Alexei Yurchak

A fascinating exploration of 'hypernormalisation' in a political system that seemed powerful and eternal even when it was on the verge of collapse. Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system, the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of...

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system, the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse, it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise....