Our Native Antiquity

“‘Our Native Antiquity’: Archaeology and Aesthetics in theCulture of Russian Modernism is one of those works whose theme seems to lie in plain view, but, untilthe appearance of this study, remained unnoticed… It introduces essentialcorrectives to the history of national-cultural self-consciousness…. theauthor’s achievement is outstanding. [It] allows one to present modernism notonly as a revolution of ideas and aesthetic tastes, but as a transformation ofthe symbolic ‘habitat,’ with an entire gamut of new sensations accompanyingthis radical restructuring of the cultural ecology.” —Boris Gasparov, AbImperio