Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось. Последнее советское поколение

by Alexei Yurchak, Алексей Юрчак

Для советских людей обвал социалистической системы стал одновременно абсолютной неожиданностью и чем-то вполне закономерным. Это драматическое событие обнажило необычный парадокс: несмотря на то, что большинство людей воспринимало советскую систему как вечную и неизменную, они в принципе были всегда готовы к ее распаду. В книге профессора Калифорнийского университета в Беркли Алексея Юрчака система «позднего социализма» (середина 1950-х — середина 1980-х годов) анализируется в перспективе этого парадокса. Образ позднего социализма, возникающий в книге, в корне отличается от привычных стереотипов, согласно которым советскую реальность можно свести к описанию, основанному на простых противопоставлениях: официальная / неофициальная культура, тоталитарный язык / свободный язык, политическое подавление / гражданское сопротивление, публичная ложь / скрытая правда.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics, Anthropology, Sociology, Soviet Union

672 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2005

About the author

Alexei Yurchak is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

My extensive experience of book reviewing says that there are resonant topics, there are those that most leave indifferent, but if this is a nonfiction about the late Soviet period, then there will be a response. Both supporters of the Union and its haters will scold the author of the review along with the author of the book. People don't read books, but anyone who lived in those days sees himself as an expert on them. Therefore, I will explain: I have read the work of Alexey Yurchak and am telling about it not in search of dubious popularity, but out of the need to understand today's day

Скованные одной цепью. связанные одной целью
- Вот скажи, Вера, какая у тебя в жизни цель?
- А цель, Сереженька, у нас общая - Коммунизм!
"Маленькая Вера"
Мой большой опыт книжного рецензирования говорит, что бывают темы резонансные бывают такие, которые большинство оставляют равнодушным, но если это нонфикшн о позднесоветском периоде, то отклик будет. Ругать автора рецензии наравне с автором книги, станут как сторонники Союза, так и его ненавистники. Книг люди не читают, но всякий, живший в те времена, видит себя по ним специалистом. Потому поясню: труд Алексея Юрчака и прочла и рассказываю о нем не в поиске сомнительной популярности, а из потребности разобраться в дне сегодняшнем

Немного об авторе. Доктор философии по культурной и лингвистической антропологии, профессор Калифорнийского университета, родился и вырос в Ленинграде, по первому образованию физик, был менеджером группе АВИО (может быть кто-то вспомнит такую, я нет). Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation написал и опубликовал в 2005. Русский вариант не совсем та книга, которую писал первоначально, "Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось. Последнее советское поколение" - авторский, в значительной мере отредактированный перевод, который вышел в 2015.

Книга толстая, но если захотите прочесть, пусть это вас не пугает. Написана хорошо, язык не запредельно сложный, богато иллюстрирована, примерно шестую часть объема в конце занимает библиография. О чем? Сильно упрощая, о том, что сводить феномен позднесоветского периода к бинарной оппозиции "конформисты-нонконформисты", "совки - диссиденты" так же неверно, как считать всех советских людей благонамеренными или приписывать всем бунтарство.

Ни та, ни другая, ни третья оценка неверны. Как истовых апологетов системы, так и борцов с ней в чистом виде было исчезающе мало, основную часть общности советских людей составляли те, кто верил в фундаментальные ценности социализма, хотя к возможности построения коммунизма на этом базисе относился скептически. Кто понимал что "условно сегодняшняя" система взаимоотношений серьезно отошла от заявленных идеалов, но не имел ресурсов и желания бороться, по мере возможностей приспосабливаясь.

Почему не боролись, если видели, что все не так, как надо? Потому что живущим внутри системы она казалась незыблемой, а перспектива восстать на нее уровнем эффективности представлялась соотносимой с протестами против смены времен года или законов физики. Так есть, так будет всегда, мы не можем изменить реальность, данную в ощущениях, но можем расположиться внутри нее максимально комфортно в соответствии со своим пониманием уюта. И как ни странно, ригидная советская система предоставляла такую возможность почти каждому. Мало реальной общей свободы, но огромное количество ниш и отнорочков, куда можно было забиться и существовать практически вне идеологического контекста.

То есть, если ты карьерист - дорога тебе в пионерские, комсомольские активисты, потом в партию. Будь готов к тому, что огромное количество времени и энергии придется отдать рутинной работе, но возможно удастся сделать и что-то творческое, полезное для школы, института, района, а должностные привилегии во многом компенсируют затраты. Если интересуешься наукой или творчеством - есть кружки, студии, клубы, где найдешь единомышленников. Не хочешь растрачивать себя на ерунду социальных ритуалов, но готов мириться с низким статусом - для тебя вненаходимость.

Феномену вненаходимости в книге уделено достаточно серьезное внимание и вряд ли ошибусь, предположив, что сегодня большинство соотечественников вернулось к образу мыслей и действий, описанных этим состоянием. По возможности минимизировать контакты с идеологией, в ситуациях необходимости выказать формальное одобрение, делать это с той степенью энтузиазма. которая предусмотрена регламентом, и продолжать возделывать свою делянку,по возможности расшатывая систему изнутри.

В книге много вещей, о которых так бегом не расскажешь. Замечательно интересно про дискурс, который формировался в раннесоветский период, когда у социума была фигура, которой он делегировал высказывать решающее мнение по всем вопросам. Я о Сталине и его правках к статьям БСЭ. И как потом те же словесные формулировки без изменений тридцать лет кочевали по всем официальным документам, заменив ритуальным бормотанием реальный идеологический метадискурс. Это замечательно интересный аспект антропогенной психолингвистики.

Но для меня сейчас важнее вненаходимость, которая помогла сориентироваться и найти ответы на вопросы, внезапно ставшие актуальными.

[Asya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taught this book for my Soviet culture course, my students were bored silly. Partly Yurchak's writing - cultural anthropology, cultural studies, the whole lingo, etc. - but also, and more to blame, was the relatability factor, the so what? question. As a study of Everyman's modus operandi in a dictatorship, this book is brilliant, and relevant not just for the late Soviet regime, though it does apply only to a regime that's precisely late - been around long enough for people to have worked out an elaborate system of evasion. Yet, I wish there was a way to make this book interesting to people like my students because what it's saying is simple and brilliant - people don't oppose regimes by counterrevolution so much as by ignoring it and finding strategies of overt agreement/covert divergence. Yurchak (like Boym, like Ugresic, who else...?) has it figured out but if I were his editor I would ask him to rewrite it for the general reader so it could carry its insight beyond cultural/Soviet studies.

[Dеnnis]

One of rarest cases I gave up. I am an experienced non-fiction reader and was attracted to the theme. Moreover, i'm a native speaker of Russian, thus wasn't irritated by endless italicized Russian words in Latin letters. One thing however made me throw in the towel - I realized this is a PhD thesis and should be marketed like that. A superb, extremely well researched, but still a very scholarly work. I gave it numerous tries, thinking that maybe that chapter on Komsomol inner workings cannot be written any more interesting and readable than that, and chapters on more quotidian matters would happen to be what I want it to be - a good and digestible book on a highly interesting topic. Alas, no such luck. And I'm not picky - I encountered a number of great and deep books on topics even less enticing than this. I'm very sad, but if I were after a scholarly take on it, I would have turned to academic journals or the original thesis, which the author tried to shoehorn into somewhat different genre. I should blame myself - first opening chapter, reviewing previous scholarly work, was very much within the PhD tradition, with level of detalization far exceeding any reasonable boundaries. Name of the publishing house should have warned me too. Anyway, be aware. Still I'm certain it's a great work, hence no star rating.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is nearly unreadable tripe (although to be fair I gave up halfway through). It’s not the dense prose; that would be acceptable. But I knew I was in trouble when in the first, introductory, chapter there were endless praising references to clowns such as Deleuze, Foucault, and Judith Butler. Then Yurchak starts telling us how by using the tools offered by these clowns, we could see how people really thought in the late Soviet Union, which apparently was that socialism had many good aspects, not to be found elsewhere, such as “humane values, ethics, friendships, and creative possibilities.” Yeah, no.

I visited Communist countries during Communism, where relatives lived, and my father taught Russian history. If you want to learn what people really thought under Communism about Communism, read Vaclav Havel or Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn.

Yurchak claims that he’s trying to solve a supposed paradox, that everyone in the Soviet Union thought it was permanent, until suddenly it wasn’t. That’s not a paradox; that’s the path of every empire ever. Moreover, many, probably most, who lived under Communism knew perfectly well that, because it denied reality, it wouldn’t last forever. They just didn’t when it would end, and they had to live in the meantime. Which, for most, meant living a lie all the time—again, on which one should read Havel or Solzhenitsyn.

If you want to listen to babble about “metadiscourse,” in the service of pretending that Communism had a lot of good things to recommend it, go for it. Yes, the West hasn’t been any better for the Russians, nor for us. But that doesn’t mean Communism was other than it was.

I wanted a book that would perhaps help me understand the significant parallels between late-stage America and the late-stage Soviet Union, both dominated by a corrupt and rotten ruling class, calcified, and in the grip of an insane and anti-reality ideology. That isn't this book.

[Lada Moskalets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Захоплююча книжка про мову і самовідтворювальний дискурс в СРСР. Про те чому в 1960-1980-х були популярні політичні анекдоти і чому традиція їх розповідання занепала в час перебудови, як юні комсорги вчилися писати доповіді на комсомольське зібрання , чому щирі радянські громадяни мріяли про подорожі до Парижа, але не прагнули руйнування системи, як перші флешмоби з'явилися в 1980-х і чому суміш абсурдів комсомольських зібрань і безкінечного вдавання сприймалися як щось натуральне. Найважливішою тезою для мене стало те, що для значної частини молодих людей дисидентство сприймалося як частина політичного активізму, схожа до партійної. Будь-яка активна діяльність і зацікавленість політичним життям була ненормальна, тому люди що хотіли зруйнувати совок вважалися такими ж диваками як ідейні комсомольці. Більшість жила у світі, в якому формальність була необхідною частиною життя, нудною, але неминучою.
Оскільки моє покоління ще народжене в СРСР, то книжка читається не лише як наукове дослідження, а як практичний посібник з того, чому ми мислимо і поводимося саме так.

[Nick Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was initially clued into this book after watching Hypernormalization and reading the surrounding interviews Adam Curtis gave in support of the film. He explicitly references this book and some of its general concepts, such as the normalizaiton of specifically reproduced authoritarian language and the performative/constative elements of behavior in regards to this era.

As a newcomer to this type of academic cultural commentary, some of the arguments Yurchak proposes in this book were probably a bit more novel to me than the average reader; This is really my only point of reference into this world so if what he is saying is really misguided I wouldn't know.
Relatedly it's not exactly a light read, it probably took me the better part of 3 months, on and off. I will say once you get past the first half of the book most of the more abstract ideas have been asserted and discussed, and the later half is fleshing out these ideas with more concrete examples, making for a bit of a breezier read.

There's a whole discussion in this book surrounding the behavior of Soviet citizens, where it is asserted that by engaging in the performative aspects of the Soviet regime (such as parades, holidays, komsomol activities, etc..) they were free to basically pursue other interests that sometimes were aligned with socialist ideals and sometimes not. As I was reading this and other ideas (such as the discussion surrounding svoi ), I couldn't help but draw parallels between my experience growing up in relation to the Catholic Church, such as how/when authority is asserted using language.

Anyway, I would recommend this to anyone with sufficient motivation to slog through it, it certainly is interesting

[Anna Trindyuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Крайне сложно продраться через вступление, очень академично и скучно. Но затем на страницах появляются живые персонажи со своими историями, раскрываются новые факты, позволяющие смотреть на последние годы совка под новым углом

[Роман · Rating 2 out of 5]

Если вы антрополог, то вы по адресу. Если вы читатель, который ожидает стандартный нон-фикшн, то дважды подумайте. Это научное исследование, которое написано любимым языком всех советско-российских исследователей. То есть канцеляритно, громоздко и утомительно. Если всё-таки решитесь, то рекомендую прочитать только последние 30 страниц — в них автор сжато пересказывает все выводы из исследования. Дух захватывает так же, как чтение чужой дипломной работы.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting with Lefort’s Paradox—the split between ideological enunciation (which reflects the theoretical ideals of the Enlightenment) and ideological rule (manifest in the practical concerns of the modern state’s political authority), the author differentiates one action into two dimensions, i.e. the act of voting in the conventional context of a meeting does two things at once: it states ones’ opinion (the constative dimension) and binds the vote within the system of rules and norms where it is recognized as a legitimate vote (the performative dimension).

Since the relative importance of the constative and performative dimensions of a ritualized act and speech act in any given new instance can never be completely known in advance, the constative and performative dimensions may “drift” historically. In other words, the person may not have to pay much attention to the constative dimension of the vote, but will still have to attend closely to the vote’s performative dimension. It became increasingly more important to participate in the reproduction of the form of these ritualized acts of authoritative discourse than to engage with their constative meanings.

As a result of Stalin’s “Paradigm Shift”, the new authoritative language of late Socialism had acquired certain unique characteristics, that is, the process of its normalization did not simply affect all levels of linguistic, textual, and narrative structure but also became an end in itself, resulting in fixed and cumbersome forms of language that were often neither interpreted nor easily interpretable at the level of constative meaning. The implicit model of language now shifted further toward the so-called “pragmatic model” of language, which the same text may have multiple meanings depending on how one chooses to link it to different contexts and other tests; under this model, the same formulation can mean different things in different readings.

As with authoritative language, from the 1950s on the form and style of visual propaganda became increasingly standardized and centralized. These normalized linguistic and visual registers of authoritative discourse in cities were organized into a unified interdiscursive system. Quite the opposite, the performatice replication of the precise forms of authoritative representation rendered the constative meanings associated with this representation unanchored, increasingly unpredictable, and open to new interpretations, enabling the emergence of new and unanticipated meanings, relations, and lifestyles in various contexts of everyday life.

For the majority of Soviet people, being alienated from boring activities, senseless rhetoric, and corrupt bureaucracy was not necessarily in contradiction with being ethically invested in the communist ideals and being involved in activities designed to achieve communist goals. They identified them as “svoi”, whom understood that the norms had to be followed at the ritualistic level, that this was no one’s personal fault, and that one should participate in these routine rituals to avoid causing problems to the Komsorgs, while the Komsorgs worked in turn to reduce the load of tedious Komsomol assignments given to the rank-and-file members. It is a strategy of deterritorialization and the sociality of svoi became one of the central unanticipated products of this deterrotorializing move within late-socialist culture.

On Chapter 4, the author further illustrated this kind of deterritorialization by picturing the style of living “Vnye”, which is a kind of “normal life” in everyday socialism a life that had become invested with creative forms of living that the system enabled but did not fully determine. People are invested in the literary club, the archaeological club, the theoretical physicist circle. The boiler rooms would be a great example. The jobs of boiler room technicians are extremely popular and became difficult to find a vacancy in such a job, because such occupations allowed the person to pursue various interests and amateur careers. Although the salaries for boiler room jobs were lower than for most other occupations, one could easily survive because meeting one’s basic needs in the Soviet Union was inexpensive.

Also, there was nothing wrong with admiring bourgeois luxuries of Western life as long as admiration focused on aesthetic beauty, technological achievement, and the genius of the working people who created them. As a result of that, young people who were interested in Western culture is able to find a way to go around the limiting technical specifications in the shortwave radio; spread homemade gramophone record, also known as “rock on bones”; use empty Western liquor bottles, beer cans and cigarette boxes to create a kind of “still life” installation on the book shelves and cupboards in their rooms; listen to Western rock music. By using Western brands and labels in the Soviet context they infused that context with agency, refusing the literal readings of authoritative discourse, but without necessarily refusing the broader cultural context of socialism, its realities, possibilities, and values.

Another form of this kind of deterritorialization is the aesthetic of stiob. Central to that aesthetic was a refusal of clear-cut boundaries between reality and performance, common sense and absurdity. By the early 1980s, stiob became an aesthetic common to many artistic groups in the Soviet Union. After one Russian rock group AVIA concert in Kiev, in 1987, a couple of older communists came backstage to thank the group for the atmosphere of real communist celebration saying that it had become so rare to encounter young people genuinely devoted to communist ideals. After another concert, a different elderly couple thanked the group for the devastating satire of totalitarianism; that couple had spent years in Stalinist camps.

The paradox of late socialism turned out to be: the more meticulously and unanimously the system’s authoritative forms were reproduced in language, rituals, and other acts, the more its constative meanings became disconnected from form and thus allowed to shift in diverse and increasingly unanticipated directions.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

На работе краем уха услышала разговор, в котором приехавший из Америки лектор упомянул термин "гипернормализация". В силу специфики работы, я подумала, что это термин из баз данных, но я, к своему великому стыду, такого не знаю. И каково же было моё удивление, когда оказалось, что к базам данных термин отношения не имеет, а вот он изобретён Алексеем Юрчаком для описания того, что происходило со строем в СССР. (Ну, честно говоря, лектор, скорее всего, говорил таки о базах данных, просто изобрёл термин "на лету".)
Книга вызвала полнейший восторг. Хотя первые две главы шли с трудом. Они какие-то слишком нагруженные теорией: упоминаются множество философов и социологов, термины их соответствующих наук, и сам язык этих глав слишком профессионально ориентированный. Я уже даже настроилась, что книгу научпопом назвать не удастся, продраться через неё мне будет сложно. Но к счастью, после этого автор переходит на более простой человеческий язык, рассказывать начинает о более понятных вещах, и всё сразу становится ясненько. Более того, автор, по-моему в очень американской традиции, кругами повторяет одно и то же разными словами, так что в конце-концов все те сложности, через которые приходилось продираться в начале, оказываются тщательно разжёванными на примерах позже.
Мне очень понравился анализ всей системы и поведения отдельных людей, проведённый автором. Казалось бы, после Сталина не было никакой сильной личности, на которой бы держалась система, однако же целая страна продолжала тянуть лямку, все продолжали ревностно рваться в коммунизм, не веря искренне ни в один из лозунгов. Что же двигало всем этим? Автор разъясняет, что система двигала сама себя. Она вошла в идеальный баланс, когда значения лозунгов уже ничего не значили, а значило только постоянное воспроизводство "правильной" формы.
Но, конечно, те главы, которые больше посвящены синтезу - т.е. р��ссмотрению примеров для того, чтобы объяснить, что происходит. Во-первых, автор нашёл совершенно потрясающих людей, в жизнь которых нам дозволено заглянуть одним глазком. К примеру, секретарь партийного комитета в НИИ Андрей, который в свободное время увлекается рок-музыкой. А какой потрясающий человек якутский подросток Алексей! Он рассуждает о философии и математике, при этом одновременно искренне проникается идеями коммунизма и тонко чувствует музыку. Просто по-человечески интересные персонажи.
Из книги я узнала о существовании некрореалистов и прочих сообществ позднего СССР. Автор вскользь напоминает, как популярны были стишки с детскими персонажами и чудовищным содержанием - и правда они были так популярны, а теперь совсем забылись. Ну чисто даже для общего развития достаточно много нового.
Но самый дикий восторг вызвало описание "пустых форм" воображаемого Запада. Я пошла в первый класс через пару недель после Августовского путча, так что по мнению автора книги я к последнему советскому поколению не принадлежу. Однако, в силу тотальной разрухи в стране, а также провинциальности моего города, невозможности куда-либо путешествовать и т.п. причин, всё то же самое применимо к моему опыту. Как все ходили с пакетами с логотипами. Помню, как долго я носила в школу красный пакет, долженствующий рекламировать сигареты "Kent", и это было очень круто в моём личном понимании. А как я доставала родителей, чтобы мне покупали "брендовую" одежду, чтобы отличаться от сверстников, одевавшихся в одинаковую одежду, завезённую партией на рынки города из Китая и Турции. Когда-то это было чем-то обыденным, а теперь про это пишут книги, серьёзно рассматривая наши нелепости как историческое явление, требующее не менее тщательного изучения, чем великие географические открытия или крестовые походы.
Уже потом обнаружила, что Галина Юзефович писала отзыв об этой книге. Я внимательно прочитала её "Рыбу-лоцмана" и отметила те книги, которые меня заинтересовали. Эта книга в её описании меня не заинтересовала ни капельки. Почему-то она может достаточно скучную книгу представить интригующе, а отзыв на эту она написала как будто "для галочки". Интересно, почему Галина так скупа на слова? Возможно, существует миллион ещё более прекрасных книг об эпохе, столь же подробно и интересно рассказывающие и анализирующие эпоху, а я и не в курсе?

[Reuben Woolley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult 3 stars to give, because in many respects this is an amazing book. My issues with it are small, but significant in the overall project, I think.

Yurchak starts from a brilliant premise: Stalin played a fundamental role in transforming the way that the Soviet state conveyed authority and truth, and his death created a strange discursive paradox, a vacuum where the overall socialist ideal was contradicted by the strange and mundane things going on in day-to-day soviet experiences. This led to a series of developing practices in the post-Stalin era where people negotiated simultaneously ridiculing, critiquing and supporting the state in seemingly contradictory acts, using irony and disinterest as ways of expressing both distrust in the state and support of the ideal at once.

The issue is that Yurchak then begins fetishising these cultural acts, creating a strange aura of mysticism around the cultural practices of the late soviet era that seem to suggest that the Soviet Union led to an entirely unique and completely unrecognisable human experience with power. There’s a version of this argument I could see working, but this isn’t it.

By the conclusion, Yurchak’s argument has led him to a strange conclusion of the tail wagging the dog: he makes the suggestion that the fall of the Soviet system, and the paradoxes it contained, happened because of a “discursive rupture” once Gorbachev removed several of the practices and rituals of preceding decades. Unfortunately, this is just rubbish. Yurchak’s book always dances around a key issue, but never openly addresses it: in order to explore how people engaged and disengaged with political and economic narratives, *you must have an analysis of the politics and economics of the USSR*. Yurchak just doesn’t, and it leads him to the obviously incorrect conclusion that the USSR failed because people stopped telling ironic jokes, rather than a plethora of economic and political developments over the course of the 20th century. This unfortunately means that a lot of the genuinely fascinating materials he discusses end up being misused and misappropriated to tell a story that just doesn’t ring true.

[ra4o4ek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming from post-Soviet space, I was already familiar with many events, practices, and rituals that Yurchak describes. Still, reading this book was a very pleasurable experience. Not only does he nicely grasp all the peculiarities and paradoxes of late socialism, Yurchak also provides quite elaborate and insightful explanations for his data. He has a lot of examples and stories to tell, but he doesn't overwhelm the reader - everything is neatly and logically organized and framed with theory. If you're interested in studying socialism/post-socialism, I'd say that Yurchak is a must.

[Dmitry · Rating 4 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Границы ключ переломлен пополам
А наш батюшка Ленин совсем усоп
Он разложился на плесень и на липовый мёд
А перестройка всё идёт и идёт по плану
И вся грязь превратилась в голый лёд

Книга интересная и дискуссионная, однако, читать её невероятно сложно. Автор, по какой-то непонятной мне причине, избрал очень сложный способ донесения своих идей до читателей.

Книга дискуссионная, в том смысле, что позиция автора не является в достаточной степени аргументированной, ибо основывается на мнении (интервью) людей живших во времена существования СССР. Поэтому можно говорить не о политологическом анализе ситуации, а об интересном мнении/видении автора, базирующемся на небольшой выборке респондентов. Лично мне не хватило более веских аргументов, которые основывались на чём-то большем, нежели мнении десятка людей из СССР 70-80-х годов. Так же в книге отсутствуют ссылки на других учёных, книги, статьи, мнений зарубежных дипломатов, политиков и пр. Тут у нас имеется довольно узкий срез общества, который и срезом назвать нельзя. Возможно, автор и ссылается на что-то более существенное при обсуждении своей позиции, но из-за сложности текста и излишней словоохотливости автора, я этого не увидел. Именно поэтому я так сильно акцентирую на том, что книга получилась необоснованно сложной и словоохотливой.

Так о чём же пишет автор? Главный посыл автора заключается в том, что основу идеологии заложил Сталин, и только он вносил поправки и трактовки. В советском союзе только Сталин мог вносить существенные изменения в идеологическую составляющую Советского Союза, а не парламент, депутаты или бюрократия. Благодаря репрессиям 1937 года никто не мог и помыслить, чтобы предложить хоть какие-то изменения в идеологическую составляющую. По существу, это стало неписанным законом, табу. Вследствие этого идеология в СССР стала постепенно затвердевать, т.е. идеология стала не гибкой, как того требует любое общество, базируясь на изменяющихся обстоятельствах (к примеру, политика должна стать более «зелёной» или более социальной, как это имело место на Западе), а застывшей. Но даже после смерти Сталина никто не решался вносить какие-либо существенные изменения в идеологическую составляющую Советского Союза. Все граждане СССР делали и писали то, что было написано ещё Лениным и Сталиным, не зависимо от изменившихся обстоятельств. Как мы знаем на примере любой организации, заниматься проведением организационных изменений не любит никто, да и инициатива часто бывает наказуема. Поэтому организации часто работают так, как было принято ещё со времён основателя. Проведение реформ всегда опасно, ибо это грозит обрушением всей структуры. Возможно, поэтому советскую идеологическую составляющую никто не хотел и не пытался изменять ни на одном из её многочисленных этажей (как пишет автор, учитель раскритиковал рисунок ребёнка, ибо ребёнок нарисовал Ленина, отойдя от канонов его (Ленина) изображения). Как многочисленные копии статуи Ленина, она повторялась из поколения в поколение, сохраняясь неизменной. К чему это, по мнению автора, вело?

Всё это вело к максимально формальному и даже бездумному (в прямом смысле этого слова) подходу. Автор приводит множество примеров и можно найти в книге множество интересных абзацев, в которых он довольно интересно это описывает, но я приведу лишь такое. Автор пишет следующее: «Отношение вненаходимости к идеологическим высказываниям и символам системы неверно приравнивать к аполитичности, апатии или уходу в личную жизнь. <…> Но принятие это было чисто перформативным, ритуальным – оно производилось на уровне воспроизводства формы символов и высказываний, при почти полном игнорировании их констатирующего смысла». Как пишет далее автор, в итоге это подтачивало государство и в какой-то момент могло обрушить всю систему (что и произошло в 1991 году). Люди просто переставали серьёзно относиться к идеологической составляющей Советского Союза, а возможно даже в подсознании считали всё это большой ошибкой или недоразумением. Жизнь советского человека, если он не работал на ВПК, была довольно тяжелой. Да, он не мог сравнить её с жизнью на Западе, но партия же обещала коммунистический рай, а вместо этого шла непрекращающаяся война (как пел БГ, «Ведем войну уже семьдесят лет,/ Нас учили, что жизнь - это бой,). Т.е. проблемы накапливались, свет в конце туннеля не проглядывался, а вера в то, что советский человек живёт при лучшем режиме, потихоньку угасала.

Однако с другой стороны, как утверждает автор, отношения советского человека с политической системой СССР, всё же не были враждебными, диссидентскими. Автор утверждает, что многие люди искренне верили в коммунизм как таковой (что его можно построить), Ленину и его идеям и пр. Как пишет автор, «Тех, кого Бродский назвал «здоровым большинством» - то есть большинство советских граждан, - в наших примерах мы назвали (и они называли друг друга) «нормальными людьми» и «своими». Именно этим людям желание разоблачить «официальную ложь» было незнакомо не потому, что они верили в буквальный смысл официальной пропаганды, а потому, что они не воспринимали её ни как правду, ни как ложь». Кстати, не это ли происходит с гражданами России сегодня?

Как пишет автор, в комнате советского гражданина была вполне обычной картина, когда на одной полке стоял бюст Ленина и фотография (или висел плакат) The Beatles. Советский человек мог сходить с ума от Западной музыки, ходить в американских джинсах и при этом искренне верить в истинность коммунизма. Другими словами, люди как бы принимали часть коммунистической идеологии, могли её защищать, возможно, даже утверждать что в чём-то Западный мир не прав, но при этом делать всё возможное, чтобы достать Западные товары. Не это ли мы наблюдаем в нынешней России, когда люди одновременно говорят о патриотизме, о величии России и о невидимой войне против России, которую ведёт Запад, но в то же самое время делают всё возможное, чтобы продолжать наслаждаться товарами, созданными на Западе? Люди продолжают ездить на европейских и американских автомобилях, покупают Западную технику, Западные лекарства и даже отдыхать предпочитают не в окрестностях китайских гор, а на том же самом Западе. Да и недвижимость покупают там же. При этом продолжая видеть в Западе не союзника, а врага. Такая шизофрения кажется удивительной, однако как показывает автор этой книги, такая шизофрения общества появилась не сегодня, а она возникла ещё во времена СССР. И это при том, что люди прекрасно осознавали всю бессмысленность непрекращающихся демонстраций (на 1 мая, к примеру), партийных собраний, организаций типа ВЛКСМ и Пионерии, однотипных статей в «Правде» и так далее. Получается, идея хорошая, но реализуют её вредители и бюрократы, интересующиеся только собственным благом.

В связи с этим, как утверждает автор, большинство граждан рассматривало бунт против системы как явление нездоровое или, как обозначает это автор, «как проявление моральных или психических отклонений». Это относилось к любой деятельности, в которой были хотя бы ростки диссидентства. Другими словами, люди считали, что единственной «нормальной» деятельностью было принятий правил игры, а не бунт, попытка изменить что-либо. Уж не тут ли мы находим и нынешнюю веру уже российских граждан, что «ничего изменить нельзя» и что любой, кто попробует изменить что-либо в стране, будет раздавлен катком репрессий, а следовательно, только безумец будет выступать против российских властей? Покорное принятие судьбы. Если велено умереть, значит так суждено. Что, разумеется, полностью противоречит тому, что мы видим на том же Западе, когда многотысячные (даже миллионные, как это было во время избрания Трампа) демонстрации, митинги, шествия, которые могут изменить политику властей (не всегда и не сразу, но могут). В этом - ключевое различие обществ, а не в том, где коррупции больше, а где меньше и где демократии больше, а где меньше. Понимание гражданами Западного мира пришло с началом реформации, когда, помимо прочего, вместо идеи «Христос явился чтобы нас спасти» (т.е. через его жертву происходит спасение), появилась идея, что «Спасение возможно только через индивидуальные действиями, т.е. через свой диалог с Богом» (напрямую, без посредников и интерпретаторов в лице церкви). Это радикальное изменение во взгляде западного христианского мира стало началом рождения демократии и либерализма. Не Навальный, не Саакашвили и не Зеленский, должны спасти тот или иной народ, а сам народ в лице индивидуального гражданина начинает спасть себя и через индивидуальное спасение происходит спасение всего общества, всей страны. Советские граждане, это всё ещё не поняли. Именно поэтому мы видим такой дуализм, который описывает автор, когда в голове советского, а ныне и российского, гражданина существует две реальности – «самое ценное/качественное производят на Западе (хотим жить как на Западе)» и «Запад является главной угрозой». Можно добавить и третий тезис – придёт мессия и нас спасёт (т.е. построит демократию, поборет коррупцию, поднимет с колен). Разумеется, никто не придёт.

The book is interesting and debatable, however, it was incredibly difficult to read. The author, for some reason that I don't understand, has chosen a very complicated way of conveying his ideas to the readers.

The book is controversial, in the sense that the author's position is not sufficiently argued, because it is based on the opinions (interviews) of people who lived in the times of the USSR. Therefore, we can speak not of a political science analysis of the situation but of an interesting opinion/vision of the author based on a small sample of respondents. Personally, I lacked stronger arguments based on something more than the opinion of a dozen people from the USSR of the 70-80s. The book also lacks references to other scholars, books, articles, and opinions of foreign diplomats, politicians, and so on. Here, we have a rather narrow cross-section of society, which cannot be called a cross-section. Perhaps the author refers to something more substantial when discussing his position, but due to the complexity of the text and the author's excessive wordiness, I did not see it. That is why I emphasize so strongly that the book is unreasonably complicated and wordy.

So, what does the author write about? The author's main message is that the basis of ideology was laid by Stalin, and only he made amendments and interpretations. In the Soviet Union, only Stalin could make significant changes to the ideological component of the Soviet Union, not the parliament, deputies, or the bureaucracy. Due to the repressions of 1937, no one could even think of suggesting any changes to the ideological component. In essence, it became an unwritten law, a taboo. As a consequence, the ideology in the USSR began to gradually harden, i.e., ideology became not flexible, as any society requires, based on changing circumstances (for example, politics should become greener or more social, as was the case in the West), but frozen. But even after Stalin's death, no one dared to make any significant changes to the ideological component of the Soviet Union. All citizens of the USSR did and wrote what had been written by Lenin and Stalin, regardless of changed circumstances. As we know from the example of any organization, no one likes to make organizational changes, and initiative is often punished. Therefore, organizations often work as they have done since the founder's time. Reforms are always dangerous because they threaten to bring down the whole structure. Perhaps this is why no one wanted to change the Soviet ideological component or tried to change any of its many floors (as the author writes, a teacher criticized a child's drawing because the child had drawn Lenin, departing from the canons of his (Lenin's) image). As numerous copies of Lenin's statue, it was repeated from generation to generation, remaining unchanged. What did the author think this was leading to?

All this led to the most formal and even thoughtless (in the literal sense of the word) approach. The author gives many examples, and you can find many interesting paragraphs in the book in which he describes it quite interestingly, but I will only give this one. The author writes the following: "The attitude of vnyenakhodimost’ to the ideological statements and symbols of the system is incorrectly equated with apolitical attitude, apathy, or withdrawal into private life..... But this acceptance was purely performative, ritualistic - it was performed at the level of reproduction of the form of symbols and statements, with almost complete disregard for their stating meaning." As the author goes on to say, this eventually undermined the state and, at some point, could bring down the entire system (which happened in 1991). People simply stopped taking the ideological component of the Soviet Union seriously and perhaps even subconsciously considered it all a big mistake or misunderstanding. The life of a Soviet person, unless he or she worked for the military-industrial complex, was quite hard. Yes, he could not compare it with life in the West, but the party promised a communist paradise, but instead, there was an incessant war. In other words, problems were accumulating, the light at the end of the tunnel was not visible, and the belief that Soviet people lived under a better regime was slowly fading away.

However, on the other hand, as the author argues, the relationship of the Soviet person with the political system of the USSR was not hostile or dissident. The author argues that many people sincerely believed in communism as such (that it could be built), in Lenin and his ideas, etc., and in the political system of the USSR. As the author writes, "Those whom Brodsky called the 'healthy majority' - that is, the majority of Soviet citizens - in our examples we called (and they called each other) 'normal people' and 'their own'. It was to these people that the desire to expose 'official lies' was unfamiliar, not because they believed in the literal meaning of official propaganda, but because they did not perceive it either as truth or as lies." By the way, isn't that what is happening to the citizens of Russia today?

As the author writes, it was quite common for a Soviet citizen's room to have a bust of Lenin and a picture (or poster) of The Beatles on the same shelf. A Soviet person could be crazy about Western music, wear American jeans, and still sincerely believe in the truth of communism. In other words, people accepted (sort of) part of the communist ideology, could defend it, and maybe even argue that the Western world was wrong about something but did everything they could to get Western goods. Isn't this what we are witnessing in today's Russia, when people simultaneously talk about patriotism, the greatness of Russia, and the invisible war against Russia waged by the West, but at the same time do everything possible to continue enjoying goods created in the West? People continue to drive European and American cars, buy Western equipment and Western medicines, and even prefer to have holidays not in the vicinity of the Chinese mountains but in the same West. They also buy property there. At the same time, they continue to see the West not as an ally but as an enemy. Such schizophrenia seems surprising, but as the author of this book shows, such schizophrenia in society did not appear today - it appeared in the times of the USSR. This is despite the fact that people were well aware of the senselessness of incessant demonstrations (on May 1, for example), party meetings, organizations like the Komsomol and the Pioneers, uniform articles in Pravda, and so on. It turns out that the idea is good, but it is implemented by pests and bureaucrats interested only in their own good.

In this regard, according to the author, most citizens regarded rebellion against the system as unhealthy or, as the author labeled it, "as a manifestation of moral or mental deviation." This applied to any activity in which there were at least sprouts of dissidence. In other words, people believed that the only "normal" activity was accepting the rules of the game, not rebelling, or trying to change things. Isn't this where we find the current belief of Russian citizens that "nothing can be changed" and that anyone who tries to change anything in the country will be crushed by the roller of repression, and, therefore, only a madman would oppose the Russian authorities? Submissive acceptance of fate. If you are ordered to die, then it's meant to be. This, of course, completely contradicts what we see in the West, when demonstrations, rallies, and marches of many thousands (even millions, as it was during Trump's election) can change the policy of the authorities (not always and not immediately, but they can). This is the key difference between societies, not where there is more or less corruption or where there is more or less democracy. The understanding of the citizens of the Western world came with the beginning of the Reformation, when, among other things, instead of the idea that Christ came to save us (i.e., through his sacrifice salvation takes place), there appeared the idea that Salvation is possible only through individual action, i.e. through one's own dialogue with God (directly, without intermediaries and interpreters in the person of the church). This radical change in the view of the Western Christian world was the beginning of the birth of democracy and liberalism. It is not Navalny, Saakashvili, or Zelensky who must save this or that nation, but the nation itself in the person of an individual citizen begins to save itself and, through individual salvation, the whole society, the whole country is saved. Soviet citizens still have not understood this. That is why we see such dualism, which the author describes when in the mind of a Soviet and now Russian citizen, there are two realities - "the most valuable/quality things are produced in the West (we want to live like in the West)" and "the West is the main threat." We can add a third thesis - the messiah will come and save us (i.e., he will build democracy, and fight corruption). Of course, no one will come.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, Alexei Yurchak sets out to uncover why Soviet citizens were prepared for the Union’s collapse despite believing that it could never happen. Eschewing binary models, the author argues that all discourse is comprised of two dimensions: a constative one that describes reality and a performative one that transforms it and introduces new effects into the world. Following Stalin’s death in the 1950s, Soviet discourse shifted to emphasize the performative, rather than the constative, element, which meant that “discourse became powerfully constitutive of Soviet reality but no longer necessarily described that reality”. People thus understood the requirement to reproduce forms, which gave the appearance that they were obsequious to Soviet discourse, yet were able to disconnect meanings from these forms because the constative aspects did not have to conform to any standards, a process that Yurchak refers to as “deterritorialization”. Thus, while the constant reproduction of forms led individuals to perceive an unending system, they were prepared for new ideologies because they had been creating new meanings since the late 1950s. The author does not, however, conceptualize this as resistance, but instead as a process of being both within and outside the system simultaneously. Thus an individual could possess a strong belief in communism, yet also enjoy “bourgeois” or “western” products because the emphasis on the form (rather than content) of regime decrees permitted them to ignore the potentially contradictory elements of such beliefs.

Yurchak’s first chapter is densely theoretical, but acts effectively as an introduction his subject, an outline of the historiography and relevant theorists, and an explication of his methodology and ideas. Chapter two describes the emergence of what he calls the “performative shift” in Soviet history, which began in the era of “late socialism”. In their early years, the Soviets encountered their version of “Lefort’s paradox”, which concerns the disparity in modern theories between the ideology that exists in a perfect world and its pragmatic implementation in the real one. For the Soviets, this paradox was expressed in a desire to fully liberate individuals by placing them under the strict control of the party so that they could be transformed. Lefort believed that this contradiction could “be concealed only by the figure of the ‘master,’ who, by being presented as standing outside ideological discourse and possessing external knowledge of the objective truth, temporary conceals the contradiction by allowing it ‘to appear through himself’”. Stalin served this role for many years in the Soviet Union and, after his death, the lack of an external voice in the present led people to undertake a “normalizing” process wherein “authoritative discourse” became situated in the past and all new “facts” had to be conceptualized in terms of old ones. This was connected to the idea of people fearing that new texts could be perceived as deviation and it transformed the author’s voice “into the voice of a mediator of pre-existing discourse rather than the creator of new discourse”. This led to, as mentioned above, a transformation of the performative dimension of discourse that detached it from its constative dimension and permitted new meanings and understandings even as the forms remained static. Thus, what appeared to be an emphasis on the performative element was superficial, with the true importance being on the constative one, which was free to engender new and unpredictable interpretations.

The third chapter examines how this process played out in the Komsomol and attempts to provide evidence of it occurring both consciously and subconsciously in the minds of even committed believers. He also introduces that concept of svoi, which was used to refer to “normal” people who were neither activists nor dissidents. These individuals understood that it was necessary to engage the ritualistic nature of Soviet society (the performative) in order to gain access to its creative side (the constative). This distinction is crucial, because while activists and dissidents understood only the constative level, and thus acted in ways that supported or resisted the system, the vast majority did neither and considered themselves outside of this binary, even though they remained part of the system by engaging the rituals. This is Yurchak’s conception from chapter four of being vnye, or being inside and outside the system simultaneously, engaging in one dimension of the discourse while creating or ignoring the other.

With this theoretical base established, the remaining three chapters examine how individuals negotiated this state of being in more pragmatic terms. In the fifth chapter, the author argues that the regime’s conflicting discourses on the nature of capitalist societies helped engender a belief in an “imaginary west”. Because individuals paid attention to only the form, and not the content, of what the regime had to say, they were able to construct a belief that engaging or enjoying the products of capitalism was acceptable. This might be because they focused on those aspects of the regime messages that supported their behavior, or because they, as individuals, did not fit the stereotypes of what a “bourgeois” individual or outsider was, and could therefore self-identify as a “good” Soviet. This “imaginary west” was neither good nor bad, but nuanced in a way that allowed for individuals to, for example, desire western products even as committed socialists, because they ignored the constative meaning (don’t buy products from the west) in favor of the performative one (people who are bad communists behave in a particular fashion). Chapter six focuses on products from the United States, particularly rock music, and posits that the performative shift allowed individuals to reject some of the constative aspects of the regime’s view on American culture and produce their own interpretations of it that made congruent with communist belief. Yurchak’s final chapter engages the notion of stoib, an ironic aesthetic that was fostered by individuals’ ability to separate the performative and constative meanings of discourse, which led to absurdism that ignored boundaries and became part of the everyday cultural experience. This aesthetic took the detachment of the performative element to an extreme, making the constative dimension irrelevant to demonstrate the absurdity of the system as a whole.

Yurchak’s conclusion is arguably one of the best in any academic text, because it sums up his difficult concepts and complex theories in a concise fashion that renders them (mostly) intelligible to the reader, and then connects everything back to his original question about why Soviet citizens were prepared for the end of the Union even when they did not believe that it could happen. Overall, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More is a dense and complicated book, but one that is well worth the slog by the end. I would recommend it to any scholar interested in moving beyond Soviet history’s dichotomy between subservience and resistance and grappling with a more nuanced, complex, and perhaps accurate vision of everyday life under the Soviet regime.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this title recommended on a piece I was reading about Hypernormalization and the US. This work also lent to the Adam Curtis documentary also called Hypernormalization, published 2016 (haven't watched it, seems far more out there than this scholarly work).

The crux of the idea is this: That people are aware that the society/rules/regulations that dictate their life aren't working but have to endure them away because to do away with that scaffolding would be unfathomable. Alternatives that buck the mold are rejected because they subvert tradition. Tradition loses all meaning because it is an echo of an echo of an echo. If you wrap this sociological blanket around life at the end of the Soviet Union, it's not a stretch at all.

Yurchak gets heavy into semiotics with regard to communist meetings and how the language couldn't change, was edited in a group setting, the personal voice was lost. And so everything grew to have two layers of meaning, the sort of described spirit of the word meaning, and then the signifier of what it had come to represent by the late 1970s-1980s. I honestly hadn't thought much about semiotics since college. These chapters in particular remind me so much of ad word copyrighting. Plugging in different phrases where the only goal is page rank and the intelligible content is an afterthought.

This book is not written for a casual reader and it is not particularly digestible. It's dense and the aha moments are difficult to come by. I wish I could say I enjoyed it more, it was a challenge to read and I read a *lot* of non-fiction. I wish a more accessible book would be written on this topic because it's something I'm fascinated by as an American in this crumbling moment.

[Ira Therebel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything was forever until it was no more. The last Soviet generation. The English version of this book came out before the one in Russian. In the introduction Alexei Yurchak said that he didn't simply translate it but rewrote parts of it since the audience of this edition saw USSR in a different way since it was something many have experienced or at least new about. I like this kind of approach where he has an understanding who is going to read the book. I was also very excited about reading it. It is the topic I am really interested in and I must say I wasn't disappointed by the book.

A great point that Alexei makes is that most books written about USSR oversimplify the experience of people by presenting it in a binary way. There is good vs bad, dictatorship vs freedom, support of the party vs opposition etc. Instead he wants to look into the actual experience and views of the last Soviet generation which lead to the fall which was both unexpected and yet absolutely made sense. Sometimes my generation is considered to be the last. But for Alexei we are the ones who got to be born in USSR but didn't get to experience it. Which is true. I remember Lenin being important, that communism was good and the fun I had at the May parades as kid. But I never understood what was around me, never formed any opinions or had the environment play a big role into becoming who I am. The generation he is talking about is the one of my parents, the ones who were born in 50s - 70s, who were part of Komsomol, went to university at that time and had their own opinions and their belief in communism and how it affected their lives.

It is incredibly interesting. The first two chapters may be a bit dense as it is discussing such thing as language used for the slogans and how it was seen/affecting the citizens, how the changes happened etc. but for somebody who is as interested as I am this will be a very interesting read as well. Chapters that come after are about the life of people during that time. How somebody who was part of Komsomol at that time could both not care about and not take slogans, voting, meetings or other routines of the organization seriously and yet still have a strong belief in the main idea and it's future, the attitude towards the West ("imaginary West"), how interest in American music and fashion would coexist with their political views, how the government attempted to make a line between the healthy internationalism and harmful influence of the bourgeois world etc. It is told based on experience of people who lived at that time, their diaries, letters and memories.

I think the book is absolutely fantastic and would recommend it to everyone interested in history and USSR.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yurchak takes performative theory in an exciting and necessary direction. Stepping away from recent arguments that entangle performative theory with psychoanalysis, Yurchak coins the "performative shift" to describe over-saturated and hypernormalized performative environments. In late Socialist Russia, events such as public parades and political meetings lose their content and effectiveness because they are no longer read as performatives stemming from an authoritative subject, instead they have "shifted" into a realm of alternate meaning. As a result, these parades and meetings become parochial places at which people socially interact and daydream. Importantly, these citizens are not resisting the state, but are actually neither passionately for nor against, they are simply find meaning elsewhere. Yurchak points out "playful" instances that play with or around authoritative discourse, such as irony and absurd humor, and the Imagined West. These uses of language exist outside of or beyond official discourse, and are not contained, limited, or destroyed by it. The "cash value" of the book is that authoritative language does not exhaustively create or define our worlds, and that a wholesale resistance to such a language is not necessary to subvert the purported effects of that language. People find a way to create their own significance and social space.

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Так как последнее советское поколение в трактовке автора (родившиеся в 60-х начале 70-х) - это поколение многих моих учителей, старших коллег, а часть из того, о чем автор говорит, я, родившийся в 1979 г. успел еще и сам застать, то название книги меня заинтриговало.
Из плюсов - заставило подумать, вспомнить свой опыт и поспорить с автором.
Но, пожалуй, на этом плюсы и заканчиваются. 90%+ фактического материала - это либо беседы с комсомольцами, либо с "андеграундом" Ленинграда 70-80х гг. Из не-ленинградцев появляется Пригов и эпизодические персонажи, тоже связанные с ленинградцами (школьник/студент из Якутска, переписывающийся с другом из Ленинграда).
Автор и сам признает что это "исключения", но это его не заставило раскинуть сети антропологического исследования хоть сколько-нибудь шире.
Вторая половина книги - во многом повторение сюжетов из первой части, так что ее легко можно было сжать процентов на 40%
И, самое главное - отрицая трактовки "конформист/нонконформист", "авторитарный" и проч. автор вводит термины "вненаходимость", "перформативный сдвиг" и проч. Но если пример (приводимый автором) того, что для советских людей диссиденты находились вне сознания, так как связываться с ними было опасно - не конформизм, то что тогда конформизм?

[Spencer Willardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a bit hard to get into at first. The linguistic and philosophical foundation of the analysis was not familiar and it was hard getting through the first two chapters as a non-expert reader. The rest of the book, built on those initial foundations, however, was really good. The history of the collapse of the Soviet Union as detailed by the power of and use of words was really fascinating.

I lived in Ukraine in the late 1990s and many of the forms of language and of communicating were still in use. In some spheres of life in Kazakhstan where I live now, the Soviet forms of speech have been adapted and replicated.

Anyone who is interested in the Russian language, in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ways that language shapes our lives, or simply the analysis of humans during periods of change would be interested in this book. Those with an interest in Russia or the Soviet period, especially, will find gems in terms of language, anecdotes, and descriptions of life that are simply delightful.

[Jon Wlasiuk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yurchak names and analyzes the paradox at the core of late Soviet life: the collapse of the USSR was both shocking and expected by the generation born after the death of Stalin in 1953. This paradox produced a state of mind, which Yurchak describes as hypernormalization, that both sustained the status quo and adapted to its dissolution. The original sin of the Soviet Union, that only a dictatorship would give birth to liberation, transformed language and demanded public rituals to smooth over the paradox. The official mirage of reality replaced a subject's lived experience through the process of hypernormalization. Yurchak reveals the power of hypernormalization in vignettes, such as the confusion of satire with sincerity (and vice versa). Given similar experiences in the United State (e.g. The Colbert Report), hypernormalization may find fertile ground in any population dominated by a centralized mass media.

Unfortunately, this brilliant analysis lies buried amid the linguistic gewgaws of post-structuralist discourse.

[Baris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an overrated book. The central argument is cultural practices (e.g. consumption of Western cultural products) did not NECESSARILY have political implications for the last Soviet generation. This statement remains rather banal since the author does not attempt to tackle what does the word "necessarily" constitute in this proposition. He does not even attempt to answer the question whether the cultural sea-change which was observed in late socialism in USSR did not have political impact on the dissolution of socialist ideology in USSR. On the contrary, he bombards reader with most banal and self-evident propositions in the cover of pretentious writing, and as always, it works in the world of ersatz yuppie academics.

[Natalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Очень умная книга.

[Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

did not need to be as overcomplicated as it was imo; fell into trap of heavily using academic language at the expensive of understanding

[esztereszterdora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nagyjából tíz éve van egy érdekes kettősség abban, ahogy a világot megélem: személyes szinten jól érzem magam, alakulnak a dolgaim, viszont ránézve a politikára és a világeseményekre, gyakran elgondolkodom azon, hogy mégis mi az isten történik. Erre az érzésre rímelve hallottam egy három órás dokumentumfilmről (Hypernormalization) (igen megnéztem, talán egy lassabb munkanapon) és erről a könyvről, ami az utolsó szovjet generáció tagjainak személyes megéléseiről szól. És hát be kell vallanom, hogy akadt jópár pont, ahol tudtam azonosulni. Ahogyan az akkori fiatalok viszonyultak a pártvezetéshez, a propagandához, de valahol mélyen készültek a változásra egyszerre volt történelmi és ismerős. Nem tudom megmondani, hogy most is változóban van-e valami (ráférne pár dologra), vagy ez általános kelet-európai élmény, esetleg univerzális élmény egy propagandisztikus bullshittel és a felszín alatt fortyogó valódi problémákkal teli világban. Mindenesetre érdekes könyv volt, akinek van affinitása a szociológiához, olvassa.

[Alex Dulanovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic in the way he methodically proved his points with plenty of examples, the book is a cultural analysis of what the last generation of the Soviet socialism was like. I didn’t learn as much as I wanted to about history, but it gave me a different perspectives on how you could assess cultural movements.

[Rivkah · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book seamlessly combines linguistic theory with the lived experiences of regular people and fascinating primary sources in a way that's perfectly readable and never gets too bogged down in academic discourse

[Margaux Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very academic book that more casual readers (like myself) would probably find hard to work through. Funnily enough, I first came across it on Twitter because it was recently reissued in paperback by Princeton University Press. The intriguing synopsis (not to mention the attention-grabbing title), probably contributed to the book's popularity outside of academic circles—to a point where it was even released as an audiobook just recently despite being published 20 years ago. It's not hard to imagine that people are looking for something that would help them understand how to live in late-stage capitalism™, at a time when the old world order seems to be on the brink of collapse. At least that's one of the reasons why I picked up a copy from the university library.

In any case, the book sets out to examine the paradox of why Soviet citizens were simultaneously convinced that their system would last forever and yet somehow unsurprised when it collapsed. Yurchak's answer hinges on a distinction between two dimensions of language and discourse: a constative* dimension that describes reality, and a performative* one that is not referential, but can be used to achieve actions in the world. Following Stalin's death in the 1950s, Soviet public life shifted its emphasis heavily onto the performative side—meaning that people understood they needed to reproduce the outward forms of Soviet ideology (attending meetings, writing reports, showing up to parades), while the actual meaning behind those forms became increasingly untethered and open to reinterpretation. People went through the motions, in other words, and that freed them up to think and live quite differently on the inside. Yurchak calls this process "deterritorialization" and it's what drives the rest of thebook.

The first chapter is the densest and most theoretical, and is essentially an introduction to the relevant thinkers and an explanation of the author's methodology. (It's worth noting that this book grew out of Yurchak's doctoral dissertation in cultural anthropology). The second chapter traces the historical moment when this "performative shift" took hold, rooted in what Yurchak calls "Lefort's paradox":

This was the paradox between incommensurable goals and means—achieving complete liberation of social, cultural, and personal life by means of complete party control over social, cultural, and personal life.

 
Stalin had papered over this paradox simply by existing: as a figure who seemed to stand outside the system and vouch for its truth from above. Once he was gone, no one could fill that role, and Soviet discourse quietly reorganized itself around repetition and form rather than meaning and content. He calls this "hypernormalization" of authoritative language/discourse (and was the basis of the 2016 documentary by Adam Curtis ).

The dominant objective was to produce texts in which "one is unable to question any phrase" or to notice "a single step sideways from the norm". In order not to transgress the norm, one needed to repeat the forms of language that had already been in wide use in authoritative texts.

 
The result wasn an increasingly formulaic, cumbersome language due to the highly formulized constructions used (and re-used) not just in speeches and reports, but also in visual media and other ideological rituals like meetings, elections and parades.

The rest of the chapters get more easy-going as the focus shifts from more theoretical concerns to case studies of young Soviet citizens who lived during the late Soviet era (those who came of age between the 1970's and 1980's). Chapter three talks about the Komsomol (the Soviet youth organization) and introduces the concept of svoi, a word roughly meaning "one's own people," used to describe the vast majority who were neither true-believing activists nor outspoken dissidents. These were people who understood, consciously or not, that playing along with the rituals was the price of admission to a richer, more creative inner life. What's interesting is that Yurchak doesn't place the svoi in some comfortable middle ground between the two camps. In his reading, activists and dissidents were mirror images of each other (one side affirming it, the other resisting it) while the svoi had simply stopped engaging with that conversation altogether.

Chapter four (probably the most enjoyable of the lot) is where all of this becomes vivid and human. It introduces the concept of vnye (meaning something like being simultaneously inside and outside the system) and populates it with real people: poets, physicists, cafe regulars, amateur archaeologists, and boiler room technicians who had traded career prospects for more free time. What united them was not dissidence but a kind of indifference to official Soviet life, and a devotion to the practice of obshchenie: a deep, communal form of togetherness and kinship. These were people who found the dissident world just as uninteresting as the official one, having quietly stepped off that playing field altogether to pursue ancient history, Silver Age poetry, theoretical physics, or simply long unplanned conversations that stretched into the night (Yurchak insists that none of this was a form of resistance or escape). Ironically, these ways of living were made possible by the Soviet state itself, through its subsidizing of education, culture, and basic life costs, and its promotion of values like collectivity and intellectual pursuit.

Endless zastol'ia (around-the-table drinking-eating-talking), posidelki (casual sitting and talking where the topic is open-ended and is less important than the process), trepy (chatting), vypivony (drinking and talking with friends or strangers)... For many people, belonging to a tight milieu of svoi, which involved constant obshchenie, was more meaningful and valuable than other forms of interaction, sociality, goals and achievements, including those of a personal career.

The remaining chapters explore more case studies. Chapter five examines how the regime's own contradictory messaging about capitalism helped Soviet citizens construct what Yurchak calls an "Imaginary West"- neither the enemy caricature of official propaganda nor the real thing, but a space where one could desire Western goods or culture without feeling like a bad communist. Chapter six focuses on British and American rock music as a case study in how people construct their own meanings from imported cultural material. The final chapter talks about the stiob, a distinctive Soviet ironic aesthetic that took the detachment of form from meaning to an almost absurdist extreme, treating the whole system as an elaborate joke without ever acknowledging it explicitly.

This manifested in groups like the Mit'ki who were "constantly performing the role of the oblivious, friendly, and all-accepting loafers who were unaware of the common concerns for career, success, money, beauty, health, and so-forth", which reminded me of "quiet quitting" and of the "lying-flat" movement in China with their similar indifference to the concerns of modern life. It took another form in the necrorealists who regularly stage collective provocations in public spaces (like public nudity, casual violence in the form of staged fights with dummies) with the aim of "creating an unexpected feeling of the uncanny within the ordinary, to dislocate the mundane everyday world".

The conclusion is genuinely one of the better ones I've read in an academic book, which is summed up in this long paragraph:

The paradox of late socialism turned out to be this: the more meticulously and unanymously the system's authoritative forms were reproduced in language, rituals, and other acts, the more its constative* meanings became disconnected from form and thus allowed to shift in diverse and increasingly unanticipated directions. This shift enabled the introduction of new forms of life, publics, persons, lifestyles, temporalities, spacialities, imaginary worlds, and visions of the future. This is why the more the system is represented, with the help of all its citizens, as monolitic and immutable, the more it mutated and became internally deterritorialized and increasingly unknown, and vice versa... The very feeling of Soviet life's fixed, eternal, and immutable nature was necessary and constitutive of the system's continuous internal shift and deterritorialization. The more the system seemed immutable, the more it was different from what it claimed it was.

When the changes of perestroika made it no longer important or possible to reproduce the experience of the system's immutability, the paradoxical processes of late socialism could no longer continue.

 

Everyone in the Soviet Union could see the system was failing, but no one could picture anything different, so politicians and citizens alike just kept up the act. Over time, the pretense became so normalized that it stopped feeling like a pretense at all, it simply became how things were. What perestroika exposed was just how much that shared performance had been holding everything together. Once it was no longer necessary to keep up the appearance of an eternal, unchanging system, the whole thing unraveled with a speed that shocked everyone, including those who had spent years sensing, on some level, that it would.

*Constative acts describe reality and can be true or false; performative acts do not describe anything and cannot be true or false. They can only be successful or unsuccessful in achieving something.

[Natalie]

Brian Eno rec

[Adam Yribarren · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is often insightful and valuable to understanding late Soviet socialism and social systems more broadly. That said, I regret ever picking up this incessantly repetitive, ostensibly profound, self-indulgent, dull, dry, pretentious work of poststructuralist academic masturbation. Could've been 10 pages

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating material about the performative shift in the late Soviet period that hid the contradictions and paradoxes of their lives and made those lives possible - until almost overnight they had an articulated reality that confirmed the system was not only unsustainable, but already defunct.

Contrary to other reviews, I'm glad the author didn't dumb this down. It is an academic text and should be read as such. I'm not entirely sure how he would convey what he had to say in different words. The language is specific and chosen with purpose. I don't think there would be a lot to learn from the Twitter version of it.