Soviet Temporalities Study Group

The Soviet Temporalities Study Group critically explores conceptions of time which were developed during the Soviet period. In the years following the October Revolution in 1917, a future-oriented outlook dominated politics and social life. The period between the 1960s and the late 1980s—widely known today as the ‘era of stagnation’—saw a dramatic shift in attitudes towards time and history. Many people and social groups shared a feeling of being stuck in the Soviet system and its bureaucratic structures. The immutability of that system generated a sense of time unique to late socialism: an eternal present. However, it was precisely during that allegedly stagnant present that eclectic notions of repetition, emptiness, impermanence, circularity, ritual and death surfaced in late Soviet culture and thought. In turn, the engagement with such notions, especially in artistic underground circles, produced a dynamic multitude of co-existing temporalities. Those temporalities were expressed in the philosophy, art and science of that time, circulating both through official channels and samizdat.

Aims

The aims of the Soviet Temporalities Study Group are threefold. First, to reconstruct the multitude of temporal regimes that existed during the Soviet period. Second, to investigate the extent to which these temporal regimes relate to a shift in how various social groups experienced and made sense of history and time. Finally, to understand how those multiple temporalities, which also shaped the late Soviet underground, are currently being reappropriated by mainstream culture and ideology. In the shadow of Russia’s war on Ukraine, one of the questions that keeps recurring in the group’s discussions concerns the extent to which the multiple temporal regimes and eschatological discourses of late socialism have shaped contemporary culture and politics.

Activities

Late Soviet Temporalities Reading Group  

Late Soviet Temporalities is an online reading group which focuses on Soviet theories and artefacts of time. Since its launch in February 2023, it has grown into a vibrant group of people based across five different time zones, who gather every three weeks on Zoom. The group’s participants have discussed texts by Alexandre Kojève, Anzhelika Arthyukh, Evald Ilyenkov, Yuri Mamleev and Boris Groys, among others. They listened to music by Valentin Silvestrov and watched films by Vladimir Kobrin, Chantal Akerman and a collective known as the Necrorealists. You can find a schedule of previous and forthcoming sessions here.

The reading group’s working language is English. The sessions are interactive and the convenors encourage participants to curate and chair sessions. The reading group is open to everyone who is interested in time and Soviet temporalities.

Future events

BASEES Annual Conference, 5-7 April 2024, Cambridge, UK

Participants in the Soviet Temporalities Study Group have curated and will speak in two panels: 

●      “Late Soviet Temporalities: Buddhism and Late Soviet Culture”

●      “The Metamodern Turn in Russian Culture: Affect, Ambiguity and Recycling”

Past events

BASEES Annual Conference, 31 March - 2 April 2023, Glasgow, UK

 Participants in the Soviet Temporalities Study Group curated and presented at the panel “The Aesthetics of Return in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture”.

Get involved

We are always open to receiving suggestions and making new connections. There are a few ways to get involved in the Study Group.

●      To join the reading group or subscribe to our mailing list, please email the convenors of the study group Katerina Pavlidi (University College Dublin) and Isabel Jacobs (Queen Mary University of London).

●      To receive our blog posts and newsletter, please subscribe to our Substack.

●      To take a look at our archive, library of time, and conceptual toolbox, please visit our virtual room at the Museum of Care.

●      For any other suggestions or proposals for collaborations, feel free to get in touch with us.