The Mitki and the Art of Postmodern Protest in Russia

During the late Soviet period, the art collective known as the Mitki emerged in Leningrad. Producing satirical poetry and prose, pop music, cinema, and conceptual performance art, this group fashioned a playful, emphatically countercultural identity with affinities to European avant-garde and American hippie movements. More broadly, Alexandar Mihailovic shows, the Mitki pioneered a form of political protest art that has since become a centerpiece of activism in post-Soviet Russia, most visibly today in groups such as Pussy Riot. He draws on extensive interviews with members of the collective and illuminates their critique of the authoritarian state, militarism, and social strictures from the Brezhnev years to the present. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Timeline of the Mitki Introduction: Post Modern, or The Mitki’s Chronicle of Russian Leadership 1 Glimmer Twins of the Leningrad Underground: The Creation of Dmitri Shagin in Vladimir Shinkarev’s Mitki 2 “Who Is This Heroic Man?” David Bowie and the Mitki’s Queering of Masculinity 3 Fire Water: Alcoholism and Rehabilitation in the St. Petersburg of the Mitki 4 Mosaic Authorship: A Coproduction of Olga and Aleksandr Florensky 5 Satire, Sex, and Chance: The Creative Diary of Viktor Tikhomirov Conclusion: Icarus Rising, or The Mitki against Twenty-First-Century Russia Appendix: Vladimir Shinkarev, “In Praise of the Boiler Room” Notes Bibliography Index