SUSPENDING ‘THE POST-COMMUNIST CONDITION’: THE GENERATIONAL BREAK AND ITS PECULIARITIES

Abstract

While ‘the post-communist condition’ is linked to a generation that grew up east of the Iron Curtain, the younger generation, born in the 1980s, is confronted with an increasingly fading memory of the socialist past and with socialism as a devalued political philosophy across Europe. The crucial experience of this group of people is not socialism; it is the post-socialist transition, the post-Cold War era which has left a deep mark in their lives. Analyzing time and language as two peculiar motives in post-socialist discourses and artistic practices, this paper traces the gradual suspension of ‘the post-communist condition’ in favor of a less biased and ‘vertical’ reading of contemporary post-socialist art.