Valentina Parisi

My research project aims to a critical repositioning of Soviet unofficial culture as a historical phenomenon into the broader theoretical frame provided by counter-cultural studies. It is common knowledge that all throughout the period of “late socialism” alternative cultural practices have been flourishing in the Ussr. Consumption of self-published literature (samizdat) and of uncensored books published abroad (tamizdat), as well as art exhibitions, readings, lecture series, seminars and concerts organized in private apartments were often depicted as spontaneous, scattered manifestations of free thought and placed against a dark background of repression and standardization. Less known is how unofficial culture articulated itself in relation both to Soviet mass culture and to contemporary Western subcultures. My aim is to contribute to bridging the gap existing in the literature on this topic by placing Soviet unofficial culture into the current debate on countercultural movements. Concentrating on two decades (1970s and 1980s), I will shed light on the little explored contradiction inherent in Soviet unofficial culture as well as in many other counter-cultures: on the one hand, the attempt to create an authoritative alternative to official discourse out of widely differing ideological positions; on the other, the difficulty to go beyond a mere oppositional, nihilist attitude. In this respect, this project will enlarge the perspective of my previous research, focused on the “interpretive community” (Stanley Fish) committed to the production, dissemination and consumption of samizdat/tamizdat literature. By shifting the focus of inquiry to a wider interdisciplinary reconstruction of alternative cultural practices in their social context, I would question whether they implied the existence of a discrete community with a set of shared interests and beliefs, or rather they were expressions of separated groups characterized by a high transience and heterogeneity.  By scrutinizing the invaluable collections accessible at the Research Centre for East European Studies (Forschungsstelle Osteuropa – FSO – Bremen University), I expect myself to be able to question the prevalent interpretation based on often unreliable, self-glorifying recollections, and to provide the first assessment of this phenomenon firmly rooted in archival evidence.