American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Forum Introduction: Mikhail Epstein's Russian Postmodernism

Author(s): Dale E. Peterson
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 329-332
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/308234
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FORUM INTRODUCTION: MIKHAIL EPSTEIN'S

RUSSIAN POSTMODERNISM
Dale E. Peterson,AmherstCollege

Among the manyvarietiesof criticaltheoristsextantin the contemporary

world, Mikhail Epstein figuresas a Russian rara avis who has yet to be
sightedon the pages of any Englishor Americanguidebookto the global
phenomenon of postmodernism.'Slavists, however, know that he appeared in the early1980's as a harbinger(or stormypetrel)of thatmassive
atmosphericchange that destabilizedthe ideological orthodoxyand cultural hegemonyof Soviet Russia. Despite Epstein's emigrationto the
UnitedStates in 1988,the English-speaking
of literaryscholars
community
is stilllargelyunaware of his formativerole in the intellectualupheavals
thatwentintothe shapingof the "post-Soviet"mentality.
that
Fortunately,
ignorancehas been correctedwith the publicationby the Universityof
MassachusettsPress of AftertheFuture:The Paradoxesof Postmodernism
and ContemporaryRussian Culture,a generous anthologyof Epstein's
voluminousand wide-ranging
writings.
It is probablysafe to predictthata broaderWesternacquaintancewith
as well as clarification.
As the
Epstein's thoughtwill generatecontroversy
followingessays demonstrate,Epstein is, indeed, unusual both as a semioticianand culturaltheorist.His "culturological"analysisof literaryand
social processesmanages to combinesophisticatedstructuralist
(and postRussian
structuralist)modes of understandingwith an unreconstructed
mode of argumentationthatvergeson culturalprophecy.Under Western
eyes, thismaywell look like a rathergrotesquehybriddiscourse,an unsettlingblend of estheticplayfulnesswitheschatologicalseriousness.But the
shock of non-recognitionis all to the good; accurate culturaldialogue
thriveson the eliminationof facilesimilarities.Epstein'sthoughtis sure to
of the "postmoderncondition"in surdisruptcurrentWesterndefinitions
situatesRusprisingand provocativeways because his writingpowerfully
and parallelprocessthatcoinsia's new culturalpluralismas an alternative
cides with,but is onlyroughlyanalogousto, the"decentering"of canonical
Westernculture.
SEEJ,Vol.39,No. 3 (1995):p. 329-p.332

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329

330

SlavicandEastEuropeanJournal

A rapid surveyof the manyfacetsof Epstein'sintellectualactivismmay

help to illustratethe paradoxesof his own practiceas a Russian "postmodernist." What is especially notable is a wide dispersionof interestsand
"agendas" thatall ultimatelyintersectand participatein a remarkablycoherentproject. As a literarycritic,Epstein is prominentforhis semiotic
readingof the "landscape system"in Russia's poetic and naturalenvironment and for his open advocacy of a contemporary"conceptualist"aestheticthatexposes the rhetoricalconstructions,
theformulaic"simulacra,"
whichhave constitutedthe virtualrealityof an officialstate culture.As a
culturaltheorist,he is knownbothforhis innovativestructuralanalysisof
the "relativism"inscribedwithinthesetsofpairedoppositionsmanipulated
by Soviet Marxism'stotalitarianideologyand forhis deeplycontextualized
readingsof Russia's historicpredispositiontowardutopian,futurist,and
avant-gardementalities.As a man of letters,he has experimentedwith
"essayism,"devisingnarrativestrategiesthatactivelydisplaytheindetermiexist;
nacy of meaningin whichobjects and conceptsphenomenologically
but he has also penned visionarymanifestoesthat striveto evoke, on a
global scale, an emergent"transcultural"consciousnesstypicalof a new
transactions.This richdiet of conceptual
age of borderless,multi-cultural
thoughtand playfulconceptualizingpresentsthe spectacleof a ratherodd
Russian postmodernism
thatseeks to be both historicist
and utopian,that
nationalparaappears to correlateavant-gardemovementswithrecurring
digmseven as it gleefullydeconstructsthe available narrativesof received
ideologies and secular history.Educated Westernreaders are thus confrontedwitha contemporarypost-Soviet"other" who is somehow also a
brotherto theirown culturalquandariesand hopes.
Underneaththe apparentinconsistenciesand diffusion
of focus,thereis
a larger argumentat work in Epstein's "culturological"speculations.
maintainsthatthe postBrieflystated, Epstein's Russian postmodernism
Soviet conditionepitomizesa global prototype,an emergingchronotope,
in whichworldcultureis recognizingthat,in severalsenses, "the futureis
in the past." In itspostcommunist
Russia is enduring
phase, contemporary
the death of the future,the collapse of the last of the nineteenth-century
dogmas of historyas progress.Yet thatveryconditionalso gives rise to a
renewed Russia once again in a positionto startleitselfwithinnovative
reassertionsand revoicingsof pre-modernculturalformsthathave always
been available. For Epstein,the revealed hollownessof the last idols of a
monolithicsecular rationalismopens the path towarda post-avant-garde
futurein whicha dormantRussian spirituality
is reawakened.Once again,
Russia findsitselfopen and exposed to culturaland religioustrade winds
thatbuffetit fromWestand East. And in thatwhirlwind
Epsteinhearsthe
that
resurgenceof an unworldly,
contemplative,many-tongued
spirituality
remainsthe ecstaticcore of Russian religiousexperience.But this is to

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MikhailEpstein'sRussianPostmodernism 331
Introduction:
announce a findingthatis as profoundlyalien to Westernpostmodernism
as it is to Soviet modernism.
AlthoughMikhail Epstein's writingsmay strikemanyreadersas an acquiredtaste,theyare a tastewellworthacquiring.Partofwhatmakesthem
so importantand eminentlydiscussableis thattheyaddresscontemporary
topics and currentissues in criticaltheory,but in an unfamiliarmanner.
more than even he suspects,is inEpstein's approach to postmodernism,
and
formedby a greatdeal of culturalhistory.His mode of argumentation
his fundamentalphilosophicalorientationreflecta specifically
Russian legacy of public discourse.An Epstein essay is considerablylongerand more
broadlyspeculative,moreboldly"conceptual"and unashamedlygeneralizingthanmostprofessionaldiscoursein the humanitiesallows; the respectable Russian genreofpublitsistika
encouragesa level of universalor metais
self-assurance
that
not
customarilypractisedin our domestic
physical
theoristof
"culturewars." And even thoughEpstein, the postcommunist
destabilizedmeaningsand values, is unquestionablyan Eastern allyin the
currentWesternoffensiveagainst"hegemonicsystems,"he also displaysa
very Russian yearningfor an imminentuniversalculturalsynthesis.Epstein'smentalityis thatof a Russian "seeker"; he is profoundly
attachedto
modernRussia's historiosophicalambition-that is, to the hope thatRussia is historically
and culturallypositionedto definethetermsof a syncretic
worldconsciousnessand to achievea holisticembraceofpriorcivilizations.
In thisregard,Epstein's visionaryevocationsof "transcultural
consciousness" express a typeof pluralisticutopianismthatis deeply incompatible
with Westerndeconstructionism
and multiculturalism.
In fact, the voice
thatmightmostseem to resemblethe tones and intonationof Epstein the
"culturologist"is that of the Russian Faust in the Epilogue of Prince
Odoevsky'sRussian Nightsof 1844:
You'll be amazed to learn that there is a nation whose poets have
guessed historybeforehistoryby means of theirpoetic magic,and have
foundin theirsouls the colorstheWestdrawsfromslow,lengthycultivation of centuriesof history.(The element of universality
or better,of
the all-embracingcreated a remarkablycharacteristic
line in our scholarlydevelopment. . .).2
The publicationin English of Mikhail Epstein's major writingsshould
generate a healthydebate in which the tension between his totalizing,
integrativeview of a postmodernRussian pluralismand the more declimateof Westernmulticulturalism
becomes more
centered,contestatory
evident.Epstein's missionaryand teleological"culturology"is finallyquite
unlikecontemporary
culturaltheoryin the West.He dares to philosophize
about culturein general.Althoughhis thoughtis undeniablyinfluencedby
it is also closely affiliatedwith a nineteenth-century
post-structuralism,
Russian organicistquest fora culturalwholeness(tsel'nost')and universal

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332

SlavicandEastEuropeanJournal

thanpostmod"panhumanism"(vseedinstvo)thatis more"protomodernist"
Russian
of
version
ern. Ultimately,Epstein's distinctively
postmodernism
has muchto tell us about the emergingcontoursand the underlyingfault
lines on the redrawnmap of East and Westin the postcommunist
phase of
the
future."
culture
"after
European
NOTES
1 To date, Epstein's best-knownappearance in the widerworldoutsideinformedcirclesof
literateRussianreadershas been bywayofa singleinfluential
essay,"AftertheFuture:On
the New Consciousnessin Literature,"whichwas firstpublishedin SouthAtlanticQuaron thehorizonof Anglo-Americancultural
terly90(Spring,1991): 409-444. His visibility
studies has improvedsomewhat with the recent reprintingof that essay in Thomas
toNovostroika(Durham:
Lahusen's editedvolume,Late SovietCulture:FromPerestroika
Duke UP, 1993) and withthe publicationof an extensiveinterviewwithEpsteinentitled
"Postcommunist
Postmodernism"in CommonKnowledge2(1993): 103-118.
2 V. F Odoevsky,Russian Nights(New York:E. P. Dutton & Co., 1965), 253. The original
Russian texthas been reprintedin Volume 1 of V. F. Odoevskij, Socinenijav dvuxtomax
and
(Moscow: Xudo'estvennaja Literatura,1981); the italicizedtermsare vseobsr6nost'
vseobnimaemost'.

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