|
The Mitki and the Art of Postmodern Protest in Russia
Alexandar Mihailovic
“Mihailovic makes a convincing case for the group’s creative disengagement from Soviet discourse and society constituting its most powerful contribution to political protest in Russia.”
—Slavic Review
During the late Soviet period, the art collective known as the Mitki emerged in Leningrad. Producing satirical poetry and prose, pop music, cinema, and conceptual performance art, this group fashioned a playful, emphatically countercultural identity with affinities to European avant-garde and American hippie movements. More broadly, as Alexandar Mihailovic shows, the Mitki pioneered a form of political protest art that has since become a centerpiece of activism in post-Soviet Russia, most visible today in groups such as Pussy Riot. He draws on extensive interviews with members of the collective and illuminates their critique of the authoritarian state, militarism, and social strictures from the Brezhnev years to the present.
 Alexandar Mihailovic is a professor emeritus of comparative literature and Russian at Hofstra University and visiting professor of literature at Bennington College.
Praise
“Mihailovic’s analysis of the role of art collectives (and for that matter, other movements) offer insightful information about the potentially fracturing nature of the Russian system.”
—Europe Asia Studies
“A masterful exploration of the work and world of the Mitki that moves seamlessly between analysis of different art forms—graphic arts, literature, and film—and chronicles the journey of its original members from debauched alcoholism to sobriety.”
—Emily Johnson, author of How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself
“Russian nonconformist art rises and falls. But the Mitki story, with its goofy heroes, gorgeous colors, and weird affirmation of foolishness and failure as the safest path to freedom, introduces us to the theatricalized postmodern in a form that can never be co-opted by a politics. A mind-bending book.”
—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
|
Larger images
New in Paperback!
November 2019
LC: 2017019396 N
272 pp. 6 x 9
35 b/w illus.
|
