The Ethics of Postcommunism History and Social Praxis in Russia

by Prozorov, Sergei

• ISBN13: 9780230224131
• ISBN10: 023022413X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Prozorov offers a radical reinterpretation of contemporary Russian politics in terms of Agamben#x19;s philosophy. Reconstructing Agamben#x19;s conception of the end of history, that challenges the Hegelian thesis, Prozorov approaches post-communist Russia as a post-historical terrain, in which the teleological dimension of politics has been deactivated.

Author Biography

SERGEI PROZOROV is Collegium Research Fellow, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Preface	p. x
Universal Postcommunism: Kojève and Agamben on the End of History	p. 1
To Uryupinsk	p. 1
The End of History and the Study of Postcommunism	p. 3
The Workless Slave	p. 9
Profane Messianism	p. 14
Subtractive Negation	p. 18
The Intellectual	p. 22
Towards a Post-historical Ethos	p. 28
A Time Like No Other: Russian Politics after the End of History	p. 38
The Long Farewell to the 1990s	p. 38
Timelessness, Chronos and Kairos	p. 40
The Lingering of the Political	p. 45
The End of Time and the Time of the End	p. 50
Inoperosity	p. 54
Postcommunist Playland	p. 59
Post-transitionalism and its Double	p. 63
The Realm of Pure Synchrony	p. 69
Why Russia No Longer Celebrates November 7	p. 75
The Legacy of Alexander Rutskoi	p. 79
Poetry and Politics in the Ethics of Postcommunism	p. 84
The Janitor Generation: The Ethics of Disengagement in the Late-Soviet Period	p. 89
The Refusal of Work in Soviet Counter-Culture	p. 89
Ivanov, or Beside the System	p. 97
What is a Pure Performative?	p. 101
Para-Soviet Praxis	p. 107
Identity and Potentiality in Para-Soviet Milieus	p. 112
Between Law and Love	p. 119
The Paradox of Perestroika	p. 130
From a Shining Void: The Dialectic of Bespredel in Postcommunist Social Praxis	p. 137
The Empty Cage	p. 137
The Premonition of Civil War	p. 143
Bespredel	p. 147
The Barge Hauler's Aporia	p. 154
A Prayer for the Irreparable	p. 163
October 1993	p. 171
Emptiness All Around	p. 176
How to Play with Lost Objects	p. 183
From Identity to Habit	p. 190
The Invisible Victory: Experimentum Linguae and the Appropriation of Anomie	p. 198
The Anomie of Law	p. 198
Cratocracy	p. 203
As Not	p. 209
The Secret Wisdom of the Dancing Girls	p. 217
Free time and the Politics of Decreation	p. 224
The Generic Community	p. 230
Being in Love	p. 236
Conclusion	p. 245
Notes	p. 249
Appendix	p. 253
Bibliography	p. 255
Index	p. 263
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