The tale is a lie but there’s a hint in it, a lesson for fine lads. Alexander Pushkin, “The Tale of Golden Cockerel” (1835).
Continue reading “RF Universe: The Path of Inlavan (Introduction)”
‘Diafilm’ (filmstrip) from 1960. Sorry, Yuri! Continue reading “Nyet Future: 2017 as Seen in 1960”
The phenomenon of Soviet nostalgia is effectively used in Western media and popular culture to position the Russians in a certain manner. This nostalgia mixed with self-orientalization by Russia’s useful idiots serves as a ferment for an easily digestible ‘analysis’. Obviously, Soviet nostalgia has little to do with the real historical Soviet Union and its society. It’s an idealized, ‘celestial’ version of it. Moreover, in order to be a part of this ostalgia one doesn’t have to be a socialist or communist. Continue reading “Post-ironic Neostalgia”
Speaking of predictions, or rather visions of the future, I like reading those of the past. There is something essentially human in the act of trying to break from the banality of one’s own existence and explore the Fourth Dimension – Time. Russian futurist and poet Velimir Khlebnikov in his 1921 piece titled ‘Radio of the Future’ (Radio Budushchego) wrote:
Radio of the Future – the main tree of consciousness – will open up the way of solving infinite tasks and will unite mankind. […] Imagine the main camp of the Radio: web of wires in the air, lightning going out and sparkling again, shifting from one end of the building to another. Blue round lightning ball hanging in the air like a shy bird; obliquely stretched wires. Every day flocks of news about the life of the spirit, resembling a spring flight of birds, are spread from this point on the globe.
