Exploring forms of violence in Putin society through contemporary literature

Argumentary of the scientific event

Taking the pulse of Russian society through contemporary literature

The large-scale invasion of Ukraine on which Russia embarked on February 24, 2022 has prompted new reflections in a variety of research fields (history, political science, sociology, memorial studies). This aggression raises questions about the deep-rooted, long-lasting processes that led to its acceptance and support among a significant part of the Russian population, as well as to the generalization of war crimes (murder of civilians, use of rape as a weapon of war, pillaging). At a time when our gaze is riveted on battlefields and exactions as such, a reflection is emerging on the systemic nature of a violence that manifests itself not only on the military field, but also in a more diffuse way in public discourse as well as in the private sphere, notably against women and minorities.

To nourish this reflection, in 2023 we launched a cycle of encounters with contemporary authors invited to share the view they take of Russian society in their texts. Through these encounters, we wanted to explore contemporary Russian-language literature to "take the pulse" of this society, to feel its particular atmosphere in the Putin era of the war years and those that preceded. Indeed, literature can help us grasp certain phenomena and developments in society, through the sometimes direct evocation of decriminalized and trivialized violence, as well as through revealing "little nothings" (poustiaki): details of everyday life, snippets of overheard conversations, observed behavior.

The study days aim to draw up an initial assessment of the first two years of this long-term project.

These days will be an opportunity to question the way in which violence is problematized in Russian society in the Putin era. While the 1990s may have constituted a parenthesis of freedom, they also appeared to be a time when violence, whose "monopoly" was held by the Soviet state until 1991, was redistributed in Russian society and exercised outside the ideological base that gave it a form of legitimacy: the "bespredel " analyzed by Borenstein (2008) thus presents itself as privatized violence, reappropriated by individual actors according to personal logics. This is the kind of violence that runs through Balabanov's films, for example, where it is exercised as much by representatives of the law as by civilians, on targets that often seem determined in part by chance and individual arbitrariness. Putin's rise to power is the subject of a media and governmental narrative that presents him as the man who put an end to the bespredel by establishing a "dictatorship of law" [diktatura zakona] and a "vertical of power" [vertikal' vlasti]. However, while it has certainly "domesticated mafia violence", it has done so by "integrating into the state apparatus" those who exercised this violence in the 1990s (Favarel-Garrigues, 2008). For contemporary Russia, Anna Colin-Lebedev speaks of "violence as a mode of government" (Colin-Lebedev, 2022), on a state scale, but which seems to extend right down to the family unit, with legal tolerance for certain forms of interpersonal violence. While the impact of the redistribution of violence on the cultural representations of the 1990s has been studied (Beumers, Lipovetsky, 2009), the developments (formal, sociological) of the Putin period remain largely underexplored; these days intend to contribute to filling this gap.

We will also look at the question of self-defense and reactionary violence (Dorlin, 2017): is the counter-violence that victims might exercise in reaction to state, historical, family violence thought of in this literature, and in what form? Is there any violence in this literature that does not serve political power or its ideology, even if it is represented in order to be denounced? In so-called opposition literature, for example, the title of Daria Serenko's book about her political exile, I wish ashes to my house, caused quite a stir: the violence against Russia that some saw in it, without necessarily paying attention to the actual content of the work, may have seemed inadmissible, even in certain anti-war circles. To what extent do representations of violence in contemporary Russian literature make room for self-defense? More theoretically, these debates on the legitimacy of counter-violence invite reflection on the ontology of violence: does it come from the same evil essence - which, according to Tolstoyan precepts, should always be held to be unacceptable - or should we think of a plurality of violences, with distinct natures, calling for differentiated criticism, or even likely, in some cases, to escape criticism?

Scientific event program

Wednesday, December 3th, 2025

Auditorium Dumézil - Maison de la recherche de l'Inalco (2 rue de Lille, Paris 7^e)

- 9:30am-9:45am : Welcome of participants

- 9:45am-12pm : Panel 1 - Sexist, sexual and domestic violence

Moderation : Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne Université)

• Daria Terebikhina-Noël (Université Rennes 2) : Écrire face à l'incursion politique dans l'intime : hybridité et résistances féminines dans la littérature russe contemporaine.
• Kateryna Tarasiuk (University of Strasbourg): Naming sexual, sexist and homophobic violence against the female body means taking care of oneself and others: the case of Natalia Mechtchaninova's Narratives and Oksana Vasiakina's Blessure.
• Sylvia Chassaing (Inalco): Tuer le mâle: enjeux de la représentation des violences réactionnelles dans la prose russophone contemporaine.

- 12pm-1:30pm : Lunch break

- 1:30pm-4pm : Panel 2 - Forms and modalities of the representation of violence

Moderation: Hélène Mélat (Sorbonne Université)

• Elena Gordienko (Inalco): Entre distanciation et réappropriation: fictionalization of testimony to sexual violence in contemporary Russian theater.
• Anastasia Kozyreva (Inalco): Dmitri Markov: putting everyday violence into images and narrative.
• Julie Gerber (Université Grenoble Alpes): Representations of violence and animal metaphor in the latest novels by Maria Stepanova and Sergei Lebedev.

• Hélène Henry-Safier (Sorbonne Université): Maria Stepanova's Les petites filles qu'on dévêt, or the first violence.

   

- 4pm-4:30pm : Coffee break

- 4:30pm-6:30pm : Round table on autofiction

Moderation : Larissa Muraveva (Université Grenoble Alpes, PAUSE)

Participants.s : Daria Apakhontchich, Dinara Rasuleva, Alexey Voïnov, Shell(f)Editions

Thursday, December 4th, 2025

Morning

Salle des Fresques - Sorbonne (17 rue de la Sorbonne - Paris 5^e)

⚠ Pre-registration required for people from outside Sorbonne Université ⚠

- 9am-10:15am : Panel 3 - Violence against sexual minorities

Moderator: Nicolas Aude (Sorbonne Université)

• Lilya Dyachenko (University of Geneva): Queeritude of ruins. Gay and lesbian narratives in the neglected landscapes of the southern Volga.
• Liz Dyachenko-Escalle (Université Paris Nanterre): Presence and absence of trans and non-binary people in contemporary Russian-language queer literature.

- 10:15am-10:30am : Coffee break

- 10:30am-1pm : Panel 4 - National violence, colonial legacies, migrations

Moderation: Domenico Scagliusi (Sorbonne Université)

• Yana Meerzon (University of Ottawa):Migrant bodies, colonial legacies: violence and resistance in contemporary Russian theater.

• Bella Delacroix-Ostromooukhova (Sorbonne Université) :The place and role of violence in Russian-language literature for teenagers. The example of The Voice of Daria Dotsouk.

• Laura Piccolo (Roma Tre University) :Emigration and violence: notes on Appendix by Alexandra Petrova.

• Guilhem Pousson (Sorbonne Université): Exile as return to the homeland in Alexey Voïnov's Winter without Snow.

- 1pm-2:30pm : Lunch break

Afternoon

Salle de conférences - Institut d'études slaves (9 rue Michelet - Paris 6^e)

- 3pm-5pm : Round table on documentary literature

Moderator: Guilhem Pousson (Sorbonne Université)

Participant.e.s : Elena Kostiouchenko, Andreï Stadnikov, Lida Youssoupova.

- 5pm-6:30pm : Closing cocktail

Organization

• Sylvia Chassaing (CREE, Inalco)
• Claire Delaunay (CECILLE, Université de Lille)
• Guilhem Pousson (EUR'ORBEM, Sorbonne Université)

Domenico Scagliusi (EUR'ORBEM, Sorbonne Université)

• Maria Turgieva (EUR'ORBEM, Sorbonne Université)

Contacts

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