Культурная инновация в тени КГБ: «Клуб-81» как случай институционализации неофициальных сетевых практик

Abstract

In 1981, the literary “Club-81” was founded in Leningrad. This was the only public organization of unofficial authors in late-Soviet history that was officially (more or less) allowed – at least, before the “Perestroika” period. As it was known that the “Club” was functioning under the auspices of the KGB, many unofficial writers considered this organization conformist and did not want to join it. However, the work of the “Club” turned out to be culturally extremely fruitful. This paper aims to reconstruct the social-ethical program of the organizers of the “Club” and its situation in the cultural dynamics of late-Soviet society. The leaders of the “Club” could take (at least sometimes) an independent position in negotiations with the KGB, because they proved capable of being skillful negotiators, and because by the end of the 1970s the unofficial cultural movement in the USSR had developed an independent ethical and aesthetic agenda and had turned into an autonomous field of cultural production. Moreover, the paper proposes that the period from 1978 till approximately 1986 should be viewed as a distinct period in Russian cultural history, separate in character from the previous period of the “progressing stagnation” (1967–1978).