Charms of Cynical Reason
Tricksters in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture
(
Serie Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century
)
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Brighton MA (USA)
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The impetus for Charms of Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial soviet culture, as well as into the post-Soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through the analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of Soviet and post-Soviet tricksters - including such “cultural idioms” as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Vasilii Tyorkin, Shtirlitz, and a few others. The steady charisma of Soviet tricksters spreading from the 1920s to the 2000s is indicative of at least two fundamental features of both the Soviet and post-Soviet societies. First, tricksters reflect the constant presence of irresolvable contradictions and yawning gaps within the Soviet (as well as post-soviet) social universe. Secondly, these characters epitomize the realm of cynical culture thus far unrecognized in Russian Studies. Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the Soviet and post-Soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, contradictions, and by these means – its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s.
