CBEES Advanced Seminar with Nadezda Petrusenko, post-doctoral researcher in contemporary history, Södertörn University.

Presenter: Nadezda Petrusenko, post-doctoral researcher in contemporary history, Södertörn University.
Chair/Discussant: TBA

Abstract

October Revolution of 1917 was the foundation myth of the Soviet state, and narratives of revolutionary struggle connected to it were extremely important for legitimization of the Soviet state and creation of Homo Soveticus. In the post-Soviet context this legacy of the Soviet empire has become an “uncomfortable past” for the Russian authorities as well as the right-wing and centrist parties. At the same time, the revolutionary heritage of Russia is still playing an important role in the memory politics of the Russian left since it helps legitimize leftist political identities as different from the national identity promoted by the ruling regime and contextualizes the post-Soviet Russian left historically.

Previous researchers have studied uses of revolutionary history in the political rhetoric of the leftist parties and organizations. However, uses of revolutionary heritage in the works of street art created by activists with leftist political affiliations, that will be in the focus of the presentation, have not yet enjoyed as much scholarly attention.

In the center of the presentation will be analysis of the works of street art (graffities, posters, performances) created by activists with anarchist, communist and feminist political views, where narratives of revolutionary struggle have been employed. In the course of presentation, the following questions will be answered: which narratives of revolutionary struggle have been re-actualized during the post-Soviet period? Can these re-actualizations be seen as iterations or alterations of the Soviet narratives? In which way have the activists used these narratives to articulate their political identities as oppositional to the post-Soviet national identity constructed by the authorities? Comparison of the way revolutionary history was used by mnemonic actors with different political affiliations will be made in order to draw conclusions about the opportunities that revolutionary history of Russia gives for the legitimization of post-Soviet political actors.

Bio:

Nadezda Petrusenko is a post-doctoral researcher in contemporary history at Södertörn University (Sweden). Her project “Narratives of Revolutionary Struggle and Construction of Post-Soviet Identities in Russia (1991-2018)” financed by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies deals with the place of Russian revolutionary heritage in the memory politics of post-Soviet Russia.

Petrusenko has authored 30 scholarly works that deal with Russian and Swedish history, including her doctoral dissertation Creating the Revolutionary Heroines: The Case of Female Terrorists of the PSR (Russia, Beginning of the 20th Century) (Stockholm, 2017).