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Chapter 5 [kd]’s Journeys afTer 1989 The overall impact of transitology on russian political and economic life cannot be compared with its effects in other postsocialist countries and republics of the former Ussr. This country’s former status as superpower and the suspicious attitudes of the “reformed” elites toward every foreign project or initiative, as well as the resistance to Westernization traditional for this culture are among many factors that have imposed limits both theoretical and practical (or policy-making) on the neoliberal paradigm of democratizationandmodernization.Thisisnottosay,however,thatrussian political elites or political scientists ignored or neglected the impact of the Western transitological method on both the local political and social sciences as well as on the broader processes of liberalization.1 likewise, the effects of the soros Foundation and of the Moscow sCCa programs on local culture were not as dramatic as they were in other post-soviet countries.2 This may be partially explained by the fact that in Moscow other Western foundations and councils also supported local art and culture. nevertheless, the impact of the soros Center in russia cannot be ignored, for it was one of the main mechanisms of the cultural transitology, carrying out important new projects and initiatives independently, or as part of the broader efforts of the sCCa network. The latin word transitio refers to a “going across,” “passing over,” “passage,” and even a “desertion” from one condition or state to another. “Desertion” is an appropriate word to describe the period with which 1 on the discussion of transitology within a russian context see vladimir Gel’man, Transformatsiia v rossii: politicheskii rezhim i demokraticheskaia oppozitsiia (Moskva: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauchnyi fond, 1999). i 2 in Moscow the activities of the soros Foundation were accompanied by a series of scandals that lasted throughout the nineties and into the present century. see for instance “russia: soros Foundation to leave. (open society institute suspends services in russia in wake of office building scandal),” iPr strategic Business information Database (2002). http:// goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-1884918_iTM [accessed February 22, 2009]. i will be concerned in this chapter, for it expresses that general state of abandonment, the general betrayal of what for almost seven decades was called “the Ussr.” The peculiar temporality and duration of transition, as well as the chaotic state of desertion, influence the overall structure of this chapter, which does not proceed chronologically but topically. it divides the material of the after-Journeys into several subsectioned themes that vary in length, analyzing them from the perspective of the most important changes and adaptations that took place after 1989, when KD disintegrated and reunited again in 1995 as [KD].3 i have made the switch from a chronological or historical approach to a thematic one in order to suggest the nature of that posthistorical stage—often called postmodernism, the global world, or contemporaneity—in which many former soviet citizens found themselves after 1989. a series of fragmentations and confusions that occurred in the post-1989 volumes of the Journeys are an expression of the convoluted temporality of transition, that time when it is believed that history itself has ended or has been abandoned. The post-soviet Journeys were intended by their makers to amount to a consecutive, wellconnected , and eloquent narrative, proceeding chronologically “book after book” or “phase after phase” from the soviet eighties into the post-soviet and russian nineties.4 This intention, however, was compromised by the rupture of transition, a rupture that contributed to the choice of new words and concepts that entered the vocabulary of Moscow conceptualists during the 1990s; the new artistic media and means of public interaction toward which they were impelled; the new form of collectivity that emerged after 1989, altering the relations formed among the members of the group; a different way of journeying outside the city; the new configuration of Kievogorskoe Field; the new style of writing spectators’ reports; new observations, words, materials, places, events, people—all of which reflect the broader social change that takes place during the transition from socialism to capitalism. 3 nowhere in the Journeys is it stated that KD broke up in 1989, but only that the artists stopped using the abbreviation KD to sign their post-1989 work (Monastyrsky, 1998, p. 783). However, in an electronic correspondence with the author, Monastyrsky confirmed that it is right to say that “in 1989 KD broke up (raspustilsia, rasformirovalsia) and the group reunited in 1995 as [KD].” a. Monastyrsky, e-mail message to...

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