Russian Space RSCPR research group guest lecture series
Lecture abstract:
In contemporary Russia, both the regime and the democratically oriented opposition hold on to their memory narratives of the 1990s, a period that is often seen as the foundational decade of the modern Russian state. The governmental narrative, conveyed through state-controlled TV networks, presents the ’90s as the time of lawlessness, violence, and poverty, while the oppositional narrative, represented primarily through the projects of the Yegor Gaidar Foundation and the online publication Colta, portrays them as the years of professional opportunities and cultural diversity. When the oppositional narrative gains enough momentum to attract a wider audience, we witness how the narratives clash: The regime employs its vast resources to defend its narrative, even if the disruption caused by the oppositional media wasn’t that large. As a result, the 1990s appear to be the most contested period of Soviet and Russian history with the exception of the Soviet terror. Yet this — as I show in the lecture — is not a coincidence: In modern Russia, a proper public conversation about the ’90s is impossible precisely because the period itself is a time of the unfinished working-through of the aftermath of the Soviet totalitarianism. The 1990s, which didn’t become the years of Russia’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung, stand as a signifier of discussions that either didn’t happen or were left unfinished.
Yegór Osipov-Gipsh is a Dutch-Russian researcher and journalist. He is co-author of, most recently, Poetins Rechtbank: Proteststemmen uit een Autoritaire Staat.