Russia in the twenty-first century occupies a split status vis-à-vis Europe and the US. In cultural terms, Russia unequivocally participates in a European heritage to which it continues to contribute its own distinct national texts. In military, economic, and political terms, however, Russia exists in a different administrative and conceptual space, outside the European order. This contradiction poses challenges for interdisciplinary research, as well as opportunities for productive dialogues with colleagues whose methodological and policy assumptions are firmly embedded in one or the other of these two Russias.
The familiar Cold War binaries (Western vs. Eastern Europes; NATO vs. Warsaw Pact; Common Market vs. Comecon, etc.) have thus been supplanted by a different binary, now internal to the discourse on contemporary Russia in its dual status as European/non-European nation. These debates, as we know from Petr Chaadaev, are not new. The 19th c. paradigm of the Westernizer-Slavophile debate, however, is no more adequate in the context of globalization than the outmoded notion of "symmetrical Europes" in the post-Cold War period.
This discursive schizophrenia around Russia is the focus of the 2001 Russian Film Symposium, "Evropsk, Russia: Out of european Order?" Participants are asked to examine cinematic representations of that nation as redolent of this tension and shifting status. Russia's "split personality," whether a construct of the US-European alliance or internal to the emergent nation itself, has both fascinating and problematic implications for its connections with Europe, as well as for its own sense of mission as a gateway culture for the Caucasus and Central Asia. The (to date) little examined interaction of Russia with these regions may be the beginning of a re-conceptualization of this part of the world, and of Russia's role in defining its position in both global culture and global conflict.
As a focus for this aspect of the discussion, coordinated screenings of four films at Carnegie Museum will be devoted to the theme of Russia and the Caucasus. These will include Vadim Abdrashitov's Time of the Dancer, Sergei Bodrov's Prisoner of the Caucasus, Rustam Ibragimbekov's Family, and Aleksandr Rogozhkin's Checkpoint. Guests of the Symposium will include several film-industry figures, including Rustam Ibragimbekov, best known for his work with Nikita Mikhalkov, and Aleksandr Mindadze, scriptwriter for all Vadim Abdrashitov's films. Scholars and journalists presenting research at the symposium include Ekaterina Degot', Evgenii Dobrenko, Mikhail Iampol'skii, Galina Kabakova, Viktor Matizen, Elena Stishova, Nina Tsyrkun, and Neia Zorkaia.