Sincerity after Communism offers a cultural history of sincerity rhetorics, with special attention for their outlines in post-Soviet literature and blogs. It traces a trend to categorize contemporary cultural practices as "new sincere" or as emblematic of a "post-postmodern" sincerity. The phrase “new sincerity” today recaps a philosophy of life for Russians from a variety of social and professional backgrounds, from bloggers to curators, scholars to poets, philosophers to PR assistants, and film reviewers to artists. Such prominent critical commentators as Mikhail Epstein and Alexei Yurchak single out (a renewed) sincerity as a salient aesthetic mode in contemporary Russian culture. Their observations concur with those of scholars and critics across the globe, who use the phrase “new sincerity” to flag an alleged turn away from postmodernism towards a spanking new cultural era.

With this book, I do not aim to define what “new sincerity” “really” is, or to argue that it is the leading cultural trend following postmodernism. Instead, for this study I adopted the perspective of the cultural historian – one who does not partake in the debates at hand, but who does observe their vital role in processes of cultural production and consumption. One, moreover, who feels that “new-sincerity” discourse forms a major point of departure for post-Soviet thinking on such diverging but primary mental categories as selfhood, reality, identity, language, politics, and cultural memory. My analyses reveal, first, how in today’s Russia "sincerity talk" is inextricably intertwined with debates about the recent past; second, how the public envisions a problematic tension between sincerity and pragmatic economic concerns when discussing post-Soviet artists; and, third, how digital media impact on contemporary sincerity rhetoric. The book reviews a plethora of cultural disciplines – apart from literature and new media, it touches upon developments in cinema, architecture, design, art, music, fashion, and television. It is based in part on my interviews with key players in the debate, such as the writers Vladimir Sorokin, Lev Rubinstein, Timur Kibirov, and Dmitrii Vodennikov, and web pioneer Sergei Kuznetsov.

Sincerity after Communism: A Cultural History is currently under review at an American university publisher; once more publication details are known, I will share them on this page.