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ABSTRACT
The article analyzes forms of vernacular response to the economic sanctions against Russia introduced in 2014. Reactions, expressed in verbal and visual texts, differ by the degree to which participants are involved—from a clichéd individual expression to a collective event—and by the level of symbolic aggression embedded in them. In the course of 2014–15, a shift is observed from speech clichés not addressed to the opponent directly to more aggressive texts and practices. This shift is connected with the loss of popularity of earlier forms of vernacular reaction to the sanctions and the situation stemming from them.
Notes
English translation © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text © 2017 “Etnograficheskoe obozrenie.” “‘Nash otvet Obame’: Logika simvolicheskoi agresii,” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, 2017, no. 3, pp. 113–37. Due to AAE Table style, note numbers were adjusted.
This research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, https://doi.org/10.13039/501100006769 [grant no. 16-18-00068].
Alexandra Sergeevna Arkhipova, k. philol.n., is a research fellow at the Center for Applied Urban Studies Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Vernadsky pr. 82/2, Moscow, 119571, Russia; http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8853-0003; [email protected]. Daria Aleksandrovna Radchenko, k. kul’turologii, is Director of the Center for Applied Urban Studies, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Vernadsky pr. 82/2, Moscow, 119571, Russia); http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9298-7783; [email protected]. Alexey Sergeevich Titkov, k. geogr.n., is an instructor in social sciences and a research fellow at the Center for Applied Urban Studies, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Vernadsky pr. 82/2, Moscow, 119571, Russia); http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1638-5737; [email protected] .
The research was part of the “Mythology and Ritual Behavior in the Contemporary Russian City” project, conducted within the Center for Applied Urban Studies of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. The authors express heartfelt gratitude to their colleagues—Aleksandr Piperski, Boris Iomdin, Dmitrii Sichinave, Mariia Sukhanova, Vadim Lur’e, Anna Kirziuk, Mark Shevchenko, Dmitrii Aziattsev, Olga Lysenko, Ekaterina Rabei, Danil Rygovskii, Ol’ga Ryigas, Roman Leibov—who helped with examples and photographs.
Translated by Stephan Lang. Translation reprinted from Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, vol. 58, no. 3. DOI: 10.1080/10611959.2019.1686903.
1. According to Primiano’s theory, a distinction between “official” and “folk” (in relation to religion) as an opposition does not exist. There are as many realizations of a concrete religion as there are followers; there is not a single person who follows religious norms in pure form to the letter. We are dealing with vernacular religion—a process of refraction of religious sets [ustanovok] in an individual’s consciousness and practices (Primiano Citation1995, pp. 44–46). Unlike Primiano, R. Howard regards (folkloric) tradition as “noninstitutional” or vernacular authority—an appeal to the collective volition of other individuals, aggregated across a significant space through a significant time (Howard Citation2013, p. 80). The power of hierarchy likewise rests on collective will, expressed in the institution (the priest embodies the will of the Catholic church); however, vernacular authority is based specifically on an appeal to its non-institutionality, the general knowledge of the community (Howard Citation2011, pp. 7–10).
2. Critical analysis of the foundations of the traditional “sociology of society” and an alternative “sociology beyond societies” (Urry 2012).
3. Our colleagues Boris Iomdin (Russian Language Institute of the RAS) and Aleksandr Piperski (National Research University Higher School of Economics) were heavily involved in the discussion of the cliché “Our answer for X….”
4. Variants of filling in the cliché can be built on the us–them juxtaposition, where we answer a hostile him/them; moreover, he/they are either an animated object (“Our answer for Bush,” Krelenko Citation2003), or an aggregate of such objects (“Our answer for NATO,” Nash otvet NATO 2007).
5. An ironic context in the use of clichés along the lines of “Our answer for X” arises, in particular, in cases when it is used in relation to inanimate things or to everyday phenomena that are usually not perceived of as an external enemy: “our answer for cellulite” (Novosti zdorov’ia Citation2002), “A nice evening in front of the television—our answer for bad weather.”
6. Over the period 2014–15, the most widespread variants of the cliché turned out to be: “Our answer for Chamberlain”—15,430, “Our answer to sanctions”—6,850, “Our answer for NATO”—3,470, “Our answer for the sanctions”—3,220, “Our answer for Obama”—2,710, “Our answer for the West”—1,900, “Our answer for Europe”—1,010, “Our answer for the Americans”—730, “Our answer for America”—710, “Our answer for the State Department”—690, “Our answer for the crisis”—570, “Our answer for Washington”—360, “Our answer for Maidan”—180, “Our answer for Euromaidan”—170, “Our answer for the European Union”—90, “Our answer for Kiev”—40, “Our answer for the Ukrainians”—20, “Our answer to the crisis”—10.
7. For an overview of the main trends in the mass consciousness of 2014–15 see Titkov Citation2015.
8. “An ‘answer to something’ is a reaction to some kind of act or to its result: an answer to an article, but an ‘answer for someone/something’—assumes an active subject or a “to something” that is conceptualized as an actively functioning subject: an answer for Pete. In the case of an act or its result mentioned in the phrase “answer to something,” there has to be at least an assumed subject (an “answer to a comment” ⇒ the comment is written by someone, an “answer to criticism” ⇒ someone had voiced the criticism). It is impossible to use such a construction with designations of processes that do not have a subject, so these instances are given in the dative case [using “for” in English] (commentary by Aleksandr Piperski, personal correspondence).
9. The collection includes 149 unique data points (not variants of the same plot): 113 texts are dedicated to the sanctions by the countries of the West, 24 to the “anti-sanctions” by the government of Russia, and 13 to import substitution. Serving as a basic unit of quantitative analysis was the number of replications of each text in the corresponding period per the data of the “Yandex. Search in blogs” service. A selection of the texts is partially published and analyzed in Arkhipova Citation2014.
10. Comprising an exception to the general trend are the data of January 2015, which is most likely connected with the overall reduction in interest in political and economic news in the period of the New Year holidays.
11. According to James Scott’s conception, “hidden transcripts” represent all possible (besides the direct) forms of symbolic resistance on the part of an oppressed class to addresses of the dominating [class] (Scott Citation1991).
12. St. Petersburg, male, about 45 years old, post on a social network.
13. We thank our colleague, research fellow at the Russian Language Institute Dmitrii Sichinave for this example.
14. Our computations are from a selection of 220 posts on social networks (Facebook—103 posts, Twitter—75 posts, Vkontakte—42 posts) in the period from March 2014 through February 2015 and the statistics of approval (“likes”) of these posts by other users.
15. In the “Golosa protesta” database of protest expressions are verbal and nonverbal signifiers expressing political position (more than five thousand entries into the base). Large and small actions in Moscow and Petersburg (more than thirty) are included, starting in September 2014 through the present.
16. Compare, for example “In those years our Soviet air fleet [force] too was born: on matches there were yellow stickers with an airplane terminating with, instead of a propeller, a huge figa, with inscriptions: “Our answer for Chamberlain,” “Give us Aviakhim!,” and something else in the same vein too” (D’iakonov Citation1995).
17. Compare “Thus, on the night before February 25, 1963 at rolling mill 1020 the first Soviet large-diameter gas pipeline pipe began its journey. Feeling like he was participating in the victory, shop worker Sasha Dunaev expressed his feelings with folk simplicity and much more emotionally. ‘Can you guess what I’m about?’ asks Sergei Alekseevich (Kalinin). And so the inscription needed to be touched up for history. And not just to replace the first (four-letter) word, but also to carefully trace out every little letter anew—all big and legible” (Truba tebe).
18. We express heartfelt gratitude to Mark Shevchenko, as well as to colleagues from the Russian National Library—Anna Kirziuk and Dmitrii Aziattsev—for help in searching for and “identifying” pipes.
a. Since 2003, Levada Analytical Center polling has become the best independent pan-Russia sociological survey research organization, having been founded by the late esteemed sociologist Yuri Levada, who also helped found the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center [VTsIOM] in 1987. However, soon after President Putin came to power, VTsIOM’s board was taken over by government-policy makers, and became less reliable.
b. According to translator Stephan Lang, unlike the gesture of “giving the [middle] finger,” the figa is not regarded as obscene, merely insulting.
c. Reference is to two nights of riots over the removal of a Bronze soldier from the center of Tallinn, Estonia in April, 2007. The soldier represented a hero of WWII. He was perceived to be Russian, and therefore a Soviet legacy that some Estonians wanted removed from their main square. Local Russian youths clashed with Estonian youths over the soldier and its symbolism, resulting in an incident now termed “The Bronze Night” (Estonian: Pronksiöö) or April Unrest (Aprillirahutused) or April Events (Aprillisündmused). Patriotic backlash in Russia was considerable. See Steven Lee Myers https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/world/europe/27cnd-estonia.html .