Book presentation “Horror & Melodrama” at the ZfL
Book presentation “Horror & Melodrama: Die sowjetische Vergangenheit in der Populärkultur von Belarus, Ukraine und Russland” (Horror and Melodrama: The Soviet Past in the Popular Culture of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia) on the book “Appropriating History: The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Popular Culture” with editors Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller, and contributors Eva Binder and Oleksandr Zabirko.
Where: Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Eberhard-Lämmert-Saal, entrance Meierottostr. 8, 10719 Berlin
When: 12 February 2025, 6.30 pm
(The event will be in German)
Melodramatic love stories set in the Gulag, apocalyptic landscapes of ruins, horrifying images of nuclear-contaminated areas—the Soviet visual and cultural-political heritage enjoys great popularity, not only in the West. Especially in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, which were newly founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the shared past is not only a contested subject in public debates, but also a playing field for appropriations in popular culture. What is driving the boom of Soviet relics in genres such as blockbusters, historical or family epics, music videos, video games, or comics? Does the fascination with recent history stem from the search for a new “national idea,” a push to “decolonize” long hegemonic historical myths? Or is it part of a global trend to continually recycle controversial and mysterious historical figures and events? And does this boom also serve historical enlightenment, or is it just a symptom of backward-looking nostalgia, if not a dangerous instrumentalization of history for the present?
The editors of the volume Appropriating History: The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Popular Culture (transcript 2024), project members Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller (both ZfL), will discuss these questions together with contributors Eva Binder (University of Innsbruck) and Oleksandr Zabirko (University of Regensburg).