The panel presents the life and work of a Soviet hippie named Azazello within the broader framework of non-conformist culture in the Soviet Union. The panel presents an introduction and historical contextualization of Azazello’s life and unpublished archive, a reading of his poems in translation along with translator commentary, and a discussion of the pop-cultural subtexts in his poems and prose. The talk will address various aspects of the Soviet non-conformist culture as manifested in Azazello’s writing, including its engagement with Soviet and Western pop-culture, drug abuse, evocation of Western hippie philosophy, among others. The event is dedicated to the launch of the bilingual website dedicated to Azazello’s legacy by the Wende Museum of Cold War.
PRESENTERS:
Margarit Ordukhanyan (Hunter College, CUNY)
Juliane Fürst (Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany)
Polly McMichael (University of Nottingham, UK)
Anna Fishzon (Independent Scholar)