Irina Varskaya

In this project, Irina Varskaya focuses on the spontaneous or quite unconscious elements of the Russian official language of the last nine to ten years. She describes several new trends of official understanding of “Russianness” as well as Russian history and politics, which tend to be contemplated as a step towards the elaboration of innovative models both of crisis management and of working with “catastrophes” of the Russian (and world) political past. Varskaya argues that the language of “Naturalness” is a new set of discursive “preconditions” that are used to create a novel image of a brave "vital" new world; this undertaking is framed as an inevitable mission. The contemporary world is represented within this discursive frame as a choice-free (perhaps even a quasi-sacral) inexorable prelude to the “necessary other world,” with the goal of eliminating past choices, and creating and advertising alternative political values.

This Fellowship is part of the Progressive Int. Initiative.