It Will Be Fun and Terrifying: Nationalism and Protest in Post-Soviet Russia

Oct. 6, 2020, 1:00-2:30pm
The Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia

Join NYU's Jordan Center for a talk with Brown University assistant professor Fabrizio Fenghi about right-wing ideas in Russia. The National Bolshevik Party, founded in the mid-1990s by Eduard Limonov and Aleksandr Dugin, began as an attempt to combine radically different ideologies. In the years that followed, Limonov, Dugin and the movements they led underwent dramatic shifts. The two leaders eventually became political adversaries, with Dugin and his organizations strongly supporting Putin’s regime while Limonov and his groups became part of the liberal opposition. To illuminate the role of these right-wing ideas in contemporary Russian society, Fabrizio Fenghi examines the public pronouncements and aesthetics of this influential movement. He analyzes a diverse range of media, including novels, art exhibitions, performances, seminars, punk rock concerts and even protest actions. His interviews with key figures reveal an attempt to create an alternative intellectual class, or a “counter-intelligensia.” This volume shows how certain forms of art can transform into political action through the creation of new languages, institutions and modes of collective participation.

Speaker:

Fabrizio Fenghi, assistant professor of Slavic Studies, Brown University