In cerca di cose da “attaccare” allo spazio. Considerazioni sulle nostalgie russe contemporanee

Choosing as a starting point the idea of nostalgia as a characteristic feature of all times, the essay investigates contemporary Russian approaches to the past. The relation between personal emotions and historical memory evolves over the years; "nostalgia for the East" evolves into a nostalgia for one’s own world. Writers of different generations (Astvacaturov, Bykov, Makanin, Otroshenko, Pelevin, Prigov, Prilepin, Shishkin, Sorokin, Starobinec, Stogoff, Tolstaya) show how the new reality has changed the connection between citizens and power, the idea of space, and the tie with things. Personal and social attempts to “rehabilitate” the past permeate Russian society, as well as many other countries. In order to enable a critical dialogue between generations and between cultures, the views on the past have to be authentic; this, in the utopian but necessary attempt to reconcile the two facets of nostalgia while restoring the meaning of the present.