The Future of Nostalgia

601 Pages·2002·7.43 MB·English

by  Svetlana Boym

THE FUTURE OF NOSTALGIA
THE FUTURE OF NOSTALGIA
SVETLANA BOYM
To my parents, Yuri and Musa Goldberg
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Taboo on Nostalgia? xiii • PART I •
HYPOCHONDRIA OF THE HEART: NOSTALGIA, HISTORY AND
MEMORY
I • From Cured Soldiers to Incurable Romantics: Nostalgia and Progress 3
2 • The Angel of History: Nostalgia and Modernity 19
3 • The Dinosaur: Nostalgia and Popular Culture 33
4 • Restorative Nostalgia: Conspiracies and Return to Origins 41
5 • Reflective Nostalgia: Virtual Reality and Collective Memory 49
6 • Nostalgia and Post-Communist Memory 57
• PART 2 •
CITIES AND RE-INVENTED TRADITIONS
7 • Archeology of Metropolis 75
8 • Moscow, the Russian Rome 83
9 • St. Petersburg, the Cosmopolitan Province 121
10 • Berlin, the Virtual Capital 173
1 1 • Europa's Eros 219
• PART 3 •
EXILES AND IMAGINED HOMELANDS
12 • On Diasporic Intimacy 251
13 • Vladimir Nabokov's False Passport 259
14 • Joseph Brodsky's Room and a Half 285
15 • Ilya Kabakov'sToilet 309
16 . Immigrant Souvenirs 327
17 • Aesthetic Individualism and the Ethics of Nostalgia 337
Conclusion: Nostalgia and Global Culture: From Outer Space to Cyberspace
345
Notes 357
Index 391
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nostalgia is not only a longing for a lost time and lost home but also for
friends who once inhabited it and who now are dispersed all over the world. I
would like to thank writers and artists whose friendship inspired me as much
as their work: Maya Turovskaya, Dubravka Ugresic, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly
Komar and Alexander Melamid. I am grateful to my colleagues, scholars and
friends who read portions of the manuscript in spite of our collective shortage
of time: Greta and Mark Slobin, Larry Wolff, William Todd III, Donald
Fanger, Richard Stites, Evelyn Ender and Peter Jelavich. I began to develop
the idea of writing about nostalgia while on a Bunting grant from 1995 to
1996, and benefited from the discussions at the Institute. The first chapters of
the future book were presented at the Conference on Memory at the Center for
Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard in 1995 and at the memorable
meeting in Bellagio in April 1996. I am grateful to the organizers, Richard
Sennett and Catherine Stimpson, as well as to its participants for their
comments and remarks. Two summer IREX grants allowed me to complete the
research on my project. Finally, a Guggenheim fellowship and sabbatical from
Harvard University in 1998 and 1999 permitted me to write the book. My
participation in various international conferences helped challenge and shape
my ideas: the Conference on Soviet Culture in Las Vegas in 1997, the
Conference on Myth and National Community organized by the European
University of Florence and the discussions and lectures at the Central
European University of Budapest in summer 2000. My collaboration on the
board of the ARCHIVE organized for the study of ex-Soviet immigrant
culture in the United States and many long conversations with Alla Efimova
and Marina Temkina inspired me to begin my interview project on immigrant
homes. Larisa Frumkina and the late Felix Roziner inspired me in that work
and shared their immigrant souvenirs and stories with great generosity.
Each city I visited and described became my temporary home, at least for
the duration of the chapter. In Petersburg I am grateful to Oleg Kharkhordin, a
scholar of friendship and a good friend; OlesiaTurkina and Victor Mazin for
artis tic guidance; Victor Voronkov and Elena Zdravomyslova for introducing
me to their project on the "free Petersburg"; Nikolai Beliak for sharing dreams
and masks of the Theater in the Architectural Environment; and Marieta
Tourian and Alexander Margolis for being the best Petersburg guides. My high
school best friend, Natasha Kvchanova-Strugatch, brought hack some not-so-
nostalgic memories of our growing up in Leningrad. In writing on Petersburg I
benefited from the work of Eua Berard, Katerina Clark and Blair Ruble. In
Moscow I enjoyed Masha Gessen's hospitality, political insight and excellent
cooking. Thanks to all my Moscow friends who reconciled me to their city
and even made me miss it: Masha Lipman and Sergei Ivanov, Daniil
Dondurei, Zara Abdullaeva, Irina Prox-orova, Andrei Zorin, Joseph Bakshtein,
Anna Al'chuk and Alexander Ivanov. Grig-ory Revzin provided necessary
architectural expertise. Masha Lipman shared wisdom and integrity and good
humor; Ekaterina Degot', radical visions in art and politics. Alexander Etkind
was a great intellectual companion and friend on all continents.
In Berlin I found a perfect home in the apartment of my Leningrad friend,
Marianna Schmargen. My Berlin guide was a scholar and friend, Beate Binder,
who showed me the best ruins and construction sites. Thanks also to Dieter
Axelm-Hoffmann, Sonia Margolina and Karl Schlogel, Klaus Seghers, Georg
Witte and Barbara Naumann. In Prague I enjoyed the hospitality and insight of
Martina Pachmanova, and in Ljubljana the wisdom and good company of
Svetlana and Bojidar Slapsak.
To my friends and fellow travelers who shared with me their longing and
aversion to nostalgia: Nina Witoszek, Dragan Kujundic, Sven Spieker,Yuri
Slezkine, Giuliana Bruno, Nina Gourianova, Christoph Neidhart,
ElenaTrubina, David Damrosch, Susan Suleiman, Isobel Armstrong and Eva
Hoffman, whose books inspired me long before our meeting. Thanks to
Vladimir Paperny for real and virtual travels and for the photographs, and to
Boris Greys for heretical discussions about absolutes.
I am enormously indebted to all the photographers who shared with me their
pictures and their visions, especially Mark Shteinbok, Vladimir Papernv and