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I don't know how many books on cultural history
or history of architecture made such a strong impression on their
first readers as Vladimir Paperny's Culture Two. I read
Paperny's manuscript in 1979 in Moscow, and it felt like breathing
fresh air in the stale intellectual atmosphere of Moscow of that
time. Aesthetical problems of Soviet culture were discussed then
only in suffocatingly boring official publications, devoid of
any traces of analytical thinking or even of mere academic or
journalistic professionalism. Dissident intelligentsia, on the
other hand, was trying hard to ignore Soviet reality, to pretend
that it did not exist at all. For the opposition-minded intelligentsia,
the Soviet regime was only a source of oppression, limitations
and censorship. The reaction to it was either open or clandestine
(depending on the level of personal bravery) moral indignation.
Legitimate objects of cultural studies had to be sufficiently
removed not only from the "dirty" Soviet ideology and
reality, but also purified from any radical political and aesthetical
connotations. In this respect, moderate Modernists like poets
Pasternak and Akhmatova were the most comfortable objects of
cultural studies. It was believed at that time that the best
achievements of Russian culture of the 20th century were created
in spite of the Soviet regime. As a result, Soviet culture was
interpreted by dissident intelligentsia through the official
Lenin's theory of two cultures within any given culture (even
though dissident intelligentsia itself would have vehemently
denied such a connection). According to this theory, everything
good in a culture of the past was created in spite of the policies
of the ruling class.
Generally, liberal Russian intelligentsia in the 1970s was under
a strong influence of structuralism which main thrust was to
seek intrinsic unity in any given culture. But applying this
structuralist approach to Soviet culture was a taboo: it would
have meant equating executioners with victims and erasing the
border between culture and non-culture. At the first glance,
it could not prevent a structuralist analysis of the Soviet culture,
because Structuralism usually deals with oppositions. But for
the liberal Russian intelligentsia the opposition Soviet vs.
non-Soviet could not be thought of as belonging to any more general
system of oppositions.
The question of what was good in that part of the Russian culture,
which was censored and suppressed by the Soviet ideology was
answered by the Moscow intellectuals of the 1970s in a very restricting
way, itself bordering with the official censorship. For example,
the avant-garde of the 1920 was not considered a worthy object
of cultural studies, thus becoming a double victim of the official
and the oppositional censorship. For the official Soviet culture,
with its emphasis on realism, the avant-garde was unacceptable
on aesthetical grounds. For the liberal intelligentsia, the avant-garde
was unacceptable on political grounds, since the theoreticians
and the artists of the 1920s shared Marxist ideology for which
liberal intelligentsia became allergic. In the complex web of
the official and unofficial taboos, the impossibility of talking
about the evolving nature of Soviet ideology (which had always
been trying to forget its avant-garde roots) was perhaps the
biggest obstacle in the way of objective, non-biased study of
Soviet culture.
Against this background of almost total theoretical paralysis,
Paperny's manuscript struck me because its author obviously was
able to get rid of all the above mentioned (as well as some others)
taboos and superstitions - not one by one, but once and for all.
Without hesitation or excuses, Paperny subjected the totality
of Soviet culture to structuralist analysis, and all the boring
positive and negative clichés about Soviet culture disappeared
as if by magic. This book emanates the spirit of joy, freedom,
discovery. Paperny seems to be amazed himself how well every
part of his theoretical construction falls into place. And this
spirit is immediately shared by the reader. It's not easy to
imagine today, what unexpected joy it was in the early 1980s
to find a description of Soviet culture (seemingly the incarnation
of boredom itself) that was exciting and funny.
At the same time, Culture Two is a serious professional
study of architecture of the age of Stalin. It is still the best
text written on the subject precisely because history of architecture
is placed here within a more general cultural context. Paperny
demonstrates his extraordinary ability to uncover and to make
obvious for the reader the hidden connections between events
of everyday life, ideological trends, on the one hand, and shapes,
forms and spatial solutions created by both the avant-garde and
Stalinist artists, designers and planners, on the other.
The general theory of Soviet culture introduced by Paperny influenced
many authors writing on various aspects of Soviet culture, especially
those who, like this writer, later argued with his theory. The
English edition of the book is vitally important for all interested
in the cultural history of 20th Century and long overdue. It
will give the English speaking reader an opportunity not only
to better understand Soviet culture but also the political discussions
of the last two decades about the fate of Russian culture, the
discussions for which Vladimir Paperny's book became one of the
most powerful and fruitful impulses.
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