Alexei Yurchak – författare

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise. Although these characteristics may appear mutually exclusive, in fact they were mutually constitutive. This book explores the paradoxes of Soviet life during the period of "late socialism" (1960s-1980s) through the eyes of the last Soviet generation. Focusing on the major transformation of the 1950s at the level of discourse, ideology, language, and ritual, Alexei Yurchak traces the emergence of multiple unanticipated meanings, communities, relations, ideals, and pursuits that this transformation subsequently enabled. His historical, anthropological, and linguistic analysis draws on rich ethnographic material from Late Socialism and the post-Soviet period. The model of Soviet socialism that emerges provides an alternative to binary accounts that describe that system as a dichotomy of official culture and unofficial culture, the state and the people, public self and private self, truth and lie--and ignore the crucial fact that, for many Soviet citizens, the fundamental values, ideals, and realities of socialism were genuinely important, although they routinely transgressed and reinterpreted the norms and rules of the socialist state.

21 janvier 1924 : Vladimir Ilitch, dit Lénine, meurt, à l’âge de 53 ans. Que faire de la dépouille du père immortel de la révolution d’Octobre ?Dans les mois qui suivent son décès, des discussions ont lieu au sommet du pouvoir soviétique. Le choix de conserver le corps de Lénine est fait, au gré des considérations politiques et des possibilités alors offertes par la science. Objet singulier, ni embaumé, ni cryogénisé, il est depuis plus de cent ans soigneusement préservé par un institut spécialisé aux techniques gardées secrètes. À ce jour, son corps est toujours exposé au public dans un mausolée.Dans cet essai remarquable, l’auteur se concentre sur la matérialité du corps de Lénine, la biotechnologie inédite qui s’est développée autour de sa préservation, et son rôle politique. Comment et pourquoi la technique perpétue-t-elle le corps de Lénine, au service du pouvoir en Russie ?