Theoretical Problems of Soviet Underground Culture

Abstract This article presents a spectrum of theoretical problems associated with the Soviet artistic underground as a historical and cultural phenomenon. The central focus is on constellating issues of terminology and definition around the borders of underground culture in the USSR, within scholarship about it. As a theoretical hypothesis of the handbook, the chapter introduces the concept of the lifeworld, which the volume editors and contributors interpret as a synthetic multimedia nexus of a given nonconformist circle’s activities, both artistic and cultural. The underground lifeworld manifests the aesthetic discourse idiosyncratic for each artistic circle and serves as the source of semi-spontaneous “relational art” that absorbs and generates artworks, along with performative and communicative practices. Through the concept of the aestheticized lifeworld, the authors of this article define the historical specificity of the Soviet artistic underground in relation to the Russian historical avant-garde and Western neo-avant-garde.