With the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, models of cultural resistance to authoritarian regimes are more urgent than ever. In forty-four chapters, the Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture (Oxford University Press 2024) presents a wealth of knowledge about unofficial Soviet culture—an inexhaustible source of such models. Proposing the concept of lifeworlds as a theoretical approach to underground culture, the Handbook presents a wide variety of the Soviet cultural underground, from literature to visual art and performance, from the 1930s to the perestroika period, implicitly proposing an alternative version of Soviet cultural history and its canon.

The discussion will be chaired by Matthias Schwartz (ZfL).

The event is organized in cooperation with TU Dresden.