Against Simple Answers: The Queer-Communist Theory of Evald Ilyenkov and Alexander Suvorov
August 17, 2017
The following essay was written in today’s Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, one of the Central Asian republics of the former USSR. It was translated by Giuliano Vivaldi, and was written by our colleagues Georgy Mamedov and Oksana Shatalova. Cultural activists and organizers, Mamedov and Shatalova initiated a hub for radical cultural studies named STAB (School of Theory and Activism – Bishkek). They consider themselves non-dogmatic leftist thinkers and doers. From their ethical and political perspective, they attempt to avoid superficiality in approaching internationalism, intersectionalism, feminism, and acts of solidarity with excluded groups in post-soviet Asia, where state conservatism and certain forms of neo-capitalist imperialism are now taking more and more ugly forms, well known to many of our readers. Shatalova and Mamedov seek to revise the legacy of the unique, prophetic, soviet Marxist pedagogue and philosopher Evald Ilyenkov, who from the 1960s to the 1970s worked with blind-deaf-mute children in an internat[1] near Moscow. Shatalova and Mamedov try to examine queer-theories, or the queer-idea (in their own terms) of today through the lens of Ilyenkov and Alexander Suvorov’s (Ilyenkov’s former student who later became a scholar of psychology) radical theory and praxis, combatting the politics of identity with the tools of social determinism.
This essay is accompanied by an art-work called “Queer City” (2017) by Metagalaktika, an anonymous art-group of architects and activists whose futuristic projects advocate struggles against all forms of oppression—sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and class oppression. For their projects they use different media: video, photo, illustrations and performance. In this set of postcards, everyday urban spaces of Bishkek transcend into an alternative new world. “Queer City” shows ten Bishkek sites related to the history of the LGBT movement in the year 2047.
This essay is accompanied by an art-work called “Queer City” (2017) by Metagalaktika, an anonymous art-group of architects and activists whose futuristic projects advocate struggles against all forms of oppression—sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and class oppression. For their projects they use different media: video, photo, illustrations and performance. In this set of postcards, everyday urban spaces of Bishkek transcend into an alternative new world. “Queer City” shows ten Bishkek sites related to the history of the LGBT movement in the year 2047.
“Planetarium” postcard from “Queer City” (2017) by Metagalaktika.
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