrical Designs, Porcelain (Leningrad, 1984), plate 109.

80. Mathew Cullerne Bown reproduces and discusses the painting in his Socialist Realist Painting (New Haven, 1998), 209-10,267.

81. S., Marshak, Dom, kororyi postroil Dzhek (Moscow, 1995), 6-7.Google Scholar

82. Grossman, Vasily, Life and Fate, trans. Chandler, Robert (New York, 2006), 410 Google Scholar; Grossman, V., Zhizri isud'ba (Moscow, 1990), 310-11.Google Scholar

83. On holy fools, see Ivanov, Sergey A., Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly chapters 9-12; Ewa M. Thompson, Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture (Lanham, 1987); and Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds., Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives (Bloomington, 2011). On holy fools in Fedor Dostoevskii's novels, with reference to Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque, see Harriet Murav, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Critique (Stanford, 1992).

84. See, for instance, Anemone, Anthony, “The Anti-World of Daniil Kharms: On the Significance of the Absurd,” in Cornwell, Neil, ed., Daniil Kharms and the Poetics of the Absurd: Essays and Materials (New York, 1991), 71-93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85. “The Closing Statements from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in Trial. 8 August 2012,” Pussy Riot Trial / EngPussyRiot / Free Pussy Riot (blog), Livejournal, at http://www.eng-pussy-riot.livejournal.com/4602.html (last accessed December 1,2015).

86. Nora, Pierre, Les lieux de memoire, vol. 1 (Paris, 1984), xxvii.Google Scholar

87. Samuel, Raphael, Theatres of Memory, vol. 1, Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London, 1994).Google Scholar We thank Nikolay Koposov for this reference.

88. Klein, Kerwin Lee, “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,” Representations 69, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 130.Google Scholar

89. Nora, Pierre, Present, nation, memoire (Paris, 2011), 300-301.Google Scholar

90. Kammen, Michael, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, 1991), 17.Google Scholar

91. Ibid., 537.

92. Ibid., 590-610.

93. See Koposov, N., Pamiat’ strogogo rezhima: Istoriia ipolitika vRossii (Moscow, 2011), 94-136.Google Scholar

94. Paperno, Irina, Stories of the Soviet Experience: Memoirs, Diaries, Dreams (Ithaca, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95. Davies, Robert W., Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era (Basingstoke, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Kathleen E., Mythmaking in the New Russia: Politics and Memory during the Yeltsin Era (Ithaca, 2002).Google Scholar Julie Buckler and Emily D. Johnson recently coedited a collection of articles offering a wide array of approaches to memory studies in eastern Europe, Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russian and Eastern Europe (Evanston, 2013).

96. Velikanova, Olga, Popular Perceptions of Soviet Politics in the 1920s: Disenchantment of the Dreamers (New York, 2013), 175-83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corney, Frederick C., Telling October: Memory and the Making of the Bolshevik Revolution (Ithaca, 2004), 175-200.Google Scholar

97. Nora, , Present, nation, memoire, 303 Google Scholar