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Frevert Honors Thesis Final Draft.pdf (487.41 KB)

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"Kill the State in Yourself": Totalitarianism and the Illiberal Dissidence of Egor Letov

Frevert, Katherine
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9467-9178
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1652565788257744

Abstract Details

2022, BA, Oberlin College, Russian and East European Studies.
The Siberian punk movement of the 1980s is often regarded as the Soviet Union’s most aesthetically and politically iconoclastic rock underground. Amidst the numerous bands the scene produced, none has matched the notoriety of Grazhdanskaia Oborona (Civil Defense) and its leader Egor Letov. At first glance, Letov’s songs declaring hatred for the “totalitarian” Soviet Union and its destruction of the individual evoke associations with the previous generation of Soviet dissidents, who used the term “totalitarianism” to contrast the Soviet system with the Western democracy they admired. Yet Letov, who rejected democratic reforms and after the collapse of the USSR proclaimed himself as an ardent communist, described totalitarianism not as a form of government but as an inborn state of being. Accordingly, resistance toward the Soviet state became a manifestation of the struggle against human nature. Totalitarianism thus serves as a lens through which to examine the role of radical politics in Grazhdanskaia Oborona: a reflection of existential rebellion. By analyzing his interviews and musical output in the mid- to late-1980s, I argue that Letov manipulates listeners’ understandings of what it meant to be “against” in the Soviet Union by drawing from existing rhetoric of political protest, replacing the image of the liberal dissident with that of a rebel whose radical politics reflect an existential struggle. I demonstrate his conception of totalitarianism as a line of continuity between his “anti-Soviet” and “pro-communist” years. In doing so, I present Letov as a figure whose works defy conventions of liberal political resistance traditionally employed by Western scholars of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Ivantsov (Advisor)
Thomas Newlin (Committee Member)
Nicholas Romeo Bujalski (Committee Member)
102 p.
East European Studies; Russian History; Slavic Studies
Egor Letov; Siberian punk; Totalitarianism; Soviet dissidents; Soviet Union; 1980s; Slavic Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Frevert, K. (2022). "Kill the State in Yourself": Totalitarianism and the Illiberal Dissidence of Egor Letov [Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1652565788257744

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Frevert, Katherine. "Kill the State in Yourself": Totalitarianism and the Illiberal Dissidence of Egor Letov. 2022. Oberlin College, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1652565788257744.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Frevert, Katherine. ""Kill the State in Yourself": Totalitarianism and the Illiberal Dissidence of Egor Letov." Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1652565788257744

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

oberlin1652565788257744
371
© 2022, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Oberlin College Honors Theses and OhioLINK.