Performativity of Death in Post-Soviet Russia: The Party of the Dead’s Growing Membership

Performance Philosophy. 2022. No. 7 (2). P. 22–31.

Filippova D., Spirenkova A., Stebur A., Zamyslova V. A.

The theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an involved, independent art—death and performance—which constitute the “burning and smouldering” problems of the contemporary cultural process in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic became a pretext for artists and activists to resurrect the problem of death and methods of working with it. Now after the beginning of full-scale Russian military invasion throughout the whole territory of Ukraine it became clear that artists anticipated reality in many ways. The question of death in Russia is haunted by a question of justice—both philosophically and in relation to the perceived failures of the system of law. The necro-performances of the collective Party of the Dead from Saint-Petersburg manifest the importance of performance as a ritual of mourning in days of pandemic and war.

Keywords: Russian art, перформанс, Performance Art, death and culture