Nothing is more nonsensical than an imitation of reality; nothing more superfluous: there is enou... more Nothing is more nonsensical than an imitation of reality; nothing more superfluous: there is enough reality already. Max Frisch Sitting on the gas tank of an airplane, my stomach warmed by the pilot's head, I sensed the ridiculous inanity of the old syntax inherited from Homer. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti "Cement ed with blood, sturdily the USSR stands," boldly declared the founding fathers of Lef in the first issue of their journal. 1 Human blood as the building material of the new state, albeit a visceral image, should not be understood purely figuratively, as it is a literal reference to the bloody wars-from World War I to the Civil War-surrounding the state's creation. What strikes one, however, is the assertion that the USSR is built solidly because of this material, and this material alone. Human blood here acts as a fit surrogate for cement, an advantage in a country that had much larger supplies of the former than the latter. 2 Blood is just one component of the body whose productive potential was gaining attention at the time. Alexei Gastev, the Proletcult poet and importer of biomechanics into Russia, asks, "Why are there mountains of books written on thermal energy, furnaces, boilers, steam machines, electricity, anthracite, white coal, and electrification, but none on the energy of the worker?" 3 At a time when the country most sorely needed materials and technology for its reconstruction, human bodies became its cheapest available material and its basic technology.
My article analyzes Venedikt Erofeev's cultivation of weakness via alcoholic intoxication in ... more My article analyzes Venedikt Erofeev's cultivation of weakness via alcoholic intoxication in Moskva-Petushki against the grain of its standard interpretations. The critical consensus holds that the protagonist (and by extension, the author, with whom he shares his name and autobiographical details) is a sober drunk and a holy fool. By contrast, I read the protagonist's failure to reach his destination and his untimely death in a less celebratory light. Intoxication functions as a means of spiritual seclusion, of finding oneself through the process of “falling out” of all social systems. Via this categorical renunciation of any affiliation, the protagonist aims to escape conscription into any acts of cruelty or destruction ranging from historical atrocities to the most quotidian application of force. The protagonist makes a superhuman effort to avoid any form of belonging out of the ethical imperative not to injure, but ends up inflicting harm upon himself and his loved ones anyway. My point here, then, is that the poema does not celebrate the protagonist's attempt to reach salvation via weakness and solitude, but ambivalently explores the aesthetic and ethical possibilities and limits of his choice as well as the feasibility and desirability of such radical freedom.
In this article the author discusses the image of mechanical ova (eggs) in early Russian science ... more In this article the author discusses the image of mechanical ova (eggs) in early Russian science fiction as one particular manifestation of ideas about the role of technology, which in Soviet history and political culture played the role of politicalindustrial catalyst. However, quite often technology also served as a utopian means of myth-creation. Special attention is devoted to Konstantin Ciolkovskii's novel Beyond the Earth and Aleksei Tolstoi's Aelita, which both feature egg-shaped spacecraft and also activate the symbolic values of the egg.
[T]he sufferer confronts us as actually worthy of awe only when his gaze has risen from the indiv... more [T]he sufferer confronts us as actually worthy of awe only when his gaze has risen from the individual to the general, when he regards his own suffering only as an example of the whole of suffering and, becoming in an ethical respect a genius, one case counts for him as equivalent to thousands, from whence his whole life, apprehended as essentially suffering, then brings him to the point of resignation. [...] We always imagine a very noble character as having a certain touch of quiet sadness, which is anything but constant annoyance over daily displeasures [...] but rather a consciousness that proceeds from cognizance of the nullity of all goods and the suffering of all life, not only one’s own. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
Nothing is more nonsensical than an imitation of reality; nothing more superfluous: there is enou... more Nothing is more nonsensical than an imitation of reality; nothing more superfluous: there is enough reality already. Max Frisch Sitting on the gas tank of an airplane, my stomach warmed by the pilot's head, I sensed the ridiculous inanity of the old syntax inherited from Homer. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti "Cement ed with blood, sturdily the USSR stands," boldly declared the founding fathers of Lef in the first issue of their journal. 1 Human blood as the building material of the new state, albeit a visceral image, should not be understood purely figuratively, as it is a literal reference to the bloody wars-from World War I to the Civil War-surrounding the state's creation. What strikes one, however, is the assertion that the USSR is built solidly because of this material, and this material alone. Human blood here acts as a fit surrogate for cement, an advantage in a country that had much larger supplies of the former than the latter. 2 Blood is just one component of the body whose productive potential was gaining attention at the time. Alexei Gastev, the Proletcult poet and importer of biomechanics into Russia, asks, "Why are there mountains of books written on thermal energy, furnaces, boilers, steam machines, electricity, anthracite, white coal, and electrification, but none on the energy of the worker?" 3 At a time when the country most sorely needed materials and technology for its reconstruction, human bodies became its cheapest available material and its basic technology.
My article analyzes Venedikt Erofeev's cultivation of weakness via alcoholic intoxication in ... more My article analyzes Venedikt Erofeev's cultivation of weakness via alcoholic intoxication in Moskva-Petushki against the grain of its standard interpretations. The critical consensus holds that the protagonist (and by extension, the author, with whom he shares his name and autobiographical details) is a sober drunk and a holy fool. By contrast, I read the protagonist's failure to reach his destination and his untimely death in a less celebratory light. Intoxication functions as a means of spiritual seclusion, of finding oneself through the process of “falling out” of all social systems. Via this categorical renunciation of any affiliation, the protagonist aims to escape conscription into any acts of cruelty or destruction ranging from historical atrocities to the most quotidian application of force. The protagonist makes a superhuman effort to avoid any form of belonging out of the ethical imperative not to injure, but ends up inflicting harm upon himself and his loved ones anyway. My point here, then, is that the poema does not celebrate the protagonist's attempt to reach salvation via weakness and solitude, but ambivalently explores the aesthetic and ethical possibilities and limits of his choice as well as the feasibility and desirability of such radical freedom.
In this article the author discusses the image of mechanical ova (eggs) in early Russian science ... more In this article the author discusses the image of mechanical ova (eggs) in early Russian science fiction as one particular manifestation of ideas about the role of technology, which in Soviet history and political culture played the role of politicalindustrial catalyst. However, quite often technology also served as a utopian means of myth-creation. Special attention is devoted to Konstantin Ciolkovskii's novel Beyond the Earth and Aleksei Tolstoi's Aelita, which both feature egg-shaped spacecraft and also activate the symbolic values of the egg.
[T]he sufferer confronts us as actually worthy of awe only when his gaze has risen from the indiv... more [T]he sufferer confronts us as actually worthy of awe only when his gaze has risen from the individual to the general, when he regards his own suffering only as an example of the whole of suffering and, becoming in an ethical respect a genius, one case counts for him as equivalent to thousands, from whence his whole life, apprehended as essentially suffering, then brings him to the point of resignation. [...] We always imagine a very noble character as having a certain touch of quiet sadness, which is anything but constant annoyance over daily displeasures [...] but rather a consciousness that proceeds from cognizance of the nullity of all goods and the suffering of all life, not only one’s own. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
Uploads
Papers by Julia Vaingurt