In his comprehensive monograph, Matthias Meindl seeks to shed light on the controversial question regarding relations between art and politics in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In doing so, he presents one of the first broader explorations that discerns the development of the Russian counter-culture from the Moscow Action Art of the 1990s and Eduard Limonov's circle to the “Voina” and “Chto delat΄” groups. Thus, it encompasses different political regimes as well as several eras of political art. By employing Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the literary field as his primary analytical instrument, Meindl tries to dialectically reduce the discrepancy between political and artistic action: based on the “homology” (the reciprocal mirroring between different fields of society), the autonomy of art does not interfere with its political impact, which is in fact a symbolic added value. Yet, instead of solving, it productively broaches the issue of the contradiction between two significant aspects of politically-engaged art and literature: its orientation towards broader audiences on the one hand and its complex intellectual language on the other. Meindl dedicates his study to the comparison of this controversial sociological question against internal artistic positions. He includes numerous statements, manifestos, interviews and, of course, artifacts produced in different genres, such as poetry, essay, installation, and music video. In this way, he successfully connects the dynamics of macro-sociological cultural processes to the analysis of the subjectivities and the self-conception of the protagonists in the field.

In the first major chapter, the central focus is on the question of the (dis)continuities between two significant manifestations of Russian radical art—Moscow Action Art and the more recent “Voina” and “Pussy Riot” groups. In this genealogy, Meindl highlights the tactics of delegitimizing prevailing politics, which expose yet at the same time mirror the logic of post-Soviet predatory capitalism and, in the case of “Pussy Riot,” of the authoritarian neo-liberalism of the new Millennium. The iurodstvo (holy foolishness) and heroes’ romantic charisma appear to have only cemented the sacred foundations of the establishment they were trying to attack. Meanwhile, their esthetic language remains incomprehensible to the majority. As a result, the desired mobilization of the masses remains utopia, thus endorsing the dismissed autonomy of art ex negativo.

The next chapter, which is dedicated to Limonov's political activity, distances itself the furthest from a formal art analysis. This is where the reconstructing approach of the monograph, with consideration for art milieus and internal discussions becomes most apparent. The apocalyptic esthetics that characterize Limonov's position as an author and a politician are analyzed on a macro-level in the context of the time-specific formation of social environments, which are represented by Sergei Kurekhin, Egor Letov and Zakhar Prilepin. Meindl attempts to reach a balanced assessment of politically disreputable positions that sometimes border on fascism, and to read the life texts as polysemous artistic strategies. It is not a coincidence the steb-tactics are discussed extensively in this section; the ambiguous positioning of a steb-artist, dodging any kind of semantic predefinition, allows him to eschew the dangerous proximity of certain ideologies, while at the same time declining responsibility for his own words and actions.

The activist art phenomenon that, because of its novelty, has hitherto been studied the least is the leftist Marxist scene, represented in the book by the poet Kirill Medvedev and the “Chto delat΄” collective. What distinguishes it from the other abovementioned forms of art activism is its focus on the new self-mobilization: “way of organizing, working and living” (418). The artists’ political activity now goes beyond the tradition of parrhesia (speaking truth to power); in fact, it makes it more complex by creating their own alternative institutions. By pointing at the historical situation, Meindl neutralizes the question of the unbridgeable distance between the “people” and the intellectuals acting in its name, which is a painful issue for Russian cultural history. For instance, he regards Medvedev's solidarity with the working class as a consequence of the massive discrimination of and the resulting social proximity between intellectuals and laborers as brought about by the reforms of the 1990s. Yet, while Meindl offers subtle analyses of Medvedev's poetry, it needs to be noted that in general, he lacks distance from his subject of investigation: his empathy for the poet, whom he brilliantly translated in Germany, becomes apparent. As a result, he fails to notice, for example, that Medvedev sometimes clearly tries to make a hero of himself (in the popular video showing him and his group “Arkadii Kots” singing in a prisoner transport vehicle).

By looking at the “Chto delat΄” group, Meindl continues his exploration of the professionalization and institutionalization of leftist Marxist art in Russia after 2010. The emergence of interdisciplinary artistic-intellectual collectives aiming at long-term practical and pedagogical activity should still be reflected upon. Without a doubt, Meindl's book is the first major step in this direction, for “Chto delat΄” is merely the internationally best-known example of a whole set of these collectives. The subject of the artistic impact and the relevance of socially-committed theater is exemplified by Meindl's differentiated considerations of socially-critical song plays by “Chto delat΄,” which want to be rooted in the tradition of Bertold Brecht's didactic plays, but unlike those cannot claim having the working class as the audience for their call to mobilization.

Meindl's research is very well documented, yet it predominantly relies on German and Russian sources; some significant English-language works have unfortunately not been considered (for instance Lena Johnson's 2015 monograph). Moreover, the historical art groundwork for his observations can hardly be called solid, which in all fairness can be excused taking into consideration his firm focus on cultural sociology and opinion landscapes. A further point of criticism is the sometimes rather verbose way of writing in this book of 656 pages.