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Although Russia does not yet have a widespread term like the GermanOstalgie, it has witnessed an extensive social and cultural longing for its Soviet past, which we can define by the term “Back in the USSR”. This expression has taken on a vast range of meanings, becoming a multi-purpose label for disparate phenomena, such as online stores selling Soviet memorabilia, websites dedicated to Sovietbyt, and nostalgia-based marketing strategies. Nostalgia for the Soviet past has inspired a host of Russian writers and film directors. The author attempts to determine the main features of “Back in the USSR” via the analysis of two nostalgic texts, namely Andrei Strel′nikov’s novelBack in the USSR. A Nostalgic Novel(2001) and Valerii Rozhnov’s television seriesBack in the USSR(2010). As the author demonstrates, nostalgia is mobilized in these texts according to the principle ofpars pro toto, examples of which include the citation of official Soviet discourse, the dissemination of “relics” from the Soviet past (everyday objects, food, etc.), and heterotopia. Representing Soviet space as an existing place within modern Russia, both works pulsate with “new romanticism”. The author’s reading of these texts reveals that while post-Soviet Russia has yet to deal with its past, it is seeking to do so via new forms of artistic expression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes nostalgic narratives of railway workers in a provincial town in Serbia. It grounds its analysis in a particular theoretical understanding of neoliberalization, focusing on dispossession and its consequences in post-socialism. It provides an account of the specific historical context of socialist Yugoslavia and Serbia after the breakup of Yugoslavia within the wider capitalist system. It views this context as a field of force in which the hegemonic process takes place, and which circumscribes the possibilities for contestation and consent. Finally, it develops a conceptual distinction between the nostalgia of the aspiring middle class on the one hand, and working-class nostalgia on the other, and presents the interlocutors’ narratives as part of the latter. The author argues that nostalgia should be seen as a protean form that should always be studied in connection with the material and social location from which it is uttered. He aims to show that nostalgic narratives in present-day Serbia function as a technique of the self, understood as a practice through which specific kinds and capacities of thought are cultivated, forming a type of adaptable subjectivity against the backdrop of post-socialist neoliberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The termnostalgiawas initially coined to describe a newly recognized form of homesickness so acute it was considered often fatal. Over time, the medicalized origins of nostalgia have disappeared and it would be unthinkable today to find medical professionals diagnosing patients with this condition. Nonetheless, contemporary usage of the term continues to reverberate with negative overtones, often suggesting suffering, melancholy or loss. This article presents a counter-case of nostalgia, considering the possibilities of nostalgia as a mode of therapeutics. Focusing on Czech trampers’ re-enactments of the imagined environments, personas, and activities of the American “Wild West”, the author argues that Czechs’ nostalgic re-enactments of so-called “Indian” or “cowboy” ways of life open up an imaginative horizon conducive to promoting physical and mental well-being. Much like drama therapy, these enactments enable participants to momentarily embody foreign personas and experiment with forms of masculinity and relations to nature that might otherwise be foreclosed to them. Such acts of nostalgic play are indicative, the author argues, not of an unhealthy detachment from the present but of an agentive and highly creative means of using imagined pasts to recast one’s sense of self in the present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes the evolution of nostalgic sentiment in Russia over the past 25 years. Unlike in the 1990s, the nostalgic perception of the Soviet past in the 2000s was transformed under the influence of a new government ideology. Leonid Parfenov’s projectNamedniin both its forms – a television program and a book anthology – is an example of reflexive nostalgia for the Soviet period of 1946–1991. Reflexive nostalgia as expressed by liberal intellectuals presumes a freedom of interpretation. Thus,Namednidoes not reflect the official “patriotic” discourse. The article discusses the specifics of the television and book versions, the significance of visual and literary imagery, and the relationship between history and historical memory. BecauseNamedniexhibits signs of an autobiographical text, the article concludes that memory takes a higher priority than historical science in Parfenov’s project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]