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Eastern Bloc Oddity

NOSTALGIA

Comrades ahead! 2012 1

Szilvia Mondel ReMa Artistic Research

Student number: 9917276 E-mail: samondel@gmail.com

Supervisor: Dr. Jeroen Boomgaard

Second reader: Dr. Sher Doruff

Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam

27-6-2013, Amsterdam

1 This photograph is part of a series which were taken in Hungary in the summer of 2012. The image features me expressing my feelings about the past.

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1.Introduction p. 3

1.1 Motivation and Artistic Research p. 4 2. Nostalgia/ Ostalgia p. 7

2.1 Nostalgia and Art p. 9 2.2 Personal Nostalgia p. 10

3. Ideological historical and theoretical context p. 14

3.1 Utopianism p. 14 3.2 The Soviet Utopia p. 17 3.3 The Communist Dystopia p. 20 3.4 The Era of Modernity and Modernism p. 22 3.5 Modernity and Nostalgia p. 25

4. Artistic reflections: Case studies p. 31 4.1 Escaping Soviet Utopia: Ilya Kabakov p. 31 4.2 Ilja Rabinovich: Museutopia p. 35 4.3 Paulina Oowska p. 39 4.4 Resemblances and differences in the artistic reflections p. 44

5. Relating to my own artistic practice p. 48 5.1 Drawings p. 49 5.2 Paintings p. 55 5.3 Photographs p. 59

6. Conclusion p. 64 Bibliography p. 67 Secondary Bibliography p. 70 Appendix I p. 71 Appendix II p. 77 Appendix III p. 83

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1. Introduction In 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell a process was initiated that would unite both sides of

Europe; the former communist East and the capitalist West. This historical event marked the

end of Soviet Communism and the beginning of a new era in Europe. Freedom was celebrated

across the world and expectations arose about a new and better future. After Die Wende (the

German expression for the regime change) in the Soviet allied countries, people strove to

change their life as much as possible and adopt the Western capitalistic model in the hopes of

setting up a new society. As part of the regime change, symbols such as statues and traffic

signs were removed from public places and old brands and products disappeared from the

stores, replaced rapidly by Western, free market capitalist products. At the time of the

revolution people had been overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the fall of the communism.

However, after the first transitional years, many Eastern Europeans began to feel disillusioned

with their new life and from about 1995 people gradually started longing for the once hated

and renounced system feeling nostalgia for their lives in the Soviet period. 2

By the time of the 20th anniversary of the regime change in 2009, the overwhelming

enthusiasm was tempered and all hopeful aspirations seemed to have disappeared. Instead of

the promised conditions and wealth, implementation of the Western capitalistic model had

brought social, political, and economic crisis to the former communist countries. 3 In a world

full of financial insecurity, high unemployment and dissatisfaction with the newly

implemented Western capitalistic system, a longing for the lost world of Soviet Communism,

and an idealization of the past took hold. Symbols, icons, and products representing the old

Soviet system were revalued in the former Eastern Bloc region and became the main focus in

a nostalgic revival. In this cultural climate, there now exists a fascination with Soviet

Communism in the reunited Europe, which can be observed in all forms of popular culture. In

flea markets there are mundane souvenirs: everyday products, outdated currency, and art

objects for sale.4 Anyone searching on the internet can find hundreds of search results linking

to images and documents relating to Soviet Communism; all indicators of a sentimental

longing for the past. Furthermore, this nostalgic culture is cultivated by touristic sightseeing

tours, which bring visitors to the remaining characteristic spots in capital cities of the former 2 Boym 1995 and Enns 2001 3 Enns 2007, pp. 488- 489 4 Enns 2007, p. 475

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Eastern Bloc countries. One of the highlights of the tours includes the so-called monument

parks, which are full of dismantled statues. There are plenty of museums and possibilities to

visit famous buildings of the dreaded regime in many cities of the former Soviet region. In the

media several television and film programs appear, broadcasting audiovisual material

produced in the Soviet era. Also, on many social media forums debates are taking place

between internet users who pose and discuss their views on the communist past. Meanwhile

in the theoretical cultural and artistic field, discussions are taking place focusing on the issues

of nostalgia and the ambiguities and paradoxes they generate. Contributing to this nostalgic

revival, are the many contemporary artists who take dilemmas of the past as a subject of their

work 5. Most of the current discussions revolve round the contradiction of cherishing the once

so hated communist system and how this strange and awkward situation could have arisen.

Perhaps nostalgia is a phenomenon of collective amnesia; forgetting the endless queues, the

constant deficits, the corruption, and the totalitarian atrocities. Why do so many people

reminisce about a renounced system with such sentiment and longing? In this thesis I will

investigate this dilemma by making an exploration into the artistic, theoretical, cultural, and

historical background of this complex situation.

1.1 Motivation and Artistic Research

In the summer of 2008 I graduated as an artist and since that time I have worked as a painter.

In 2010 I started a scholarly trajectory as a student in Artistic Research at the University of

Amsterdam. I embarked on this study program to seek theoretical support and strengthen my

artistic work. In the course of my studies I gained an understanding of theoretical issues in

contemporary art and cultural analysis, while also developing my own reflective attitude.

Towards the end of my study, there was an opportunity for reflection and to connect

theoretical and historical material with biographical features. At this point, I realised that my

own work could not be seen in isolation from my past or be separated from my biographical

background. Specifically, I considered how important it was to take a look at the past the past

and challenge the connection to Soviet Communism, under which I had lived until the age of

14. I realised I needed to make an inquiry into the legacy of this bygone system in order I

might understand the dynamics of the contemporary cultural and artistic field that interested

me. In the course of my scholarly inquiry, the first cultural issue I discovered with fascination,

was the recent phenomenon of nostalgia towards communism. For me it was extremely 5 Enns 2007, pp. 488- 489

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intriguing to see the wide range of current reactions of people; their memories and how deep

and contradictory peoples connections are to the past. In my thesis Eastern Bloc Oddity:

NOSTALGIA, I will explore the complexity of the social, political and cultural context and

relate it to artistic interpretations of this phenomenon. In this thesis, I will focus on the

nostalgic revival of the Soviet past and will investigate the contradictions of peoples love-

and-hate relationship with the past in the former Soviet allied region of Eastern Europe.

My curiosity in this subject results from the fact that I lived my first 14 years in communist

Hungary and am intrigued by a nostalgic desire for that previously renounced and rejected

system. In particular I will lead my inquiry from the contradictory aspect: how it is possible

that this much hated system has been positively reincarnated in the current cultural scene of

the former Eastern Bloc. In my thesis I will discuss the current phenomenon of nostalgia

towards the Soviet past and make a connection to my biographical background. In my inquiry

I will highlight several aspects including the historical, theoretical, political and cultural

background that influences this phenomenon. Initially I will give a general introduction to the

history of utopianism and to Soviet Communism. In this respect, I will outline from a

historical point of view how Soviet Communism developed and functioned. My aim is to

shortly describe the Soviet world and highlight its conditions; the utopian ideology and the

dystopian results by sketching the real situation in the Soviet world.

After those first sections, I will situate nostalgia in a larger historical context and will assign

its origin in the modern world, which runs from the 16th century to the present. This historical

period can be characterized as a restless era with great ruptures and frequent radical breaks

with the traditions, customs and beliefs of former periods. These momentous changes within

the modern era have often been triggered by a utopian desire to create a better world, often

radically breaking history and historical narratives. The modern world is much concerned

with memorisation and recollections of the past which can be seen as one of the main

consequences of the historical breaks. The tearing down of former institutions and their

dominating ideologies has life changing effects that alter the daily life of individuals within

society. One of the major influences is an intensifying of people's longing for the past, for

continuity, social cohesion and tradition. The collective feeling of loss in a society encourages

a recollection of the past often in a highly personalized way, which can be observed as the

major indicator of nostalgia.

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After describing the historical and theoretical background in which nostalgia is rooted, I will

examine this phenomenon as it is related to artistic practices. I will analyse the work of three

artists and how they deal with their biographical connections to the Soviet utopia and how

they deal with nostalgia. In each case I will specifically examine how the biographies of the

artist connect to their work and how they deal with the pasts legacy, truths and lies, failures,

and contemporary ambiguities. I would like to close the thesis with a reference to my own

artistic work and subject it to the findings of my survey into the topic of nostalgia.

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2. Nostalgia/ Ostalgia

SOVIET NOSTALGIA: THANK YOU, BROKEN PROMISES Not good, not bad, but Soviet

At a soviet regalia stall in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, I ask the 60-something vendor if he thinks times were better back then or now. He starts with the bad stuff the repressions, censorship, lack of freedom but goes on to say that actually, there was less violence: Three murders in three months then, five a day today, and less alcoholism: My friend had trouble finding an alcoholic as a prototype for his novels; now, half the country is drowning.6 By Giedre Steikunaite

What is nostalgia, in its essence, about? If we try to pin down what this term describes, we

could say that it is closely connected to personal memories of experiences, personal

affections, and the way an individual make sense of them. It is not about historical facts, how

history might be objectively understood, rather it is about a highly idealized hypothetical past

that exists in individuals memories. Nostalgia thrives on a subjective perception of the past

that has been transformed by an individuals feelings, desires, and considerations of history in

a highly personalized way. Collective nostalgic feelings within a society express a longing

recollection of the past, enamored with desire, rather than a reference to reality; a longing for

false securities of the past more than anything else.7 This kind of recollection represents a

subjectively modified past, which is much more about the present and the active creation of a

desired image of the past.8 As Svetlana Boym describes in her book The Future of Nostalgia,

this phenomenon and its connection to the historical context could be described as the

following:

[] At first glance, nostalgia is a longing for a place, but actually it is a yearning for a different time -the time of our childhood, the slower rhythms of our dreams. In a broader sense, nostalgia is rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress. The nostalgic desires to obliterate history and turn it into private or collective mythology, to revisit time like space, refusing to surrender to the irreversibility of time that plagues the human condition. Nostalgia is paradoxical in the sense that longing can make us more empathetic toward fellow humans, yet the moment we try to repair longing with belonging, the apprehension of loss with a rediscovery of identity, we often part ways and' put an end to mutual understanding. Algia longing -is what we share, yet nostos the return home- is what divides us. It is the promise to rebuild the ideal home that lies at the core of many powerful ideologies of today, tempting us to relinquish critical thinking for emotional bonding. The danger of nostalgia is that it tends to

6 http://newint.org/blog/2011/09/12/ussr-communism-nostalgia-capitalism/ 7 Boym 1995, p. 151 8 Hutcheon 2000,

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confuse the actual home and the imaginary one. In extreme cases it can create a phantom homeland, for the sake of which one is ready to die or kill. Unreflected nostalgia breeds monsters. Yet the sentiment itself, the mourning of displacement and temporal irreversibility, is at the very core of the modern condition.9

In the last decades there is a strong nostalgic desire for the communist past in the former

Soviet-allied countries. In this region nostalgic revival is often called by the name Ostalgia or

Ostalgie. Both words indicate the same social phenomenon of a collective sentimental mental

state that emerged in the former Eastern Bloc region from the mid-1990s to the present.

Appendix I shows a small selection of items from digital news sites and social media forums

which help to illustrate this cultural phenomenon and the real-life situation. These examples

give an impression of the nostalgic revival in social media and how people react to the

historical issues raised by the nostalgic revival in the present social, cultural, and artistic

context. This fascination is firmly present in the popular culture of the former Eastern Bloc

regions and is often associated with the trading of commercial products from the Soviet

period. Aside from old curiosa there are plenty of contemporary merchandising products that

promote the Soviet past as a market product. At flea markets there are all sorts of souvenirs

for sale, including everyday products like worthless currency or plastic egg cups, t-shirts with

CCCP printed on them (in Russian, CCCP stands for USSR or the Soviet Union), and

miniatures of icons. In East Germany and Lithuania supermarkets stock Soviet sausages and

other Soviet-branded food items in the best Soviet tradition.10 There are new sightseeing tours

organised to theme parks where the monumental statues of the old system are assembled.

Instead of demolishing the monumental iconic statues these parks preserve the stone and

bronze reminders of the past 40 years becoming hotspots in some former communist cities. In

this new setting the exhibited statues represent reminiscences of the defeated Soviet ideology,

transformed into cultural heritage that serves as a touristic attraction in a highly nostalgic,

sometimes romanticised setting. In southern Lithuania, for example, is a place called Park, an

open-air museum of Soviet statues amassed after the fall of communism, the purpose of

which, is to preserve effigies of remarkable figures or idols like Stalin, Lenin, and the like in

a new cultural setting. There are also plenty of other touristic attractions, such as visiting

famously dreaded buildings and places of the Communist Party. In Lithuania (Appendix II)

there is a theme park where visitors can participate in a quasi-theatrical experience inside a

genuine Soviet bunker. In this theme park there is a live theatre performance reenacting the

9 Boym 2001, p. 9 10 Steikunaite 2013 and Appendix I

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circumstances of living under the official rules of the Soviet system. As part of the show

visitors are threatened by abusive guards and experience how citizens of the regime were

threatened by officials.11 The Hungarian version of this concept is the Memento Park

Museum, which, as it has been advertised on its website, will shed light on what was going on

behind the Iron Curtain, while a booklet for sale tells visitors to the park the story behind each

statue (See Appendix III). In the Memento Park open-air museum the visitor can meet some

major communist top dogs like Lenin, Marx, Engels, and their Hungarian equivalents. 12

Budapest Memento Park 13

While these nostalgic representations in popular culture might preserve and emphasize the

cultural heritage of the Soviet past, they also provide a distorted image of that past. These are

not realistic presentations but rather a reimaging of the past that leaves out the more negative

aspects and real dangers of the departed totalitarian regime.

2.1 Nostalgia and Art

This current nostalgic tendency has a profound connection with popular culture in the reunited

Europe in that it captures more than the mere renascence of the once rejected and condemned

Soviet Communist system. While this nostalgic fascination prominently engages with popular

culture, on the margins there is an artistic countermovement which involves the mobilization 11 Steikunaite 2013 12 Ibid. 13 Budapest Memento Park: http://www.budapest-tourist-guide.com/budapest-statue-park.html

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of intellectuals who are building a theoretical aftermath. There is a wide range and variety of

art, rooted in the communist past which aims to represent and rethink the past in a more

objective, historically real and authentic way. As long as nostalgia is involved with present

emotions that transform historic objectivity, artists and theoreticians will debate the nostalgic

revival. Furthermore there is urgency to search for possible alternative ways of representing

the past. Many contemporary artist and theoreticians are aiming to reconstruct the past in their

work in a more realistic and historically proven way. These attempts are expressed in all kind

of media such as film, music, and fine art. In Germany, at the time of the fifteenth

anniversary of the regime change, considerable public debates had been started.14 Around the

20th anniversary of the Die Wende, there were countless discussions which addressed the

cultural implications of the regime change, such as the nostalgic revival in Eastern Europe.

Since the late 1990s there have been a wide range of exhibitions and publications about life

under Soviet Communism organized worldwide, especially in the former Soviet zone of

influence15 (Appendix I). Later in this thesis I will examine three artistic cases in detail with

an affiliation to nostalgia.

2.2 Personal Nostalgia

Before I can go through a variety of different aspects connected to the cultural phenomenon of

nostalgia, I would like to sketch out my own personal motivation and connection to this

subject. In the next section I would like to recount my personal memories, thoughts, and

feelings, as well as, one might say, my personal nostalgia of the past.

I was born in 1974 in Hungary when my country was part of the so called communist East

and which after the Second World War semi-voluntarily collaborated with the Soviet Union.

If I look back, I can consider myself fortunate enough to have had a nice childhood. In my

memories I remember those years as a pleasant time. We never suffered, or needed for

anything. Everybody had a job and income, we were insured, and life was safe. The state

provided stable comfort and safety, as much as possible, equal for everyone. This is the way

how I grew up under communism. I have a memory of a system that had strict limits for

people, but it was a system that protected me as a child. My memory may be distorted by the

14 Enns 2007, pp. 488- 489 15 At the end of the regime the term socialism was more often used for communism in the Soviet allied countries.

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distance, the passing of time, or the appealing ideal of childhood memories but this is the way

how I remember about my the past.

When communism in Europe had come to an end in 1989 I found myself, together with my

contemporaries, amidst the ruins of the system, comprehending the falsehoods behind the

facades. As a child I was not aware of the negative aspects of the Soviet regime such as the

unquestionable authority of the dictatorship and the suppression associated with state control.

As a child I remained unaware of the hidden sufferings of resistance figures and the terrors,

which were inflicted on innocent people. I only became aware of how the idealistic world

really functioned when communism in Europe came to an end. After the regime change

archives were opened and people were allowed to speak publicly about the past: major

failures of the utopia of Soviet Communism and the hidden crimes of the regime were open to

discussions. From that point I learned how the system had really functioned; the human

conditions during the oppression, the limited individual choices, the restrictions of freedom,

the agony of resistance figures and the suffering of many innocent citizens during the

communist regime. The obstructive hierarchies of the system became apparent; the

bureaucratic institutions and the solemnity; the governmental police operations, and the

unbearable conditions the citizens lived under. While the communist system censored

everything and hid its crimes, after the fall of the Wall, archives revealed the horrors under

which the regime was set up by Soviet leaders and dictators and the crimes conducted by the

intelligence service controlling and terrorising individuals in the society.16

The communist utopia was once a dream world where the hope of a man-made, bright future

was imaginable. The original thought behind the ideology was to encourage people to create a

better life in a new and self-made world. In reality, however, it went differently. Already from

the beginning of the 1920s, the communist utopia showed its weaknesses by the terror of

military control and totalitarian leadership. After many decades of Soviet dictatorship, state

control, terror, limited freedom, and economic recession, the civilians renounced the ailing

system. When observed retrospectively the epoch of Soviet Communism did not fulfil its

promises of an idealized world on earth. Instead it was a period full of revolutions, a

battlefield of ideologies and failures of the utopia of the Soviet ideology.

16 Bayer 2000, Rthy 2006 and contemporary Hungarian history writing.

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In 1989 the people started demonstrating against Soviet regime. My home country of

Hungary, played a large role in the very beginning of the revolution by opening the border

between East and West Europe. In the fall of 1989 East German tourists refused to return to

East Germany after their holyday in Hungary and were permitted to stay. In October of 1989

Hungary decided to open its borders enabling the start of the reunification. Shortly after this

bloodless revolution people in Germany took to the streets and attacked the Berlin wall the

symbol for Communism, which had divided the East and West for decades. At this moment

Soviet Communism had come to end. This historical moment was applauded across the world,

especially in the Soviet allied Eastern Bloc countries. At the time the event was seen as

liberation from the failed utopia and the dystopia of terror, the limitations to freedom,

restrictions, and imprisonment.

Fairly soon after the fall of the Berlin wall the East became more open and democratic.

Communism was euphorically pronounced dead and renounced as criminal totalitarianism.

Under these circumstances the capitalist system appeared to be the best solution to replace

the failed communist system. The East and West were full of expectations; the West

welcomed the East and the East looked toward a new future in the capitalistic world. The

subsequent transformational years were a very vibrant but confusing time in Eastern Europe.

Some people, mainly of the younger generation, felt excitement while the older people

appeared lost amidst the societal change. 17 People detached themselves as much as possible

from their communist past and eagerly tried to internalise capitalism as quickly as possible, in

the hope of a better life. It seemed to contemporaries as a time of flux that lasted about the

first five years after the regime change.

However, as inspiring as the first years were, a decade after the revolution peoples

expectations, dreams, and hopes remained unfulfilled. Many people had difficulty in adapting

to the new capitalist system. Instead of a better life, ordinary Eastern Europeans experienced

ambivalence and disillusionment. After this transitional period, it was hard to find optimistic

expectations among the people living in the former Eastern Bloc. An economic crisis and high

unemployment emerged and in this negative environment the lost communist past and its

achievements became overestimated. In the following crisis-ridden 20 years, waves of

17 Enns 2007, pp. 488- 489

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forgetting, shame, nostalgic reevaluations, and rehabilitations frequently came. 18 While the

end of Soviet Communism was initially enthusiastically celebrated, in the last decade there

have been strong nostalgic feelings awakened about this past.19 Yet the changing waves are

still in motion and expectedly, it will take generations to come to terms with the past and to

reach a stable identity between the distinct views of the communist period. Presently, there is

a strange dynamic in the cultural, social, and political fields that can, at best, be described as a

love and hate relationship with the past, which indicates a longing nostalgia.

18 Bayer 2000, Rthy 2006 and contemporary Hungarian history writing. 19 Boym 1995 and 2001, Enns 2007, Appendix I

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3. Ideological historical and theoretical context

In my introduction I started by sketching the contradictions of the renounced Soviet system

and the collective nostalgia that is present in the current cultural field. In the next section of

this thesis I would like to discuss the background in which this complex sentimental situation

is rooted. One of the contextual issues regards utopianism. First, I would like to discuss

utopianism and explain the phenomenon in general terms. In the following section I will pay

attention to utopias inevitable backward side, which is called dystopia. This is the process in

which a utopia turns into a disaster. Next I will specifically discuss the Soviet utopia: its

history, ideology, driving forces, and by contrast, the dark side of a failed utopia and how the

Soviet utopia turned dystopic. Thirdly I will give a background on modernity, the era in which

the Soviet Communist utopia arose. With these three concepts I will provide a context to the

historical background and lay a basis for further analysis of the current cultural situation and

artistic approaches to nostalgia.

3.1 Utopianism

Initially I would like to give an insight into the ideological background of the Soviet utopia. I

will aim to explain the characteristics of a utopia and the strong hypothetical belief in the

possible realisation of a utopian world. However plausible the realisation of such idealistic

world appears, in reality it proves to be far too unrealistic. If we look back in history, we will

only find examples of failed utopian ideologies such as that which befell the communist

utopia. In the second half of this section I will examine utopias down sides and shed a light

on the reasons for failure and utopias austere aspects that resulted in a phenomena called

dystopia.

Utopia is a powerful trope in western culture. In its simplest form, it refers to a better place, a place in which the problems that beset our current condition are transcended or resolved. Yet is also means, or at any rate suggests through a pun on the ancient Greek word for no place, a place imagined but not realised, the shining city on the hill that illuminates the limitations of the world in which we actually live, the telescope that allows us to grasp the nearest nearness.20

First I would like to explain utopia in general terms and the human need from which it

originates. According to Edward Rothstein, utopian thinking in essence is a kind of human

need to strive for a better society; for a kind of homeland that is more socially aware, more

20 Noble 2009, p.12

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humane, and which is an ideal and perfect world. A utopia embodies humanitys noblest

intentions to reach an ideal human society and realise paradise on earth. Driven by timeless

human needs, there have been countless visions and plans of various scopes throughout

history aimed at realizing a utopia. 21 The common characteristics of these are the desire of a

bright future for mankind and the design of a society in which citizens are all satisfied. Utopia

is about a world without suffering, without greed; it is the most stable society that can be

imagined. In a utopian world, all desires and needs are perfectly managed and the realisation

of this ideal society is achieved through the greatest contentment among the largest number

of people. Utopia describes an idealised collective mental state of the masses and their

affairs. A perfect moral and commonwealth will be reached by the moral reformation of a

whole society. In a utopian model or plan there is a central conviction and progress to change

the world for a better one. 22 This urge is deeply rooted in dissatisfaction with the current

situation and the conviction or belief that the world and society can be changed for the better.

In visions of utopia and in its propaganda the elimination of scarcity and the satisfaction of

unlimited wants function as the ultimate goals to which to strive for. 23

The tragedy of a utopia is that it will never reach its aim and there is a great possibility that it

turns into a human catastrophe known as a dystopia. Several examples from history show

that utopias can never be realized. In essence, utopias are wonderfully plausible at the start but

they all end up as disasters. As we know from history, the ideal society of Nazi Germany

perpetuated terror and mass murder and the communist ideals transformed into a regime of

hatred. Every utopia is really a dystopia as the impossibilities of an earthly paradise show

us.24 The general problem with a utopia is that it is too distant and beyond ordinary life. As

Edward Rothstein explains, an ideal world is based on an imaginary desire for satisfaction. In

reality, imaginary ideals cannot always be realised and there is always an unbridgeable chasm

between imagination and realisation. The failure of a utopia lies in that gap between the

imaginary desires and the impossibility of materializing these in real life. A journey towards

utopia shows its dangers when everybody in a society is counted as one and the desires of

individuals are suppressed by one inhuman totalitarian will. As Frederic Jameson argues in

his article, The Politics of Utopia, the problem with utopias is that they do not consider the

21 Ruitinga 2012, p. 14 22 Ruitinga 2012, p. 14 23 Ruitinga 2012, p. 14 24 D. Gordin, Michael, Tilley, Helen, and Prakash, Gyan

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psychology of human nature with its drives, passions, and lust for power, greed, and pride.25

Envisioning a utopia as an egalitarian society is a great idea but there is a gap between the

concept and reality. The ever emerging unconscious and individual desires of mankind will

ultimately corrupt the accomplishment of a social utopia. In order to organise the whole

society to reach the aims of a common utopia, a strongly centralised authority is needed. To

eliminate and universalise, for example, the cultural, ethnic, and gender otherness, and the

difference of will and orientation of individuals, control must be applied. At that point utopia

becomes totalitarian and the world of utopia would become universal, egalitarian but

anonymous, depressed and repressed under a highly centralised regime to carry out a utopian

vision.26 Finally, utopia will become threatening when power structures put force on the

masses to carry out a utopian vision. At that point utopia develops into a catastrophic

dystopia where utopia becomes a must, a burden, an imprisonment, and the restriction of

the free will of the people.27

Even if a utopia would reach its final aims, it would likely result in a disaster; another form of

a dystopic landscape where all imagination could be transformed into reality and all desires

would be satisfied. There is a danger that in the ideal world of a utopia, life would become

monotonous, grey, and depressing without any improvement. In such an artificially utopian

vacuum boredom would dominate in the absence of human emotion, passion and the will to

strive . In a perfectly happy, confident, and satisfied society there could be no aims, instead

only indifference, waste, and decay. Without new visions, improvement and new ideals,

conservatism would grow, evoking an unchangeable and inhuman Golden Age. Man would

lose his will to shape history, and his ability to change.28 In an ideal and protected space, as

philosopher Peter Sloterdijk states it in his article, The Crystal Palace, life would be

converted into a gigantic protecting hothouse or glass palace. Within this construction, the

whole social fabric would have to be integrated in the interior of the protective house. In this

hermetic enclosure from outside influences, history and historical processes would be

eliminated and historical battles would be replaced by eternal peace. The protected space

would turn from the house of the living into the house of death in which everything is

controlled. In a society in which the government has full political control over the whole

25 Jameson 2005, p. 37 26 Jameson 2005, pp. 39-40 27 Rothstein 2003, p. 22 28 Rothstein 2003, pp.13-14

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population, it gains bio-power and bio-politics .29 Such practices have resulted in the

development of a governance that is concerned with regulation of bodies and the control of

populations. In this kind of society, all aspects of life are regulated by governmental

institutions and the advances of science, technology, biology, and medicine are applied to

amplify control over its individuals. These practices affect the health, heredity, fertility and

family planning of the individual. The governance in such societies determines and controls

the rights of every individual; their living conditions and ultimately the elimination of certain

individuals and sub-groups of the population.30 For that reason utopias and utopian thinking

are highly contested and are recognised as one of the biggest failures and human disasters in

history.

3.2 The Soviet Utopia

Now I have explained the phenomenon of utopia and dystopia in general, I would like to

place Soviet Communism within that context. In the following section I will explain the

history of Soviet Communism and the development of its utopian ideology and its failure. I

will outline the hopeful promises of the Soviet utopia and as well as its dark aspects. I would

like to give a true impression about the hopes of this world and the horrors that utopian

thinking caused. My final aim will be to contrast the idealised nostalgic world with the

reality of the Soviet past.

Soviet Communism was fed by utopian impulses, by historical modernity, and by the abrupt

class changes of the previous two centuries. Early 20th century utopianism affected all aspects

of life including the social arena, art and culture. Before focusing on the cultural aspects and

the artistic connection to nostalgia, I would like to highlight the political and historical context

in which Soviet Communism emerged.

29 Sloterdijk 2005, pp. 12-13 30 Foucault 1997, pp. 242-244 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number

18

Map: Soviet Union and the Satellite States

Map of the Eastern Bloc

Soviet Communism originated in the socialist movement at the beginning of the 20th century.

The communist ideology was initially based on the ideas of Karl Marx (1818-83) and

19

Friedrich Engels (1820-95). 31 The life-work of Marx, Das Kapital, combined the theories of

several other thinkers and socialists such as: Condorcet, Comte, Darwin, Feuerbach, Babeuf,

Bray, Hegel, Darwin, Saint Simon, Adam Smith, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen. This

work was later known as the Bible of the Communist utopia. In this work, Marx elaborated

on the Darwinist evolution theory and on the notions of materialist history, class struggle,

dialectical materialism and dialectical process, and surplus value, while also forming his own

theory as a guide on how to improve the human condition. The improvement and human

progress was, however, not cyclical. Rather, he saw it as a dialectical process of

development; from imperfection toward perfection within societies, through a linear progress

that was made by the members of a society. In this concept, class struggle plays a central role.

Drawing on the driving forces of development and their mutual reinforcement, the allegedly

inevitable development could take place from bourgeois oppression of capitalism, towards a

socialist and ultimately classless society. 32

The utopian philosophy of Marx and Engels later formed the core of the developing

communist ideology from the mid-19th century that spread out to the rest of the world.33

Their ideology would celebrate a new way of life and equal common wealth among the

people of a society. The main idea embraced a utopian world of peace and brotherhood in

which, in the ideal society, materialism was abandoned and property was shared equally

among the members of the community. This ideal system of sharing and equality would

eliminate greed, envy, poverty and strife in society. In Marxs view, under the alternative

system of communism, industrial and production properties would be owned and operated by

the centralised state. The final approach of the ideology was to gain a new egalitarian society

without exploitation and private property and enable conditions for social relations that were

humane and not commodified.34 The Marxist-Leninist version of a communist utopia

celebrates the revolutionary actions of the proletariat that leaves capitalism behind and

establishes a state of a government of people. In this political situation, in which all goods

are equally shared by the people, the state, often organised by an authoritarian party, holds

control of almost every aspect of lifeeconomy, production, political powerclaiming to

31 Davies 1997, p. 837 & Malaska 2002 32 Davies 1997, pp. 837-838 33 Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto in the year of 1848. Many of their arguments were based on studies of the French Revolution and social liberal philosophies of the time. Davies 1997, pp. 837 34 Lowe 2001, pp. 11-12

20

make progress toward a higher social order.35 As was thought by the founders of communism

ideology, mankind would be able to create an ideal and utopian society: a perfect world and a

dream of a better life.

3.3 The Communist Dystopia

Although the initial ideology of communism might, in theory, appear an ideal solution to the

many problems suffered by human kind, in reality the communist dream developed in a

different way. How did it happen that a utopian dream world, in this case the Soviet utopia,

failed and turned out to be such a catastrophe that went down in history as a dystopia? In the

next section I will draw attention to the dark side of this utopia and investigate the deeply

rooted reasons why this utopia turned out to be such a hated regime.

The communist utopia can primarily be seen as a political and economic doctrine that aimed

to eliminate private property and profit-based economy in favor of public ownership and

communal control over the major means of production. 36 In a fully realized communist

society there would be no class divisions, no inequalities, and the reign of solidarity among

people would create an ideal climate for living. In this kind of utopian society, common

wealth could be realized and poverty and diseases could be resolved. Although the Soviet

utopia might sound ideal, in theory, the situation was far from that. As is the nature of all

utopias, the gap between imagination and reality, , was unbridgeable. Consequently, as is

known from history, the Soviet utopia never reached its goals either.

35 Communism. Oxford Dictionary of the US Military. Web last accessed October 2012 36 "Communism". Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica Online.

21

Death to the Bourgeoisie and Their Henchmen. Long live the Red Terror! 37

From the very beginning, the communist utopia had an inextricably bleak side. It not only

ended in a dystopia at the end of the 1980s, but also began with the bloodshed of the Russian

Revolution. As the image above shows, the revolutions goal was not only a regime change

but also a deliberate massacre of the Bourgeoisie, who represented oppression in the eye of

the revolutionaries. After the February Revolution of 1917, and the abdication of the Russian

emperor, chaos and anarchy ensued, destroying Russian society. Different political parties

with differing interests began to fight each other and terrorise civilians. This perplexing and

disturbing situation ended in a civil war. After this war, in 1920, Lenin, as the leader of the

communists, established the USSR, which officially existed until 1991. During the years of

communism, dictatorial totalitarianism arose and the personal cults of Soviet dictators like

Lenin and Stalin were cultivated within Soviet Russia and the allied oppressed countries of

Eastern Europe. In the course of the Soviet regime millions of people were killed, tortured,

and terrorised by the state police, especially during Stalins dictatorship of the Soviet Union

through his indiscriminate cleansings and deportations to Siberia. As historian Norman

Davies writes in his book Europe: A History, []the Soviet Union was not a civilisation that

once was great. It was uniquely mean and mendacious even in its brief hour of triumph. It

brought death and misery to more human beings than any other state on record.38 Daily life

was controlled by the party, its institutions, the army, and the security forces. The secret

police infiltrated all branches of public and private life. Dissidents and resistance figures, as

well as innocent civilians, were subjected to random terror by the regime. Property was

aggressively de-privatised and brought into collectives, which were supervised and led by

government institutions. The idea of an idyllic life proved to be an illusion from the earliest

stages of the system. An inefficient economy was hidden behind the facade. Unknown to the

public and to the outside world, production and consumption shifted unequally. Heavy

industry overtly produced redundant iron, steel, and chemicals, while at the same time; the

system could not support the basic needs of its population. Huge amounts of resources were

put into the production of war and military supplies. Moreover, the Soviet state invested

unlimited resources into aircraft and the space race from the 1960s while the civilian

infrastructure remained woefully inadequate. The primitive industrial methods and the 37 Propaganda pamphlet of the Soviet after the October revolution (October 25, 1917) 37 Web last visited June 2012 38 Davies 1997, p. 1135

22

pressures of quantitative planning overshadowed the need of ecological investment in the

environment. Industrial production within the Soviet Union caused several environmental

disasters; from persistent nuclear pollution, toxic air, dead rivers, dying forests, and nuclear

catastrophes. The most hazardous act was keeping all the threats a secret. This endangered not

only the natural environment, but also the health of the states citizens. 39

The regime changes that began in 1989 initially came as a blessing, however they

subsequently brought chaos and anarchy. In the first transitional years there was hope and

enthusiasm but soon after followed disappointment. Communism ruined all the allied

countries economies and the political, social and cultural life. The adoption of the capitalistic

free market model, following the regime change, also failed as well. During the transitional

years the former communist countries experienced an economic crisis with record-breaking

job losses, unemployment, financial debt, massive cuts in healthcare and education and a rise

in poverty.40 A large proportion of the population suffered a loss of income, a smaller

number of people were able to maintain their financial standards, while only a few per-cent

were able to increase their wealth. The newly independent states had to deal with debt but also

with political and social crisis. After the fall of communism, a political vacuum developed.

The loss of any political orientation combined with the faltering of the state constitution

caused social crisis and confusion. Individuals lost their significance, interests and

motivations, which lead to large scale economic and personal depression, decay, and poverty

within the population.41 This destructive process did not cease after the transitional years but

still continues until today. Although the political crisis has stabilised, the social depression has

not yet been solved. Implementation of free market capitalism was not as easy as it was

initially thought. The capitalist free market economy was sighted as the most appropriate

alternative economic model. However, it now seems like another political ideal rather than a

realistic plan to help the former Eastern Bloc countries recover and help their population out

of financial, political, and social crisis. The new model could only be implemented with

great difficulty because the population of the former communist countries lived their life for

decades in a communist economic system that prohibited a market economy. It will take

39 Davies 1997, p. 1197 40 Enns 2007, p. 480 41 Baar, van, and Commandeur (ed.) 2012, p.10

23

generations to adapt these new principles in such a way that the former Eastern Bloc countries

will be able maintain a healthy economy. 42 43

42 Enns 2007, pp. 488- 489 43 Traynor, 2009

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3.4 The Era of Modernity and Modernism

There is one more fundamental factor underpinning nostalgia which should be explained in

order to gain an understanding into the complexity of the current situation within nostalgic

revival. In the next section I will explain the characteristics of the modern era, specifically

Modernism; a movement that has its origins around the late 19th century and continues to the

present. I will highlight some of the aspects and characteristics of this historical period and

the life changing influences it brought to people living in this era. Finally in this section I will

highlight its connection with nostalgia.

The modern era can be conceived as a restless period containing several radical shifts and

different characteristics within the same era. According to Marshall Berman, the common

characterises are as follows:

[] as a maelstrom of modern life [that] has been fed by great discoveries in the sciences, changing our images of the universe and our place in it: the industrialisation of production, which transforms scientific knowledge into technology, creates new human environments and destroys old ones, speeds up the whole tempo of life generates new forms of corporate power and class struggle; immense demographic upheavals, severing millions of people from their ancestral habitants, hurtling them halfway across the world into new lives; rapid and often cataclysmic urban growth; systems of mass communication, dynamic in their development, enveloping and binding together the most diverse people and societies; increasingly powerful national states, bureaucratically structured and operated, constantly striving to expand their powers; mass social movements of people, and peoples, challenging their political and economic rulers, striving to gain some control their lives; finally bearing and driving all these people and institutions along, an ever- expanding, drastically fluctuating capitalist world market. [] These world -historical processes have nourished an amazing of a variety of visions and ideas that aim to make man and women the subjects as well as the objects of modernisation, to give them the power to change the world that changing them, to make their way through the maelstrom and make it their own. 44

The history of modernity and modernisation of life has its early beginnings some 500 years

ago. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century until the present it dominates the Western

world. Within the modern era there are different epochal periods from early modern to high

modernity. As Marshall Bermans states in his book; All that is solid melts into the air: The

Experience of Modernity, the history of modernity can be divided in three phases. The first

one extends from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth. In this 44 Berman 1988, p. 16

25

initial era people begin to experience a modern life without understanding the changes to

modernity. The second phase commences with the revolutionary wave of the 1790s. In this

period modernisation emerges and unfolds. People living in this period experience modernity

in the form of revolutions and disruptions. Modernity has not yet arrived, but people do

experience the changes and grasp the opportunities to challenge the new and modern world.

According to Bermans the third phase of modernity begins with the twentieth century when

modernisation expands virtually all over the whole world. 45 This third phase is assigned the

term Modernism, which covers a range of movements and styles that generally reject history.

Within this third and last phase it is possible to split Modernism into three further sub-

periods. The largest and most significant period to mention in this thesis, is the historical

Modernism that lasted from the late nineteenth century until the 1960s. The second period is

called postmodernism, which merges into the larger third sub-period of high- modernity,

which runs to the present era.

Historical Modernism is generally understood to be a cultural and artistic movement,

however, it is also used to refer to an era driven by industrialization, rapid social change,

advances in science and the social sciences. In comparison with other periods it can be seen as

the most violent; characterised by revolutions and wars; for example the two World Wars.

The second period is called postmodernism. The epoch of the postmodern could be described

as the transitional phase between historical Modernism, which ended in the 1960s and the

high-modernity of the present. This period, especially in the Western world can be

characterised as a personal and subjective reaction to Modernism, rejecting old conventions

from before the war and their ideologies, conventions, beliefs, norms and narratives.46 The

latest epoch in which we are living is called high-modernity and can trace its beginning back

to the late 1960s. High-modernity does not completely reject modernity but builds on some

essential conventions. It can be briefly characterised by a strong belief in technology, the

acceleration of technical improvement and progress. It is significantly influenced by the

experiences of a fast paced life that moves even faster than in previous periods within

modernity. However, it is a more complex and reflexive modernization process. In high-

modernity all domains of life are constantly examined and adjusted to conform to the current

incoming information provided by multi-media technologies. High-modernity tends to be a

45 Berman, 1988 pp. 16- 17 46 Oxford Dictionary of the US Military.

26

self-referring system, relying on its own information circuits instead of grand narratives or

utopian ideologies as was the case in previous epochal periods of modernity. 47

Soviet Communism, which is the subject of this thesis, arose and came to an end in the period

of historical Modernism. This period can be characterised by strong utopian impulses and in

this world utopian thinking became elementary. In this era utopias reflected and gave

direction to change and to the creation of the new ideological identity of modern man.48

Utopia and utopian desires operated continuously in modernity, constructive means of self-

critical renewal of collective expression wherein creative artistic endeavors that embodied

hope and prepared the way for better conditions for humanity could exist. Utopian desire is

often arising from a dissatisfaction with current living conditions, and a hope for a better

world. There is also a belief in human progress, the ability to change the world and eliminate

scarcity. 49 Modernism is much concerned with the overall trend towards development of

mankind and pursuit of a doctrine of progress. In the dynamic of a dialectical environment

the dissatisfaction with the human progress to create a better world, the modern man/women

becomes elementary. In this environment the identity of the modern man/women, fully

responsible and in control of their own life, could be created. In this context several utopian

visions and ideological models were developed and ideological movements initiated. The

dream of the twentieth century was the construction of mass utopias as models of the

ultimately ideal place on earth. One of the main encompassing ideas has been the utopia of the

Soviet Communism that dominated Russia and several countries in the Eastern European

region for more than sixty years.

3.5 Modernity and Nostalgia

Modernity could be characterised as a restless and changing environment in which old

securities and traditions have been lost. Modernisation liberated human kind from tradition

and belief but at the same time scattered former securities, threatened individual

consciousness, and provoked disquiet. Modernisation and industry replaced religion and

supported the development of new institutional and ideological surroundings in which new

histories could be constructed. Modernity is a term that covers a range of movements and

styles largely rejecting the history of previous periods. Modern life differs from all preceding 47 Giddens 1991, pp. 144-155 48 Malaska 2002, p. 1 49 Ruitinga 2012, p.10

27

forms of social order in respect to its dynamic, radically breaking with traditions, habits, and

customs. In a system open to continual and profound change, many circumstances arise that

cause abrupt crisis in the social, political, and individual life. Living in the world of modernity

is to live in a continually changing environment in which the future is open to be shaped by

human interventions and by great utopian desires. However, the interventions are mainly

directed by the institutions of social systems. The transmutation and changes directly affect

individuals day-to-day lives and therefore the self. 50

In pre-modern times, tradition and belief provided the main guidelines along which the

identities of individuals were formed. In this continually changing world where traditional and

religious boundaries were discarded, the creation of an individuals identity within society

became more arbitrary and reflexive to the changing environment of modernity. As Anthony

Giddens states in his book, Modernity and Self- Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern

Age, in the context of the post-traditional order, the self becomes a reflexive project. In the

setting of modernity, individual identity is explored, altered, and constructed as part of a

reflexive process connecting personal and social change. The individual possesses full

awareness of his life environment in which he/she is continually exploring, adapting, and

improving him/herself. In such circumstances, modernity introduces an elemental dynamism

in respect to the formation of the identity of individuals in that specific system. 51 Yet utopian

ideologies, as part of 20th century Modernism, have their own truths and values. In this

environment, not only identity and the self become arbitrary to the circumstances. The

inevitable concomitant change in the universe of modernity associated with the transition

from communism to capitalism, or from totalitarian utopianism to democracy, all embedded

the conditions of modernity and the modern world with its own truth and values and the

reflexive changing of history.52

During historical breaks, a general perception of loss arises combined with a sense of loss of

history; a collective amnesia develops at these epochal ruptures. At historical moments or

ruptures to the equilibrium, the frailty of the personal memory is displayed as it functions as

a recollection of the past, subjectively distorting facts, which it then uses to fill the gaps of

objective history. Memory can never be seen as rational, dependable, stable, or permanent 50 Giddens 1991, pp. 1- 34, 179- 208 51 Giddens 1991, pp. 32- 33 52 Giddens 1991, pp. 71- 108

28

instead it is always subject to reconstructions and alterations by current beliefs, values, rituals,

and institutions of a given society. Collective memory is unreliable because it is always

affected by the changing forces of modernity: forgetting or denying, repression, and trauma.

Memory indeed can be contested from a new perspective and from the very spaces it had

blocked out. This is a kind of selective alteration of history and the permanently shifting

dialogue between the present and the past has an inevitable impact on how we remember. All

individuals in a society need recollection, individually or collectively, in order to construct

and anchor their self-identities. Strongly remembered past will always inscribe in the present,

influencing identity building, individual actions, and the thoughts and collective desires in a

society. At the same time a strongly remembered past may turn into a mythical memory and

in some cases it may radically drown or mutate history and deform remembrance. 53

Yet how, and in which ways does nostalgia connect with modernity? In the vortex of

historical ruptures of modernity and the consistently conflicting mechanisms of

remembering, forgetting, and forgery of the past, will cause conflicting images of the past.

Nostalgic imagination represents a reconstruction of the past in a highly idealised way arising

from dissatisfaction in the present. The danger of nostalgic thinking is that it confuses

historical reality with an imagined one.54 In this light it is then no wonder that the history and

historical facts regarding Soviet Communism differ from the subjectively inflected collective

memory in Eastern Europe. As Linda Hutcheon strikingly assumes in her article Irony,

nostalgia, and the postmodern, nostalgia is a harmonious construction of an idealised past

that overlooks the actual experienced past. Memory is rather about a present desire that

originates in dissatisfaction with the present. In this way nostalgia is less a matter of the past

or simple memory but rather the evoked or partial and idealised history, fuelled by

dissatisfaction with the present.

Nostalgia, in fact, may depend precisely on the irrecoverable nature of the past for its emotional impact and appeal. It is the very pastness of the past, its inaccessibility, that likely accounts for a large part of nostalgia's power for both conservatives and radicals alike. This is rarely the past as actually experienced, of course; it is the past as imagined, as idealized through memory and desire. In this sense, however, nostalgia is less about the past than about the present. It operates through what Mikhail Bakhtin called an "historical inversion": the ideal that is not being lived now is projected into the past.25 It is "memorialized" as past, crystallized into precious moments selected by memory, but also by forgetting,

53 Huyssen 1995, pp. 249- 250 54 Boym 2001, p. xvi

29

and by desire's distortions and reorganizations.26 Simultaneously distancing and proximating, nostalgia exiles us from the present as it brings the imagined past near. The simple, pure, ordered, easy, beautiful, or harmonious past is constructed (and then experienced emotionally) in conjunction with the present which, in turn, is constructed as complicated, contaminated, anarchic, difficult, ugly, and confrontational. Nostalgic distancing sanitizes as it selects, making the past feel complete, stable, coherent, safe from "the unexpected and the untoward, from accident or betrayal"27 in other words, making it so very unlike the present. The aesthetics of nostalgia might, therefore, be less a matter of simple memory than of complex projection; the invocation of a partial, idealized history merges with a dissatisfaction with the present.55

We can also ascertain that the regime change in the former Eastern Bloc region caused a loss

of old securities and a loss of the utopian beliefs. The economic recoil during the passage

from communist to new free market capitalistic model has worsened the situation. The

disappointment from the social, economic, political and, cultural domains lead to a tendency

for historical inversion the defining qualities of which are idealisation of the past, selective

memorisation of the past, forgetting, and distorted reorganisations caused by a desire of the

past. This is a characterising dynamic displayed in the crisis-driven societies of the present

Eastern European countries. In the absence of alternative future plans, people selectively

revise elements of the past system that were better than the current one.56

Modernity is much concerned with a memorisation of the past. This can be seen as one of the

main consequences of the historical changes, breaks, and ruptures within modernity. All

epochs within modernity have their own histories, beliefs, and narrative on how to understand

and interpret life. As Svetlana Boym has formulated in her essay The Future of Nostalgia:

The rapid pace of industrialization and modernization increased the intensity of people's longing for the slower rhythms of the past, for continuity, social cohesion

55 Hutcheon 2000, 56 Hutcheon 2000, In her essay Hutcheon mentioning the following authors: 25. M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: U of Texas P, 1881), 147. Thanks to Russell Kilbourn for calling this to my attention. 26. See Phillips 65. 27. Lowenthal 62; Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (New York: Doubleday, 1977). 56 Hutcheon 2000, 25. M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: U of Texas P, 1881), 147. Thanks to Russell Kilbourn for calling this to my attention. 26. See Phillips 65. 27. Lowenthal 62; Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (New York: Doubleday, 1977).

30

and tradition. Yet this new obsession with the past reveals an abyss of forgetting and takes place in inverse proportion to its actual preservation. 57

This not only applies to past epochal periods but also to our present times of high-modernity.

The ever-faster paced life of high-modernity demands the past be conserved and archived to

protect it against forgetting and amnesia. As another theoretician Andreas Huyssen stated in

his book, Twilights Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia, Both personal and

social memory today are affected by an emerging new structure of temporality, generated by

the quickening pace of modern life on the one hand and by the acceleration of media images

and information on the other.58 With the support of electronic media the recollection of the

past has no longer needed to rely on individual memory or desire, but it can be fed forever by

quick access to digitalised archives and data banks of an infinitely recyclable past. 59

Nostalgia, however, does not simply recycle recorded and archived material. Nostalgia has its

origins in the past but thrives on a present experience of the past. The social and personal

remembrance that is emotionally charged and subjectively mutated is reflected in a collective

present state of mind. Commemoration of the past stops one forgetting, however, the

remembrance is pervasively affected by intertwined subjective memories from the present

point of view. The subjective remembrance by individuals refers to the past but from a present

point of view. In this sense it is contradictory and paradoxical that cultural memory aims to

prevent forgetting, but at the same time, by emotionally distorting history, it is much more a

denial and a forgery of history.60

Nostalgia for the Soviet Communist period is predominantly associated with popular culture

in the former Eastern Bloc region and is often presented in an untrustworthy and dismissive

way. The collective feeling for the loss of a better world is often reinforced by re-enactment

and the commercial exploitation of media representation of memory. In the mediated

environment the collective feeling of loss is often amplified, increasing the nostalgic

sentiment in the individuals within a society. As Anthony Enns has expressed the Soviet past

presented in the media often appears to be nothing more than a commercial feature

commoditising the last remnants of an anti-capitalistic system. 61

57 Boym 2001, p. 37 58 Huyssen 1995, p. 253 59 Hutcheon 2000, 60 Hutcheon 2000, 61 Enns 2007, p. 475

31

The blending of traumatic (historical and entertaining (nostalgic) memory has accelerated in Eastern Europe in the past twenty years. However, it did not begin in the wake of the fall of the Wall. The intensity of mediated remembering in the post-Wall era provides a critical window for reviewing the rigid separation of official histories and mediated memories during communism. Virtually all accounts of unofficial cultures in late communism need to be revisited in light of the popular medias role. [] However, what would qualify as the popular media culture of communism has been replaced overnight, for the most part, by new global, commercial fair. The entertainment culture of communism-commercials, television variety shows, childrens programming- has been gathered by the collective work of individuals and found its way to fun sites, YouTube, and other file-sharing Internet archives. Some of the work is available on dedicated nostalgia TV channels such as the Hungarian-language public satellite Duna (Danube) Television, established in 1993. Other work, including childrens animated series, have been released on VHS and DVD, along with new ancillary products such as stuffed animals, colouring books, and T-shirts. 62

Examples of the commercial and entertainment use of communist nostalgia are presented in

Appendixes I, II, & III. These examples show nostalgia in the news, distributed through

formal and informal channels such as national magazines and social-media sites. For example

nostalgia is a much merchandised in the tourist industry but also a favoured subject for the

artistic and cultural fields.

The nostalgic revival not only overshadows history by inflecting subjective memories but also

commercialises the past. The media construction of the post-communist sentiment embraces

false illusions about the past which inconsequentially effects the national identity.63

Sentimental nostalgia is presented in the media more like an irreverent entertainment product.

A joking or self-mocking style has been adopted in place of taking past and current issues

seriously. Nostalgia-inspired cultural products promote historical amnesia and forgetting by

ignoring the harsh realities of life in the former Soviet Communist region, instead of making

individuals in society more politically aware.64 However, remembrance of the past is

preliminary associated with popular culture, there are several examples of artists who take

their inspiration from this past; creating work that is involved with nostalgia. In the next

section I would like to examine three examples of artists who remember, reinforce, and

reinvent the past and memory in their work.

62 Imre 2009, pp. 77 63 Enns 2007, p. 479 64 Enns 2007, pp. 476- 481

32

4. Artistic Reflections: Case studies

The legacy of the Soviet utopia can be summed up by the disasters, terror, disappointment,

loss of identity and existence, decay and the economic depression and poverty that followed.

However, regardless as to how bad it was many people look back to that period. It seems to

be a world of real emotions and never ending illusions from which people cannot be

awakened. This appears to be an inconceivably illogical phenomenon but at the same time we

are talking about facts and serious mass emotions. As an artist and former citizen of a Soviet-

allied country I am especially intrigued by this phenomenon and its ambiguities. In this

section of the thesis I will examine the continued significance and ramifications the Soviet

past has on contemporary art from the former Eastern Bloc. I will take a closer look at how

artists deal with the past in their work, how they incorporate utopian ideology, the Soviet

legacy, the failings of this past and nostalgia. My study will examine three cases: Ilya

Kabakov, Ilya Rabinovich and Paulina Oowska. All three artists have a common connection

with the communist past. Ilya Kabakov lived through Soviet communism and his work is

characterised by ironic comment on the system. Ilya Rabinovichs work is concentrates more

on the post-communist situation which characterises his home country of Moldova following

the countrys autonomy from communism and from Russia. Paulina Oowskas work traces

childhood memories throughout the last 13 years of communism, confronting the nostalgia

of alternative private realities under the communist regime.

4.1 Escaping Soviet Utopia: Ilya Kabakov

Ilya Kabakov is a Russian-born (1933), American-based artist of international importance.

His work can generally be characterized as environmental installation art in which he

intertwines everyday elements of life with those of the conceptual. His installations are

physical environments in which the viewer is surrounded by a completely submerged setting.

The interior of the environments are enriched with anecdotal objects, often telling a story of a

factious figure, enhanced by a narrative text and drawings. Before his emigration to the

United States in 1988, Kabakov lived and worked in the Soviet Union and his work is deeply

rooted in the Soviet social and cultural context. In his works he often makes ironic reference

to Soviet utopianism and the social realities of that system.

Kabakov's work is about the selectivity of memory. His fragmented "total installations" become a cautious reminder of gaps, compromises, embarrassments, and black holes in the foundation of any utopian and nostalgic edifice. Ambiguous nostalgic longing is linked to the individual experience of history. Through the

33

combination of empathy and estrangement, ironic nostalgia invites us to reflect on the ethics of remembering. 65

The fictional biographies and narratives displayed in Kabakovs installations, are often

inspired by his own experiences of life in the Soviet Union. Kabakov often uses common

elements and everyday objects to depict the banality of life in the communist utopia. He

blends utopian aims and common everyday-life and presents them in a distorted setting.

Propaganda promoting utopian ideals is combined with drab everyday objects. In doing so, he

succeeds in picturing the world of the communist utopia while at the same time revealing the

conditions of everyday life.

One of Kabakovs most contested works is The Soviet Toilet which was exhibited in 1992 at

the Documenta IX art exhibition in Kassel, Germany. This construction was a replica of a

provincial Soviet toilet that could commonly be found in public spaces like bus and train

stations. The installation was very controversial because of its directness and obscenity, and

its effect on cultural biases and values. The installation was especially contested by the

Russian public. After this confrontation Kabakov decided not to return to Russia.66 This

installation was based on the biographical experiences of Kabakov. He was a son of Jewish

parents and his family was so poor the family members often lived apart from each other. His

mother became a laundry cleaner at the school where the young Kabakov studied. As he

described in his biography, without a special resident permit, they had no place to live. As a

consequence, his mother arranged a living space in the schools toilet.

The only place they had, was the room where her mother arranged the laundry - tablecloths, drapes, pillowcases - which was in the old toilets. Of course, they were not dirty toilets, but typical toilets of the old boy school which were transformed into laundry boards. My mother was chased out by the school mistress but unable to rent even a small corner in the city. She once stayed there illegally for a night, in this tiny room practically in the toilets. Then she managed to find a folding bed and she stayed there for a while until a cleaning lady or a teacher informed on her to the director. My mother felt homeless and defenceless vis-avis the authorities, while, on the other hand, she was so tidy and meticulous that her honesty and persistence allowed her to survive in the most improbable place. My child psyche was traumatized by the fact that my mother and I never had a corner to ourselves. 67

65 Boym 1999, 66 Boym 1999, 67 Boym 1999,

34

This childhood experience made an impression on him which he assimilated into his work

The Soviet Toilet. This work mirrors the conditions in which people lived in the Soviet state,

materialising the shortcomings in sheer contrast with the idealism of the common and

oppressive utopia of an ideal world. Although, this work represented the truth about life in the

Soviet utopia, he received much criticism, especially from his own country.

The Soviet Toilet 68

Another remarkable installation made by Kabakov is The Man Who Flew Into Space From

His Apartment, which reflects the era of the so-called Space-Race which began in 1957

when the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. This

68 Boym 1999,

35

launch marked a new technological era, advancements in technology, science, military might

and politics in the Soviet Union and world-wide. The successful launch of the Sputnik

heralded the start of the Space-Race between the United States and the U.S.S.R. and

accentuated the Cold War between the world-power states. 69

The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment 70

The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment presents an imagined hero who did the

impossible and flew through the ceiling of his apartment into cosmic space. The viewer of the 69 Spiegelman 2010 70 Installation by Ilya Kabakov. Photo: Art Margins Digital Magazins homepage:

36

installation can only see the self-fabricated catapult and the empty apartment room with a hole

in the ceiling. What remains in the room are the Soviet propaganda posters which decorate

the walls as an illustration of the primitive appeal of the Soviet world. The catapult, the

posters and drawings on the walls, all cynically point to the cosmic and political ambitions of

the Soviet utopia, depicting the utopian aims while also suggesting the poor living conditions

from which the inhabitant wished to escape. Kabakov, who lived in the Soviet Union, was showing viewers of both works the ironic truth

behind the idealized fantasy world. In his art, he harks back to his memory of life in the

utopia. It is as true as it is confronting; simultaneously nostalgic and ironic. In his compound

construction he touches on the alienation of new man and women in the utopia, the panic

and fear, the banalities of ordinary life and the haunting nostalgia for the transient utopia. In

both works he succeeds in expressing the aspirations of the little man, who has had the

ideologies imposed upon him and who has to deal with the failures of the Soviet utopia.

These works are not about utopias as great ideas or belief in a better world. Instead they show

life from the perspective of the small man who was supposed to accomplish the ideologies

and happily live in the utopian world. Instead of an ideal life, Kabakovs works tell only of

the prosperity and the failures of the great ideologies, portraying the force of communism and

the wish to escape from its confinement.71 Despite this, his work is not depressed by the

failures instead it ironically documents the ordinary life conditions experienced within the

utopia. Rather than depict a lost home or homeland that matters, his work portrays a longing

for a world that resides in its unfinished ruins, just like that of the Soviet utopia.

4.2 Ilja Rabinovich: Museutopia

Ilya Rabinovich is a Dutch-Moldovan photographer, internationally known for his

photography projects concerning immigration, diaspora & memory and building of identity.

Rabinovich was born 1965, under the Soviet rule in Kisheniev, Moldova. He emigrated to

Israel in 1973 with his family. From 1998 to 2000 he attended the Rijksakademie in the

Netherlands, since which he has continued to lives and work in Amsterdam. As a

consequence of his immigrant background, moving from one country to another, he became

fascinated with issues of (national) identity. Rabinovich lived in many places and

71 Spiegelman 2010

37

experienced what might be considered as fragmented life.72 On an artistic personal and

biographical level, he developed an interest in the mechanisms by which identity is formed

and he often questions the creation of identity through his work. His observations focus on

institutions and how they work within a national context and within geographical borders.

Rabinovichs most recent project is titled Museutopia, which is a photographic research

project concerning world and personal history, memories, and the formation of identity.

Motivated by his personal history and by his own sentimental emotions regarding the past,

Rabinovich returned to Moldova where he was born. As an artist in exile, he objectively

examined the use of nostalgia by museums and the manner in which it is used to create a new

national identity. 73

Project flyer: Museutopia

By putting a lens on museums in Chisinau in Moldova, Ilya Rabinovich shows how a country in crisis is trying to grant itself a new history. The museums prove to be the places of prominence where this new national identity is contested. 74

Museutopia informs us about the contemporary museums of Moldova and their representation

of past and present utopias within the country. The initial research of Museutopia took place

in 2008 in close collaboration with the Center for Contemporary Art in Chisinau and ended in

2012 with the presentation of a book: Museutopia: A Photographic Research Project by Ilya

72 Baar, van, and Commandeur (ed.) Misiamo 2012 p. 15 73 Baar, van, and Commandeur 2012 pp. 9-12 74 Quote from the postcard of the book Museutopia: A photographic Research Project by Ilya Rabinovich

38

Rabinovich. This book documents the project, displaying a series of photographs the artist

shot during the project. The photographs are accompanied a by the essays of Viktor Misiamo,

curator and art critic; Huub van Baar, philosopher and cultural scholar; Stefan Rusu, artist-

curator; and Bogdan Ghiu, literary scholar, poet and journalist. The essays are built around the

images and discuss in text the issues that Rabinovich depicted in the series of images.

Browsing through the images, one might have the impression that is only about the museum

exhibitions; a representations of the official, institutionalized national history of the nation in

an old fashioned and outmoded manner. As Jelle Bouwhuis the curator of the SMBA75 put it,

from a perspective of an outsider, the heterogeneous nature of the photographed museum

galleries and displays appears obsolete to him. The entire interior, shown by photographs,

seems like a museum display in a country confronted with the decay of its cultural institutions

during its bid for modernity. For Bouwhuis, the photographs reveal a complex visual image of

Moldova and its struggle within the tradition- modernity binary and the process of

transformation to an independent state with a distinct national identity.76 Rabinovich, as an

emigrant, takes a distant position and succeeds in considering the social and cultural

structures of his country of origin from a different angle. His photographs show places in

terms of their fleetingness and remoteness, as if they were bereft of memories. In the words of

the Russian art critic Viktor Misiano, the photographs present the detached gaze of the

diasporic artist. The photographs suggest there is hidden story, but the artist denies showing

us any of them. Instead, Rabinovich simply photographs the scene itself; a large panorama of

unconnected historical facts, traumatised by the drama of the ruptures of modernity. It is the

viewer who needs to frame the images and fill the gaps between the imp