Sympathy for the Weary State? Cold War Chronotopes and Moscow Others

Julya paces the parquet, blond hair coiled severely, hands clasped atop padded buttocks encased in a boxy gray, ill-fitting suit. She sputters abuse at her audience: fifteen classmates sprawled on the floor, their teacher seated in a chair, and a video camera. Moscow, November 2002. The Americans prepare to invade Iraq, Putin serves his third year as president, and these students begin their first term at the Russian Academy for Theatrical Arts (RATI/GITIS). Inside its walls, Julya depicts the head of her high school, an older woman in a town two hours north. She yells: “I REQUEST that TODAY at the meeting with ZhshzhshshzhshuGAnov you ALL be there!” (Zjuganov is the leader of the Russian Communist Party.) Some students slap the parquet laughing. Their teacher is less impressed.