From the onset of war on 25 December 1979 to the 40th Army’s withdrawal on 15 February 1989, most Soviet officials spoke only of a Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops in Afghanistan that served its “international duty.” As a result, private narratives and popular myths about those at war – known as the afgantsy – circulated for years before the Politburo chose to assemble heroic icons from the fallen. At the same time, with technological advances, certain key features of these practices, such as participants, their motives, capacity, targets, and audience engagement have undergone a significant evolution.Ĭharacterized by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as a “bleeding wound,” the Soviet-Afghan War left a broad imprint on the domestic front during the Soviet Union’s transition from stagnation to dissolution. The paper argues that despite new affordances that digital media and social networks brought about in the sphere of citizen-led justice, the role of the state in manifesting this justice in the Russian Federation remains significant. ![]() This paper reviews historical practices of citizen-led justice in the Soviet state and compares these practices with digital vigilantism that takes place in contemporary post-Communist Russia. Given the significant historical context of collective justice under Communism, the current manifestation of digital vigilantism in Russia raises questions about whether it is an example of re-packaged history backed with collective memory or a natural outspread of conventional practices to social networks. This paper aims to provide a theoretical conceptualization of digital vigilantism in its manifestation in the Russian Federation where cases do not emerge spontaneously, but are institutionalized, highly organized, and systematic. In the essay I plan to examine my own experiences through theoretical lens of self-surveillance to make an argument about the production of subjectivity in authoritarian regimes. As a result, it produced individuals torn between faith in the ideals and the reality of the everyday life. ![]() That ideology permeated every aspect of culture, however, it was not enforced through a top-down surveillance, but rather through an internalized surveillance based in belief and faith in authoritarian institutions of power. However, as the economic sector was slipping out of Soviet control, the public institutions such as media and education were still in the business of propagating Soviet ideology. At that point, the corruption of the regime was evident to most citizens as black markets flourished illegal monetary exchanges were widespread, and bribery became a legitimate institution. In recent years, women’s voices have thankfully come more to the fore, with both Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich and Polish author Olga Tokarczuk winning the Nobel in recent years.Using autoethnography as a primary methodology, I draw on my experience growing up in the former Soviet Union in the late 1970s and 1980s to illuminate the everyday life in the authoritarian regime and its surveillance apparatus. Writers from Russia like Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Pushkin and Tolstoy are fundamental to any consideration of literary history and achievement. Writing from the Soviet Union – and the countries that preceded and succeeded it – has long been lauded. In my travels, I’ve visited Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Azerbaijan among others, and I am always struck by the sheer breadth and scope of the former bloc. The Soviet Union was the largest country in the world, spanning eleven time zones and covering most of both Asia and Europe from 1922 to 1991. You will never find her ironing, as she doesn't believe in it. When not slogging at a desk in the financial world, Aisling can be found attempting new yoga poses, running, pole dancing or eating large amounts of spicy food and chocolate. She's super clumsy and has accepted that her hair will never be tidy. ![]() Forever reading books in the bath and consequently wondering why her paperbacks are a bit wobbly, Aisling has been a writer for almost ten years. ![]() Aisling was born in Cork and lived in Dublin for a few years before quitting her old life in 2015 and starting a brand new one in London.
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