@article{113381,
  author = {Serguei Alex. Oushakine},
  title = {In the State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Symbolic Development in Contemporary Russia},
  abstract = { As I have tried to show, the state of post-Soviet aphasia{\textemdash}with its nostalgic regression and over-used Soviet symbols{\textemdash}can be seen as a reaction to socio-cultural transformations that started happening in Russia in the second half of the 1990s. I have suggested that one of the most striking aspects of this discursive behaviour, demonstrated in the essays written by young Russians, was the loss of a metalanguage and thus the loss of ability to {\textquoteleft}dissect{\textquoteright} the metaphor of the {\textquoteleft}post-Soviet{\textquoteright}. This lack of knowledge about one{\textquoteright}s own location and being, I proposed, is closely connected with absence of the post-Soviet field of cultural production that could have provided the post-Soviet subject with adequate post-Soviet discursive possibilities/signifiers. Such absence of an adequate post-Soviet interpellation capable of {\textquoteleft}naming{\textquoteright} the subject undermines the very foundation of the existing discursive field and its institutions.The {\textquoteleft}post-Soviet{\textquoteright} remains an empty space, a non-existence, devoid of its subjectifying force, its own signifier, and its own meaning effect. },
  year = {2000},
  journal = {Europe-Asia Studies},
  volume = {52},
  pages = {991-1016},
  language = {eng},
}