Soviet Debris

Failure and the Poetics of Unfinished Construction in Northern Siberia

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4188041
AutoresN Ssorin-Chaikov (0000-0001-7521-6912, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume83
Fascículo3
Páginas689-721
Data de publicação2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0037-783X • E-ISSN: 1944-768X
EditoraProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/sor.2016.0050
OpenAlexW2557652434
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas35
Referências citadas20

This article approaches failure through the lens of the ruination, residue, and debris that accumulated during the Soviet construction in northern Siberia. My focus is on the ambivalence of ruination and incomplete construction. I argue that debris as material and documentary product of the Soviet project is not merely an important component of the Soviet developmental machine but also a device for naming otherness—in particular, the imperial debris, the “enemies of the people,” and the resilience of “tradition.”

Ambivalence · Art · Debris · Literature · Poetics · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · European Linguistics and Anthropology · Geology · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Psychology · Soviet and Russian History