Alexei Yurchak
Biographic Data
| ID | 3639409 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexei Yurchak |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexei |
| FAMILY NAME | Yurchak |
| SIGNATURE | YURCHAK A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 367 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Tactility of the Sacred
The Soviet system was organized around the figure of Lenin, which embodied the foundational and unquestionable truth of the communist project. This figure stood partially outside of Soviet political, legal, and aesthetic language; hence, representing Lenin in external signs (linguistic, visual, material) was challenging. To be successful, representations of Lenin had to be linked to his physical body. Focusing on visual representations of Lenin, …
Necro-Utopia
In the late 1970s in Leningrad, a group of young friends started experimenting with “irrational” events and provocations, some of them carried out among themselves, in private apartments and during outings to the countryside, and others in the public space of the city in front of unsuspecting witnesses. The lifestyle, interests, and collective practices of this group were not originally an artistic or political project. Evgenii Yufit (born 1961),…
Political Mutations in Present-Day Russia
On April 17, 2023, Ilya Budraitskis and Ilya Matveev—both of whom were forced to flee Russia to avoid arrest for their open opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine—sat down with anthropologist Alexei Yurchak to discuss the war, its origins, and its implications. How, in retrospect, might we trace a red thread from the authoritarian neoliberalism of the early Putin era to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its pronounced dictatorial tu…
Sacred necropolitics
In this meditation, Anya Bernstein and Alexei Yurchak discuss Yurchak's essay, "The canon and the mushroom: Lenin, sacredness, and Soviet collapse," which is published in the current issue. They elaborate on some points in the essay that are central for the understanding of the figure of "Lenin" and its role in Soviet history, take them in new directions, and link them to other topics that are relevant to anthropology. The themes discussed includ…
The canon and the mushroom
This essay focuses on a paradoxical transformation that happened within Soviet ideological discourse at the very end of perestroika, around 1990-91. The Party's attempts to revitalize Soviet ideology by returning to the original word of Lenin unexpectedly produced the opposite result. The unquestionable external Truth from which Soviet ideological discourse drew its legitimacy-and that had always been identical with Lenin's word-suddenly could no…
Bodies of Lenin
This essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years. It focuses on the materiality of this particular body, the unique biological science that developed around the project, and the peculiar political role this body has performed
Comment on Dace Dzenovska's ‘Bordering encounters’
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More
A Parasite from Outer Space
In 1991, Leningrad television broadcast a program that has since become infamous. The program's guest, Sergei Kurekhin, claiming to be a political figure and scientist, conducted an elaborate hoax that he presented as a serious historical exploration into the origins of the Bolshevik revolution. Using visual, textual, and scientific evidence, Kurekhin argued that the revolution was led by people who had been consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms. As…
American Stiob
This essay asks what the study of socialism and its legacies still offers anthropology of the contemporary world and argues that studying late-socialist aesthetics and practices can provide unexpected insight into late-liberal political culture, communication, and subjectivity. In the first half of the essay, we concentrate on a particular mode of parody (known in Russia as stiob) that imitated and inhabited the formal features of authoritative d…
Postsocialist Studies, Cultures of Parody and American Stiob
Suspending the Political
The Russian term samizdat originally referred to self-published literature that was forbidden by or at least unavailable in the Soviet state, circulated through unofficial channels, and represented certain views that were alternative to the official ideology of that state. Sometimes, in the Soviet Union itself, the term samizdat was used in a broader sense, to mean diverse phenomena of unofficial cultural production-not necessarily of literary or…
Necro-Utopia
Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a "politics of indistinction." They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary "Soviet citizens," whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for making the collapse of the Soviet state imminent. C…
Russian Neoliberal
Soviet Hegemony of Form
This paper was prompted by a personal question that has puzzled many former Soviet people, myself included, since the late 1980s: How to make sense of the sudden evaporation of the colossal and seemingly monolithic Soviet system and way of life, in which we grew up and lived? What was it about the Soviet system that made its 'collapse' appear completely unimaginable and surprisingly fast not only to most Western Sovietologists but also to most So…
Privatize your name
This paper analyzes the new names given to Russian private businesses that have appeared after the collapse of the Soviet State in 1991. By naming new private ventures their owners members of the new business class attempt to privatize public space not only legally but also symbolically and linguistically. They strive to construct their particular new version of social reality, to represent it as positive and meaningful, and to impose themselves …
The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism
Research Article| May 01 1997 The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anekdot Alexei Yurchak Alexei Yurchak Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (1997) 9 (2): 161–188. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-9-2-161 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Alexei Yurchak; The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anek…
American Stiob
This essay asks what the study of socialism and its legacies still offers anthropology of the contemporary world and argues that studying late-socialist aesthetics and practices can provide unexpected insight into late-liberal political culture, communication, and subjectivity. In the first half of the essay, we concentrate on a particular mode of parody (known in Russia as stiob) that imitated and inhabited the formal features of authoritative d…
Soviet Hegemony of Form
This paper was prompted by a personal question that has puzzled many former Soviet people, myself included, since the late 1980s: How to make sense of the sudden evaporation of the colossal and seemingly monolithic Soviet system and way of life, in which we grew up and lived? What was it about the Soviet system that made its 'collapse' appear completely unimaginable and surprisingly fast not only to most Western Sovietologists but also to most So…
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More
The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism
Research Article| May 01 1997 The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anekdot Alexei Yurchak Alexei Yurchak Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (1997) 9 (2): 161–188. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-9-2-161 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Alexei Yurchak; The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anek…
Necro-Utopia
Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a "politics of indistinction." They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary "Soviet citizens," whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for making the collapse of the Soviet state imminent. C…
Bodies of Lenin
This essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years. It focuses on the materiality of this particular body, the unique biological science that developed around the project, and the peculiar political role this body has performed
Russian Neoliberal
Privatize your name
This paper analyzes the new names given to Russian private businesses that have appeared after the collapse of the Soviet State in 1991. By naming new private ventures their owners members of the new business class attempt to privatize public space not only legally but also symbolically and linguistically. They strive to construct their particular new version of social reality, to represent it as positive and meaningful, and to impose themselves …
A Parasite from Outer Space
In 1991, Leningrad television broadcast a program that has since become infamous. The program's guest, Sergei Kurekhin, claiming to be a political figure and scientist, conducted an elaborate hoax that he presented as a serious historical exploration into the origins of the Bolshevik revolution. Using visual, textual, and scientific evidence, Kurekhin argued that the revolution was led by people who had been consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms. As…
Suspending the Political
The Russian term samizdat originally referred to self-published literature that was forbidden by or at least unavailable in the Soviet state, circulated through unofficial channels, and represented certain views that were alternative to the official ideology of that state. Sometimes, in the Soviet Union itself, the term samizdat was used in a broader sense, to mean diverse phenomena of unofficial cultural production-not necessarily of literary or…
Postsocialist Studies, Cultures of Parody and American Stiob
The canon and the mushroom
This essay focuses on a paradoxical transformation that happened within Soviet ideological discourse at the very end of perestroika, around 1990-91. The Party's attempts to revitalize Soviet ideology by returning to the original word of Lenin unexpectedly produced the opposite result. The unquestionable external Truth from which Soviet ideological discourse drew its legitimacy-and that had always been identical with Lenin's word-suddenly could no…
Sacred necropolitics
In this meditation, Anya Bernstein and Alexei Yurchak discuss Yurchak's essay, "The canon and the mushroom: Lenin, sacredness, and Soviet collapse," which is published in the current issue. They elaborate on some points in the essay that are central for the understanding of the figure of "Lenin" and its role in Soviet history, take them in new directions, and link them to other topics that are relevant to anthropology. The themes discussed includ…
The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism
Research Article| May 01 1997 The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anekdot Alexei Yurchak Alexei Yurchak Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (1997) 9 (2): 161–188. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-9-2-161 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Alexei Yurchak; The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anek…
Privatize your name
This paper analyzes the new names given to Russian private businesses that have appeared after the collapse of the Soviet State in 1991. By naming new private ventures their owners members of the new business class attempt to privatize public space not only legally but also symbolically and linguistically. They strive to construct their particular new version of social reality, to represent it as positive and meaningful, and to impose themselves …
Russian Neoliberal
Soviet Hegemony of Form
This paper was prompted by a personal question that has puzzled many former Soviet people, myself included, since the late 1980s: How to make sense of the sudden evaporation of the colossal and seemingly monolithic Soviet system and way of life, in which we grew up and lived? What was it about the Soviet system that made its 'collapse' appear completely unimaginable and surprisingly fast not only to most Western Sovietologists but also to most So…
Postsocialist Studies, Cultures of Parody and American Stiob
Suspending the Political
The Russian term samizdat originally referred to self-published literature that was forbidden by or at least unavailable in the Soviet state, circulated through unofficial channels, and represented certain views that were alternative to the official ideology of that state. Sometimes, in the Soviet Union itself, the term samizdat was used in a broader sense, to mean diverse phenomena of unofficial cultural production-not necessarily of literary or…
Necro-Utopia
Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a "politics of indistinction." They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary "Soviet citizens," whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for making the collapse of the Soviet state imminent. C…
American Stiob
This essay asks what the study of socialism and its legacies still offers anthropology of the contemporary world and argues that studying late-socialist aesthetics and practices can provide unexpected insight into late-liberal political culture, communication, and subjectivity. In the first half of the essay, we concentrate on a particular mode of parody (known in Russia as stiob) that imitated and inhabited the formal features of authoritative d…
A Parasite from Outer Space
In 1991, Leningrad television broadcast a program that has since become infamous. The program's guest, Sergei Kurekhin, claiming to be a political figure and scientist, conducted an elaborate hoax that he presented as a serious historical exploration into the origins of the Bolshevik revolution. Using visual, textual, and scientific evidence, Kurekhin argued that the revolution was led by people who had been consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms. As…
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More
Comment on Dace Dzenovska's ‘Bordering encounters’
Bodies of Lenin
This essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years. It focuses on the materiality of this particular body, the unique biological science that developed around the project, and the peculiar political role this body has performed
Sacred necropolitics
In this meditation, Anya Bernstein and Alexei Yurchak discuss Yurchak's essay, "The canon and the mushroom: Lenin, sacredness, and Soviet collapse," which is published in the current issue. They elaborate on some points in the essay that are central for the understanding of the figure of "Lenin" and its role in Soviet history, take them in new directions, and link them to other topics that are relevant to anthropology. The themes discussed includ…
The canon and the mushroom
This essay focuses on a paradoxical transformation that happened within Soviet ideological discourse at the very end of perestroika, around 1990-91. The Party's attempts to revitalize Soviet ideology by returning to the original word of Lenin unexpectedly produced the opposite result. The unquestionable external Truth from which Soviet ideological discourse drew its legitimacy-and that had always been identical with Lenin's word-suddenly could no…
Political Mutations in Present-Day Russia
On April 17, 2023, Ilya Budraitskis and Ilya Matveev—both of whom were forced to flee Russia to avoid arrest for their open opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine—sat down with anthropologist Alexei Yurchak to discuss the war, its origins, and its implications. How, in retrospect, might we trace a red thread from the authoritarian neoliberalism of the early Putin era to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its pronounced dictatorial tu…
Necro-Utopia
In the late 1970s in Leningrad, a group of young friends started experimenting with “irrational” events and provocations, some of them carried out among themselves, in private apartments and during outings to the countryside, and others in the public space of the city in front of unsuspecting witnesses. The lifestyle, interests, and collective practices of this group were not originally an artistic or political project. Evgenii Yufit (born 1961),…
Tactility of the Sacred
The Soviet system was organized around the figure of Lenin, which embodied the foundational and unquestionable truth of the communist project. This figure stood partially outside of Soviet political, legal, and aesthetic language; hence, representing Lenin in external signs (linguistic, visual, material) was challenging. To be successful, representations of Lenin had to be linked to his physical body. Focusing on visual representations of Lenin, …
Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · History (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Literature (5 works)