Russian mass concerts and the political imaginary of Russia

Abstract

The article traces the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet Russian political imaginary as it unfolds at the site of state-sponsored Russian concerts. It contends that the idea of the Russian nation is being invented by translating the Soviet political imaginary, based on the logic of time, into a political imaginary based on the geography of space. The article shows that the political imaginary of Russia does not stand on its own, but is constantly injected with references to the Soviet past, thus generating ambivalence in the collective imagination of the Russian people