The talk will discuss the cultural image of Japan in the mindset of the Russian intelligentsia of the last two decades of the Soviet era and during later years. It will offer new insights into the psychological type of the intelligentsia and explain, among other things, why in the post-Perestroika era the Soviet intelligentsia lost its leading role in the Russian society. The talk will address and deconstruct the unwritten image of Japan as it existed in the mass consciousness and unofficial oral culture (or, rather in the artistic/intellectual counter-culture) in Russia. It will dwell both on the high moments and pitfalls of the ambiguous strategy of non-belonging professed by the passively dissident intelligentsia as its existential position during the Soviet times.
Evgeny Steiner (Moscow) is an art historian and historian of culture, an expert in Japanese and Russian art and cultural relations. He received his PhD from the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and has taught at various universities in Moscow, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Yokohama, New York, Manchester, and London. Currently, he is a professor at the School of Asian Studies of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow) and professorial research associate at School of Oriental and African Studies (London). He is the author of numerous articles and twelve books in Russian, English, and German.