Research grant to a project about the Neo-Soviet Myth in contemporary Russia

2020-11-06

The Swedish Research Council has awarded a grant to a new research project, which will analyse “The Neo-Soviet Myth”, a unity of ideas, images, and practices in today’s Russian culture and politics where the Soviet modernisation project and its rhetoric is reconceptualised and recycled. Maria Engström, Associate Professor at the Department of Modern Languages, leads the project.

Kosmonaut
Illustration by Denis Egelsky

Central parts of the Neo-Soviet Myth are Soviet industrial modernisation, the Soviet space programme and Soviet biopolitics. These are currently used to construct a new Russian national identity and Russian “nation branding”.

The project is based on three primary theoretical frameworks—cultural recycling, compensation theory and cultural semiotics. The project will thus fill in the gap in the studies on contemporary cultural and political discourses in Russia by analyzing this less studied but no less important aspect of contemporary Russian culture.

The Swedish Research Council has awarded a grant for four years of research, in total 5 810 000 SEK. The grant is part of this years research project grants within humanities and social sciences. Aleksei Semenenko, Associate professor in Russian Literature at Umeå Univerity, is also a project member.

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Last modified: 2021-09-14