Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SOVEL (Soviet Ellipses: Omissions as Techniques of Border Transgression in Photography, Literature, and Everyday Life)
Reporting period: 2021-11-01 to 2023-10-31
Soviet Ellipses (SOVEL) examined the creation and representation of ellipsis – or conscious omission – in Soviet photography, literature, and everyday life. The research was based on the premise that the significant accumulation of omission practices during the Soviet era (1917-1991) was not accidental but served as a subversive strategy to circumvent censorship, resist political repression, and cope with trauma-induced speechlessness, all of which had profoundly shaped Soviet society. In a society shaped by repression, censorship, and trauma, voids often stand as the only viable means of articulating that which cannot be expressed. The project aimed to demonstrate how ellipses can function as creative techniques to transcend symbolic boundaries, allowing individuals to express what cannot be explicitly stated, depicted, or described under given circumstances. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the study integrated insights from literary studies, border studies, image theory, cultural semiotics, memory studies, and geographic information systems (GIS) to examine the evolution, the transgressive function, and the creative power of ellipses across different media. Taking a diachronic and comparative perspective, it traced how during Soviet rule, omission developed as a transgressive form of counter-practice over time and across cultural and creative contexts.
The project was divided into three phases, each with a specific focus. The first phase involved acquiring methodological tools and developing an interdisciplinary model for analysing ellipses as a creative strategy to challenge imposed constraints and trauma-induced speechlessness. The second focused on selecting and classifying a representative corpus while determining its spatial and temporal scope. In response to the escalating threat to Ukrainian cultural heritage from Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, particular emphasis was placed on artefacts originating from Ukraine or shaped by a Ukrainian context, also to enhance their visibility. The final phase examined omission in artistic and cultural production, applying the chosen analytical methods to explore how symbolic boundaries were negotiated under specific political, social, and historical conditions.
Findings were disseminated through multiple channels, with a major outcome being the two-day conference "Trauma, Memory, and Counter-Culture: Borders and Border Transgressions in (Post-)Communist Europe", held at the University of Oslo in June 2023. Researchers from 12 countries, including those from Eastern Europe and the Americas, participated, fostering interdisciplinary exchange and dialogue. Beyond the conference, research findings were shared through international conferences, guest lectures, workshops, and academic publications, ensuring broad scholarly engagement with the project’s insights.
Findings were disseminated through multiple channels, with a major outcome being the two-day conference "Trauma, Memory, and Counter-Culture: Borders and Border Transgressions in (Post-)Communist Europe", held at the University of Oslo in June 2023. Researchers from 12 countries, including those from Eastern Europe and the Americas, participated, fostering interdisciplinary exchange and dialogue. Beyond the conference, research findings were shared through international conferences, guest lectures, workshops, and academic publications, ensuring broad scholarly engagement with the project’s insights.
The research introduced a novel approach to understanding and analysing creative practices that arise in response to symbolic boundaries within specific political, social, and historical contexts. Drawing upon various phases of Soviet history, it established a framework for analysing and comparing creative expressions that resulted from repression, censorship, and restrictions on self-expression caused by traumatic experience. A key contribution is the expansion of the concept of ellipsis within the framework of Border Studies, moving beyond its traditional linguistic and structuralist definitions so as to understand it as a broader cultural and socio-political phenomenon. By exploring how artistic expression adapts to political and social constraints, it provided new methodologies applicable across disciplines such as literary studies, art history, cultural studies, memory studies, and trauma studies. Boundaries, whether socially or politically constructed, shape artistic and cultural expression in diverse ways, and the responses to these restrictions vary significantly. While retrospective perspectives often weave together complex historical and cultural layers, the immediate presence of boundaries tends to provoke more subversive forms of expression.
During the Soviet period in particular, ellipsis was frequently employed as a creative device in order to circumvent official narratives, using indirect expression, coded language and creative subversion to challenge the restrictions imposed by the prevailing doctrine. The research, however, also extends into contemporary contexts, where ellipsis continues to function as a pivotal strategy in negotiating imposed limitations. In view of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, the persistent role of ellipsis in societies facing political repression and unfreedom of speech is evident. Strategies of implicit resistance, traceable back to the Soviet experience, continue to shape artistic and cultural responses in the present day.
The research has thus shed light on historical practices of challenging boundaries and highlighted their continued relevance in contemporary efforts to assert voice, while making an important contribution to understanding manifestations of cultural resistance to authoritarian regimes.
During the Soviet period in particular, ellipsis was frequently employed as a creative device in order to circumvent official narratives, using indirect expression, coded language and creative subversion to challenge the restrictions imposed by the prevailing doctrine. The research, however, also extends into contemporary contexts, where ellipsis continues to function as a pivotal strategy in negotiating imposed limitations. In view of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, the persistent role of ellipsis in societies facing political repression and unfreedom of speech is evident. Strategies of implicit resistance, traceable back to the Soviet experience, continue to shape artistic and cultural responses in the present day.
The research has thus shed light on historical practices of challenging boundaries and highlighted their continued relevance in contemporary efforts to assert voice, while making an important contribution to understanding manifestations of cultural resistance to authoritarian regimes.