Metamorfosi del corpo nella cultura (post)sovietica

Abstract

In this article we draw an outline of the ways the body has been represented in Russian and Soviet culture, from the October Revolution up to the present after the breakup of the USSR. Visual and literary texts are the object of this study. We start with Soviet propaganda posters published immediately after the Revolution and with the work of artists like sculptor Vera Muchina, who represented the official line. We compare their representation of the body, and in particular the female body, with that of unofficial Soviet artists who started to organize art exhibitions in the 1960s as an alternative to the established canons of art. The works of Ernst Neizvestnyj and Vladimir Jankilevskij are briefly discussed. We then proceed then to compare them with the literary production of Ljudmila Petrusevkaja, who started writing in the same period and was not allowed to publish until the late 1980s. Finally, we analyze the works of artist Irina Nakhova, who since the early 1980s has further developed the process of deconstruction of the canons of representation of the body.