Memories of the Future: The cultural legacy of the Russian Revolution

One hundred years after the Russian Revolution, the intellectual and ideological nature of the art and culture produced between October 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 remained hotly debated and, at times, poorly understood. Here, Juliet Jacques welcomes writer/critics Maria Chehonadskih, Owen Hatherley (author of Militant Modernism (2009), Landscapes of Communism (2015) and The Chaplin Machine (2016)) and Ilia Rogatchevski to discuss the cultural legacy of the Soviet period and challenge Western preconceptions about the relationship between art and politics in the former USSR, from the Constructivist energy of the 1920s and imposition of Socialist Realism under Stalin, all the way through to the underground art movements of the 1980s. WORKS REFERENCED: Maria Chehonadskih on Pussy Riot – https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/what-is-pussy-riots-idea Adam Curtis on Vladislav Surkov - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od4MWs7qTr8 SERGEI M. EISENSTEIN, Aleksandr Nevsky (1938) SERGEI M. EISENSTEIN, Ivan the Terrible (Parts I & II) (1944-1958) SERGEI M. EISENSTEIN, October (Ten Days That Shook the World) (1928) EVALD ILYENKOV (Soviet theorist) - https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/ ILYA & EMILIA KABAKOV (Moscow Conceptual School) - https://ilya-emilia-kabakov.com/ VITALI KOMAR (Sots Art founder) - http://www.komarandmelamid.org/ MIKHAIL LIFSHITZ(Soviet philosopher) - https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/12/15/art-is-dead-long-live-art-mikhail-lifshitz-on-karl-marxs-philosophy-of-art/ EDUARD LIMONOV (National Bolshevik Party) CHRIS MARKER, The Last Bolshevik (1993) - https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-happiness-is-making-a-bolshevik-laugh-1459870.html VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, '150,000,000' (1919-1920) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/150_000_000 VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, The Bathhouse (1929) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bathhouse VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, The Bedbug (1928) - http://snoowilson.co.uk/The%20Bedbug.pdf ALEKSANDR MEDVEDKIN (Soviet filmmaker) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Medvedkin Deimantas Narkevičius (Lithuanian filmmaker/artist) YURI OLESHA, Envy (1927) - https://godsavethetsar.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/dont-laugh-andrei-petrovich-yuri-oleshas-envy/ VIKTOR PELEVIN (Russian author) BORIS PILNYAK, The Naked Year (1928) - http://www.overlookpress.com/ardis/naked-year-1.html ANDREI PLATONOV, The Foundation Pit (1930) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit ABRAM ROOM, Bed and Sofa (1927) - http://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/1339/film-club-sofa-and-bed-abram-room VLADIMIR SOROKIN (Russian author) VLADIMIR TATLIN, Letatlin – http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-birdlike-soviet-flying-machine-that-never-quite-took-off VLADIMIR TATLIN, 'Monument to the Third International' (1919-1920, unbuilt) DZIGA VERTOV, The Eleventh Year (1928) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSve8HNjZ4Y DZIGA VERTOV, Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass (1930) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUInm2dC6Ug DZIGA VERTOV, Kino-Pravda (1920s) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0SJyLX9MgQ DZIGA VERTOV, Man with a Movie Camera (1929) DZIGA VERTOV, Stride, Soviet! (1926) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILG1_ceQCzE DZIGA VERTOV, Three Songs of Lenin (1934) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66SYdygrpE VOINA, phallus on Liteiny Bridge, St. Petersburg - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/apr/12/voina-art-terrorism