The Soviet Trickster

Cynicism and Its Subversions

The Soviet Trickster explores narratives in Soviet and post-Soviet culture featuring rogues, swindlers, and improbable adventurers who enjoyed widespread popularity across Russia. These figures simultaneously mocked and justified the pervasive culture of Soviet cynicism, facilitating subversive counter-narratives that challenged the power and incompetence of the state. Mark Lipovetsky thoroughly analyzes the most remarkable and popular Soviet tricksters in literature, film, visual art, and performance, discussing different facets of the trickster: their nihilistic revolutionary messianism, problematic ethics, role within the Soviet empire, and connections to underground culture and gender politics.

Through the combination of seemingly incompatible features thanks to its ambivalent and transgressive nature, the trickster becomes a parody and deconstruction of the Soviet "messiah" – the new Soviet man envisioned by communist propaganda. The Soviet Trickster reveals how after the collapse of the USSR, the trickster loses its critical potential and aligns with authoritarian power, serving as its populist avatar. Nonetheless, tricksters remain inexhaustible: they constantly reinvent themselves to sabotage new forms of political cynicism and authoritarianism.

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