{"id":609,"date":"2023-07-31T12:46:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T12:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/?page_id=609"},"modified":"2026-03-17T14:27:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T14:27:59","slug":"late-soviet-temporalities","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/late-soviet-temporalities\/","title":{"rendered":"Soviet Temporalities Study Group"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n

The Soviet Temporalities Study Group <\/span>critically explores conceptions of time which were developed during the Soviet period. In the years following the October Revolution in 1917, a future-oriented outlook dominated politics and social life. The period between the 1960s and the late 1980s\u2014widely known today as the \u2018era of stagnation\u2019\u2014saw a dramatic shift in attitudes towards time and history. Many people and social groups shared a feeling of being stuck in the Soviet system and its bureaucratic structures. The immutability of that system generated a sense of time unique to late socialism: an eternal present. However, it was precisely during that allegedly stagnant present that eclectic notions of repetition, emptiness, impermanence, circularity, ritual and death surfaced in late Soviet culture and thought. In turn, the engagement with such notions, especially in artistic underground circles, produced a dynamic multitude of co-existing temporalities. Those temporalities were expressed in the philosophy, art and science of that time, circulating both through official channels and samizdat.<\/p>\n

Aims<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The aims of the Soviet Temporalities Study Group are threefold. First, to reconstruct the multitude of temporal regimes that existed during the Soviet period. Second, to investigate the extent to which these temporal regimes relate to a shift in how various social groups experienced and made sense of history and time. Finally, to understand how those multiple temporalities, which also shaped the late Soviet underground, are currently being reappropriated by mainstream culture and ideology. In the shadow of Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine, one of the questions that keeps recurring in the group\u2019s discussions concerns the extent to which the multiple temporal regimes and eschatological discourses of late socialism have shaped contemporary culture and politics.<\/p>\n

Organisers<\/h3>\n

Katerina Pavlidi (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University College Dublin)
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Isabel Jacobs (PhD candidate, CEREES, Queen Mary University of London)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to participate, please email Katerina Pavlidi at\u00a0katerina.pavlidi@ucd.ie<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>or Isabel Jacobs at\u00a0i.jacobs@qmul.ac.uk<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Soviet Temporalities Study Group is affiliated to and supported by BASEES<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Activities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Soviet Temporalities Reading Group\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> <\/em><\/h3>\n

Soviet Temporalities is an online reading group which focuses on Soviet theories and artefacts of time. Since its launch in February 2023, it has grown into a vibrant group of people based across five different time zones, who gather every three weeks on Zoom. The group\u2019s participants have discussed texts by Alexandre Koj\u00e8ve, Anzhelika Arthyukh, Evald Ilyenkov, Yuri Mamleev and Boris Groys, among others. They listened to music by Valentin Silvestrov and watched films by Vladimir Kobrin, Chantal Akerman and a collective known as the Necrorealists.<\/p>\n

Late Soviet Temporalities critically explores\u00a0conceptions of time that were developed during the late Soviet period.\u00a0Between\u00a01964 and 1982, a period labelled as an \u201cEra of Stagnation\u201d, eclectic notions of impermanence, circularity, emptiness, repetition, ritual and death surfaced in Soviet philosophical and artistic discourses.\u00a0The Reading Group aims\u00a0to reconstruct how philosophers and artists of the late Soviet underground conceptualised and expressed such notions. We ask how their engagement with temporalities relates to a shift in the ways various social groups experienced and made sense of history and time. Finally, we investigate why such a temporal shift took place and why studying it\u00a0matters today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the academic year 2022-2023, we discussed texts by\u00a0Alexandre Koj\u00e8ve,\u00a0Anzhelika Arthyukh,\u00a0Evald Ilyenkov,\u00a0Yuri Mamleev and Boris Groys, among others. We\u00a0listened to music by Valentin Silvestrov and\u00a0watched films by\u00a0Vladimir Kobrin,\u00a0Chantal Akerman and a collective known as the\u00a0Necrorealists. Based on our discussions of these sources, we discerned a number of factors that shaped\u00a0the\u00a0new regimes of time\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which we call “late Soviet\u00a0temporalities”\u00a0\u2014\u00a0as well as the time-based cultural products of the underground: the postmodern condition, eschatology, dialectical materialism, Russian mysticism, New Age spirituality, occultism, Orthodox Christianity, non-Western religions and particularly Buddhism,\u00a0neo-conservatism, and\u00a0continental philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our international and multidisciplinary group aims to\u00a0globalise and diversify scholarship on the late Soviet period. One way we do that is\u00a0by emphasising sources from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus, alongside more “canonical” ones from Leningrad and Moscow, and contributions by women.<\/span><\/p>\n

The group gathers every three weeks on Zoom and\u00a0the working language is English. Our sessions are interactive and we encourage participants to curate and chair sessions.\u00a0The group is open to everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Soviet Temporalities Substack<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

@soviettemporalities<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

Soviet Temporalities Reading Group<\/em> <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Schedule<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Click here for current and past schedule(s)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

Future and Past Events<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Click here for future and past events<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Shape the Conversation<\/span><\/h2>\n

To join our mailing list, participate in our programme of events, or find out how we can support your research, please contact hss-cerees@qmul.ac.uk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Pitch a new CEREES Group<\/span><\/a> \u00a0\/ \u00a0Pitch a new CEREES Screening<\/a> \u00a0\/ \u00a0<\/span>Pitch a new CEREES Collaboration<\/span><\/a><\/h4>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction The Soviet Temporalities Study Group critically explores conceptions of time which were developed during the Soviet period. In the years following the October Revolution in 1917, a future-oriented outlook dominated politics and social life. The period between the 1960s and the late 1980s\u2014widely known today as the \u2018era of stagnation\u2019\u2014saw a dramatic shift in […] Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-609","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":89,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2294,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/609\/revisions\/2294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/cerees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}