The Aesthetic of Trauma in Karen Shakhnazarov's Dreams

Encircling an Unrepresentable Past: The Aesthetic of Trauma in Karen Shakhnazarov‘s Dreams (1993) Mariëlle W. Wijermars Social change can have a traumatic impact on a society, undermining its underlying conceptions of collective identity and history (Sztompka 2004). The disintegration of the Soviet Union can be regarded as such a traumatogenic event (idem), an event that has the potential to form the basis for the construction of a cultural trauma. According to Jeffrey Alexander, [c]ultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways (2004, 1). The first decade of the Russian Federation, often referred to as the likhie 90-e or ‘dashing 90s,’ has certainly gained this meaning in contemporary Russian culture. While creating unlimited opportunities for the so-called novye russkie (new Russians) to accumulate wealth and status, the state collapse had detrimental effects on the life of the average Ivan. In his anthropological analysis of post-Soviet Russia, Serguei Oushakine indeed speaks of the “genre of the Russian tragedy” which is characterised by the “tendency to perceive and narrate the collapse of the Soviet Union as an emotionally charged discourse on political disintegration and traumatic survival” (2009: 80). He argues that these traumatic narratives have played a crucial role in developing a national sense of belonging in the post- Soviet reality (idem: 81). Even today, Vladimir Putin continues to draw upon the image of the 1990s to support his authoritarian rule, warning against slipping back into chaos (Putin napomnil o razvale SSSR 2011). This chapter will discuss an often overlooked example of such narratives of traumatic survival: the satirical comedy Dreams (Sny, 1993) by the Russian 164 Mariëlle W. Wijermars director Karen Shakhnazarov. Its aim is to examine how the film expresses the traumatic impact of the Soviet experience, and especially the demise of the Soviet Union and its aftermath, by drawing attention to the unrememberability of the Soviet period and by (unsuccessfully) reconnecting contemporary Russia to its tsarist predecessor. More specifically, it analyses how the historical rupture and the process of cultural transition are problematised and framed as traumatic through both the film’s narrated content and its narrative structure. Before turning to the discussion of the aesthetic of trauma in film in general, and in Dreams in particular, a few more comments are in order on the (political) stance of post-Soviet Russia regarding its relation to its Soviet past, and the societal and cultural implications of these attitudes. The loss of the communist metanarrative necessitated the reformulation of both collective identity and (national) history. This process was exacerbated by the loss of territory and the accompanying shift from Soviet to national categories of identity. Even for those, who welcomed the demise of the Soviet Union and hoped for a more prosperous and democratic future, the first years of Russian independence were a disillusion. President Boris El’tsin’s ‘shock therapy’ to transform the planned economy into a market-oriented economy, proved detrimental to the country’s already poor economic condition. The lifting of price controls resulted in hyperinflation and a drastic decline in living standards. Eager to distance himself from his own involvement in the Soviet state apparatus, El’tsin rejected in full all elements associated with it. It is often argued that the sharp rejection of the past had a negative effect on Russian society: At a time when the fundamental challenge was to restore a sense of hope, the government has done its part to increase despair. Hope depended upon a revival of the Russian people’s sense that they have a future, which in turn is closely linked to a sense of connection to the past. For rejection of the past creates schism, reinforcing the gaps between state and society and among societal groups. Early in the last century, Pyotr Chaadaev argued that the lack of a sense of historical tradition and continuity, which gives meaning and purpose to action, was a root cause of Russia’s historical tragedies. His diagnosis applies with equal force to the present. The current threat to a sense of both the past and the future has created a crisis of national identity (McDaniel 1996: 162). .

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