Culture
‘The Interpersonal Is Political’: The Cultural Flourishing of the New Russian Emigration
March 28, 2025
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Ilya Kukulin
Cultural historian
Cultural historian Ilya Kukulin examines key innovations in Russian-speaking cultural institution-building that have emerged outside of Russia since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The Russian version of this article was published in the Moscow Times.
In Russian emigrant social media today, it has become common to decry the lack of political initiative on the part of the newest wave of Russian emigration. They say these emigrants can do nothing besides bicker and organize protest actions with vague agendas that attract very few people.
I propose changing the perspective and looking at what “growth points” have recently emerged in culture and how Russian-speaking cultural actors can respond to the challenges of a rapidly worsening political landscape.
Russian-language emigrant culture as a ‘growth point’
Commenting on the recent documentary film festival Artdocfest in Riga, political analyst and journalist Alexander Morozov noted that the newest wave of emigration has proven very productive culturally. Elsewhere, Morozov has pointed out independent philosophical institutions, concerts and book festivals launched by recent Russian emigrants. He says: “deep reflection is generated within this space. A language free from Russian authoritarianism is being formed.” Contemporary art, according to Morozov, more than rational political rhetoric, ought to provide a “humanistic response” to the profound crisis of the modern world.
I wish to show that what Morozov describes is consistent patterns rather than a random constellation of individual events. Those fond of historical parallels can easily devalue Morozov’s reflections by saying that Russian emigrant cultural institutions are growing in number simply because more educated people are leaving Russia and that the first wave of Russian emigration was also much more successful at cultural construction – e.g., organizing publishing houses, youth camps, clubs – than at political self-organization.
Of course, the cultural infrastructure today is created primarily to support new Russian-speaking diasporas across many countries, but its development seems to represent a “growth point” and a renewal of European culture as a whole. How does the current situation differ from the first wave of Russian emigration? How can the “humanistic response” mentioned by Morozov influence political action or at least inspire changes in political culture?
New ‘protocols’ of communication
In Russian emigrant social media today, it has become common to decry the lack of political initiative on the part of the newest wave of Russian emigration. They say these emigrants can do nothing besides bicker and organize protest actions with vague agendas that attract very few people.
I propose changing the perspective and looking at what “growth points” have recently emerged in culture and how Russian-speaking cultural actors can respond to the challenges of a rapidly worsening political landscape.
Russian-language emigrant culture as a ‘growth point’
Commenting on the recent documentary film festival Artdocfest in Riga, political analyst and journalist Alexander Morozov noted that the newest wave of emigration has proven very productive culturally. Elsewhere, Morozov has pointed out independent philosophical institutions, concerts and book festivals launched by recent Russian emigrants. He says: “deep reflection is generated within this space. A language free from Russian authoritarianism is being formed.” Contemporary art, according to Morozov, more than rational political rhetoric, ought to provide a “humanistic response” to the profound crisis of the modern world.
I wish to show that what Morozov describes is consistent patterns rather than a random constellation of individual events. Those fond of historical parallels can easily devalue Morozov’s reflections by saying that Russian emigrant cultural institutions are growing in number simply because more educated people are leaving Russia and that the first wave of Russian emigration was also much more successful at cultural construction – e.g., organizing publishing houses, youth camps, clubs – than at political self-organization.
Of course, the cultural infrastructure today is created primarily to support new Russian-speaking diasporas across many countries, but its development seems to represent a “growth point” and a renewal of European culture as a whole. How does the current situation differ from the first wave of Russian emigration? How can the “humanistic response” mentioned by Morozov influence political action or at least inspire changes in political culture?
New ‘protocols’ of communication
“First of all, contemporary emigrant culture, compared with that of the first, postrevolutionary wave of emigration, is much more open and engaged in global cultural exchange.”
Linor Goralik (right), an author, poet, artist and essayist. Source: YouTube
Today’s emigrants often believe their mission should go beyond simply preserving Russian culture until better times. The most active among them address not only their ideological allies (svoi) but all who are willing to listen. They invite those who left Russia and those who stayed, as well as sympathetic cultural figures from other countries.
For example, one of the most striking projects, the Resistance and Opposition Arts Review (ROAR), edited by Israeli writer and journalist Linor Goralik, is translated into several languages at once: English, French and Japanese. Meanwhile, debates about whether there is a single Russian culture at all are also ongoing among emigrants, with voices of other peoples of Russia – e.g., Tatars, Chuvash and Yakuts – becoming more audible.
The answer to the second question posed above – about how the “humanistic response” is connected to the political – can only be roughly outlined here. The influence of culture on politics has both a long- and short-term dimension. As for the former, innovative cultural movements are gradually assimilated by society, changing political thinking and behavior. For instance, historians have written about how romanticism influenced nationalist democratic movements during the era of European revolutions in the 19th century or how antiestablishment movements of the 1960s contributed to the emergence of much more open political figures in Western countries.
The second, short-term dimension is more relevant today than ever before. Innovative culture, amplified by new media, changes people’s ideas about how they can interact with each other. It creates new modes and protocols of communication between people. “Protocols” here means new possibilities for mutual understanding. They take shape in the interaction of authors and readers, listeners and viewers as they explore complex, contradictory and possibly previously unknown psychological and existential states.
These “protocols” first emerge in the perception of works of art and in changed behavior within cultural events and then in online and offline communication. New ideas about humans and their place in the world are pondered, and these ideas influence the further invention of protocols. They address both the rational and emotional sides of personality, presupposing that different people may have different rationalities, different “common sense.” This process is not always successful: people might not want to learn about or not understand new ideas, or they might consciously reject them.
In creating protocols, as in collaborative writing of open-source programs, any discovery becomes an invitation to other participants to create their own. New possibilities for mutual understanding emerge thanks to new languages for describing psychological and social life and thanks to a different, more active engagement of the audience in dialogue with new works of art (or literature). The metaphor of “protocols” allows us to see how innovative creativity in culture expands the possibilities of everyday mutual understanding.
New communication protocols are necessary for the formation of communities that can transcend the boundaries of previous groups—neighborhoods, networks, professions. In this way, those protocols constitute an alternative to the rapidly spreading communication modes characteristic of populist politicians and their adherents.
Populist political speech is easily recognizable by its affected, often crude tone, with repetition and attacks on “enemies” replacing arguments. A case in point is X, where posts are limited to 280 characters. The message is meant to turn into a meme that will circulate through social media with comments like “wow, he/she really told them!”
For example, one of the most striking projects, the Resistance and Opposition Arts Review (ROAR), edited by Israeli writer and journalist Linor Goralik, is translated into several languages at once: English, French and Japanese. Meanwhile, debates about whether there is a single Russian culture at all are also ongoing among emigrants, with voices of other peoples of Russia – e.g., Tatars, Chuvash and Yakuts – becoming more audible.
The answer to the second question posed above – about how the “humanistic response” is connected to the political – can only be roughly outlined here. The influence of culture on politics has both a long- and short-term dimension. As for the former, innovative cultural movements are gradually assimilated by society, changing political thinking and behavior. For instance, historians have written about how romanticism influenced nationalist democratic movements during the era of European revolutions in the 19th century or how antiestablishment movements of the 1960s contributed to the emergence of much more open political figures in Western countries.
The second, short-term dimension is more relevant today than ever before. Innovative culture, amplified by new media, changes people’s ideas about how they can interact with each other. It creates new modes and protocols of communication between people. “Protocols” here means new possibilities for mutual understanding. They take shape in the interaction of authors and readers, listeners and viewers as they explore complex, contradictory and possibly previously unknown psychological and existential states.
These “protocols” first emerge in the perception of works of art and in changed behavior within cultural events and then in online and offline communication. New ideas about humans and their place in the world are pondered, and these ideas influence the further invention of protocols. They address both the rational and emotional sides of personality, presupposing that different people may have different rationalities, different “common sense.” This process is not always successful: people might not want to learn about or not understand new ideas, or they might consciously reject them.
In creating protocols, as in collaborative writing of open-source programs, any discovery becomes an invitation to other participants to create their own. New possibilities for mutual understanding emerge thanks to new languages for describing psychological and social life and thanks to a different, more active engagement of the audience in dialogue with new works of art (or literature). The metaphor of “protocols” allows us to see how innovative creativity in culture expands the possibilities of everyday mutual understanding.
New communication protocols are necessary for the formation of communities that can transcend the boundaries of previous groups—neighborhoods, networks, professions. In this way, those protocols constitute an alternative to the rapidly spreading communication modes characteristic of populist politicians and their adherents.
Populist political speech is easily recognizable by its affected, often crude tone, with repetition and attacks on “enemies” replacing arguments. A case in point is X, where posts are limited to 280 characters. The message is meant to turn into a meme that will circulate through social media with comments like “wow, he/she really told them!”
“In this context, new protocols of communication allow for new communities of mutual understanding.”
These communities are heterogeneous, consisting of people with different cultural and social backgrounds, rebuilding the psychological foundations for solidarity.
The internet greatly accelerates the spread of new protocols, providing space for the birth and “testing” of such communication. It is telling (and Morozov mentions this) that collective cultural projects are springing up online, like Slova-vne.com and Vmesto.media, as well as the abovementioned ROAR and other digital projects by Goralik (e.g., Ulpan.Politics).
The internet greatly accelerates the spread of new protocols, providing space for the birth and “testing” of such communication. It is telling (and Morozov mentions this) that collective cultural projects are springing up online, like Slova-vne.com and Vmesto.media, as well as the abovementioned ROAR and other digital projects by Goralik (e.g., Ulpan.Politics).
In his documentary, Kolyma: Birthplace of Our Fear, Yuri Dud explores the horrors of Stalin's Gulag camps in Russia's Kolyma region. Source: YouTube
Their main feature is finding new ways of addressing their audience or new audiences altogether – for example, Novosti26.media explains complex political problems to teenagers. It’s no problem if new protocols do not go viral; what matters is that they are grassroots, coming not from elites but from those “like you and me, like the whole world,” to quote Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin.
Sustained dialogue: Countering emotional manipulation in public discourse
With the emergence of such protocols, the Russian segment of YouTube has seen the blossoming of the genre of long conversations (Yuri Dud seems to have set the trend about five years ago) – seemingly free-form but actually structured. More important than the content of these conservations is the friendly, trusting and interested tone, taken from the private space and presented as a new norm for the public space.
Morozov is right that new collective emigrant projects have become more noticeable in 2024-25. Still, experiments in creating new protocols for Russian culture (and certainly not only there!) began long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In addition, today they can be seen in the work of some authors who remain in Russia.
Sustained dialogue: Countering emotional manipulation in public discourse
With the emergence of such protocols, the Russian segment of YouTube has seen the blossoming of the genre of long conversations (Yuri Dud seems to have set the trend about five years ago) – seemingly free-form but actually structured. More important than the content of these conservations is the friendly, trusting and interested tone, taken from the private space and presented as a new norm for the public space.
Morozov is right that new collective emigrant projects have become more noticeable in 2024-25. Still, experiments in creating new protocols for Russian culture (and certainly not only there!) began long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In addition, today they can be seen in the work of some authors who remain in Russia.
Daria Serenko, a Russian feminist activist, poet, curator and public artist.
Source: Facebook
Source: Facebook
A relatively long-standing example of new communication protocols is Daria Serenko’s “Quiet Picket,” a series of artistic and social actions carried out in 2016-17. Serenko rode Moscow public transport with handmade posters containing either poems by 20th-century poets or statements on sensitive subjects in Russian society: domestic violence, gender inequality, torture in prisons, political prisoners, LGBT rights and Soviet dissidents. She never initiated conversations but always responded to comments addressed to her, trying to help her interlocutors to overcome stereotypes. Serenko described and analyzed her rides and communications on Facebook and VK, supplementing her stories with photographs taken by friends.
Gradually, in Moscow and other Russian and Ukrainian cities and then in other countries, Quiet Picket spread, with an expanding conversation where the author cannot be separated from the audience. Such “communicative equality,” relatively speaking, is always necessary when “sketching” new communication protocols and represents an important condition for the functioning of the collective cultural projects mentioned by Morozov.
Tellingly, Serenko has moved on to overtly political activities within the Feminist Antiwar Resistance (FAR) while continuing to invent technologies for creating heterogeneous communities that are innovative on the level of aesthetics and media. For example, the underground newspaper Women’s Truth (Zhenskaya pravda) combines lifestyle features with antiwar discourse or postcards with anti-totalitarian and antiwar poems.
Serenko also writes and publishes poetry and prose where she reflects on her political activities, which vividly illustrates another general trend: in the Russian emigration today, political projects often acquire a cultural dimension, and vice versa. Take political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann: she was the first, back in the late 2010s, who made “culturalization of the political” a conscious strategy.
Heterogeneous communities emerge not only online. They can also form on both sides of the new Iron Curtain, for example, among readers of the same books or articles, simultaneously produced by publishers in Russia and in emigration thanks to institutional cooperation.
Moving forward
Carol Hanisch, a key figure in second-wave feminism, titled her famous 1969 essay “The Personal is Political.” Today, the interpersonal is political.
Gradually, in Moscow and other Russian and Ukrainian cities and then in other countries, Quiet Picket spread, with an expanding conversation where the author cannot be separated from the audience. Such “communicative equality,” relatively speaking, is always necessary when “sketching” new communication protocols and represents an important condition for the functioning of the collective cultural projects mentioned by Morozov.
Tellingly, Serenko has moved on to overtly political activities within the Feminist Antiwar Resistance (FAR) while continuing to invent technologies for creating heterogeneous communities that are innovative on the level of aesthetics and media. For example, the underground newspaper Women’s Truth (Zhenskaya pravda) combines lifestyle features with antiwar discourse or postcards with anti-totalitarian and antiwar poems.
Serenko also writes and publishes poetry and prose where she reflects on her political activities, which vividly illustrates another general trend: in the Russian emigration today, political projects often acquire a cultural dimension, and vice versa. Take political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann: she was the first, back in the late 2010s, who made “culturalization of the political” a conscious strategy.
Heterogeneous communities emerge not only online. They can also form on both sides of the new Iron Curtain, for example, among readers of the same books or articles, simultaneously produced by publishers in Russia and in emigration thanks to institutional cooperation.
Moving forward
Carol Hanisch, a key figure in second-wave feminism, titled her famous 1969 essay “The Personal is Political.” Today, the interpersonal is political.
“New, creative protocols of communication are becoming more important in today’s world as individual emotions acquire greater political significance.”
This politicization of emotions is evident, for example, in the increasingly furious cultivation of various personal and collective grievances. With individual emotions themselves becoming increasingly intense – due, in turn, to the increasingly frightening and unpredictable development of modern society – there are two paths: rallying around a leader and rejecting “outsiders,” or gaining an increasingly complex understanding of one’s own and others’ psychological states in an ever-wider context and, as a consequence, the ability to ironize about oneself and others without fear of provoking retaliatory aggression.
The creation and development of protocols of communication in culture goes beyond familiar ideological divisions: it stands in opposition to the oversimplified understanding of the world that unites the far right and the far left today. Indeed, this collective creativity is a humanistic response, allowing for understanding others and “alien” communities as unique and therefore internally complex, having independent value and irreducible to schemata. Moreover, it provides the space for pondering what has yet to be formed, communities that are possible but still to be created, and the future of humanity.
The creation and development of protocols of communication in culture goes beyond familiar ideological divisions: it stands in opposition to the oversimplified understanding of the world that unites the far right and the far left today. Indeed, this collective creativity is a humanistic response, allowing for understanding others and “alien” communities as unique and therefore internally complex, having independent value and irreducible to schemata. Moreover, it provides the space for pondering what has yet to be formed, communities that are possible but still to be created, and the future of humanity.
A poster for the Lubimovka Echo Theater Festival in Finland. August 2024. Source: YouTube
Of course, not all the cultural activity of today’s Russian-speaking diasporas is based on creating new forms of communication. There is much that is archaic, in some cases based on previous comfortable stereotypes and habits, like ignorance of others and confidence in one’s own rightness. But in the aggregate, through the numerous projects mentioned by Morozov (along with others unmentioned, like the Echo of Lubimovka dramaturgy festivals in different countries and emigrant scholarly and educational organizations) a new motif has emerged.
This motif is not unique to the Russian-speaking diaspora. One path in contemporary culture to resist destructive tendencies – for example, cynical cults of power and “might makes right,” the devaluation of differences, the rejection of long-term planning and international responsibility and cooperation – is creating new protocols of communication based on the equality of participants and nonguaranteed understanding. It is part of a more general, acutely necessary global intellectual turn today: recognizing local interpersonal relations as the most important reality in politics and economics.
I continue to think this is the future, despite all the news we see every day.
This motif is not unique to the Russian-speaking diaspora. One path in contemporary culture to resist destructive tendencies – for example, cynical cults of power and “might makes right,” the devaluation of differences, the rejection of long-term planning and international responsibility and cooperation – is creating new protocols of communication based on the equality of participants and nonguaranteed understanding. It is part of a more general, acutely necessary global intellectual turn today: recognizing local interpersonal relations as the most important reality in politics and economics.
I continue to think this is the future, despite all the news we see every day.
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