Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism in Contemporary Russia

The trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of past Russian imperial glory, Borenstein writes, have generated in Russia a profound sense of displacement, which has given rise to new forms of identity. Based on his exceptional knowledge of contemporary Russian mass culture, Borenstein offers precise and insightful descriptions of new group identities that have emerged in film, fiction, commercials, and other areas of popular culture; these categories, he believes, are key to understanding contemporary Russian politics and ideology. For example, Russians came up with the term sovok—close to the word “Soviet” but literally meaning “dustpan”—to describe somebody hopelessly stuck in Soviet ways, unable to catch up with modern, global, market-oriented Russians, an “embarrassing yokel” to be ridiculed by more sophisticated compatriots. Unlike the sovok, who is poor, “New Russians” are rich but they, too, are worthy of derision; their obsessive acquisitiveness combined with an utter lack of taste or culture makes them a laughingstock. A more recent term, orc, comes from the loathsome creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some Russians believe Tolkien conceived the orc as a hateful depiction of Russians. As Russia has grown increasingly unconcerned about pleasing the West, identifying with these ugly orcs has, in some circles, become a matter of perverse pride.