Necro‐Utopia

Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a “politics of indistinction.” They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary “Soviet citizens,” whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for making the collapse of the Soviet state imminent. Close examination of one such group, the Necrorealists, raises a set of questions that are central for an understanding of momentous and unexpected social transformations such as the “Soviet collapse”: Since members of these groups claimed that anything political was profoundly uninteresting to them and that neither support of nor opposition to the Soviet system was relevant, is it possible to think of them politically at all? Since the language of resistance and opposition does not capture their alternative subject positions, what political language is required to describe them? What were the implications of this peculiar “politics” for the Soviet state and its momentous collapse? Is this form of politics relevant today in other contexts?