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The anticulture phenomenon in Soviet culture

PEET LEPIK

The objectives and problems of the article

In this article, Soviet culture is analyzed on the basis of antithetical self-

description. The semiotic aspect of the analysis of anticultureproceeds from

the original model of semiosis in culture, formulated by Jurii Lotman and

Boris Uspenskii, and Lotman's autocommunication theory. The anti-

culture phenomenon is examined on the basis of the topological (spatial

complementarity, symmetrical reduction, mirror projection, and enantio-

morphic symmetry) and the autocommunication theoretical schema of

culture. The universal role in the system culture-anticulture of antithesis

as a secondary syntagmatical and semantic code becomes apparent.If `Soviet culture' is treated from the aspect of its self-reection, then it

must be stated that the concept `culture', in orthodox historical material-

ism, has always been a civic studies category of a secondary if not

tertiary importance. Such a practice was initiated in the works of

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The former does not mention `culture'

as being part of the main categories of historical materialism (Marx

1980 [1859]); the latter replaces the concept `culture' by the category

of `civilization' (Engels 1934 [1883]: 160166, 173, 174). Vladimir Lenin

derives the concept `culture' from class antagonism, referring to `theculture of the oppressors and the oppressed' as being `in the one culture'

(Lenin 1948 [1913]: 8, 9). Such an approach reduces Marxist `spiritual

culture' to an ideological synonym. And even further: ideology, in

orthodox Marxism, changes to a gender concept of culture.

Regarding the characteristics of Soviet ideology, it can be said with

great probability that as rules producing text they primarily generate texts

constructed on antithesis either directly, or indirectly. The antithetical

traits of `ideology' as twentieth century's `radical intellectual depravity'

were touched upon by Edward Shils in the 1960s. He compared Italianfascism, German national socialism, Russian bolshevism, French and

Italian communism, and other radical political movements. Shils noted

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that from an ideological viewpoint politics must be checked by a

collection of convictions which were all-encompassing and denying all

other considerations. Ideology is totalistic, because it attempts to govern,

in its spirit of prescription, the entire social and cultural life; ideology is

doctrinaire, because it declares itself to have command of the completepolitical truth, with no exceptions; ideology is alienative, since it distrusts,

attacks, and subverts weak institutions; ideology is dualistic and sets as

opposites the angel-like `our' against the satanist `them': he who is not

with me is automatically `against me' (Shils 1958: 450480).

Antithesis is also stated by Paul Ricoeur, noting that ideology is a

polemic concept: the term `ideology' has always referred to the other,

`wrong' ideology (Ricoeur 1986: 2). Ricoeur also claims that all

`contemporary cultures' not only are becoming secularized but they

are also becoming confrontational `on the level of basic ideals'. He

says that `integration without confrontation is pre-ideological' (Ricoeur

1986: 259).1 Cliord Geertz draws attention to the method used by

the `advocates' of ideology (he is referring to the intermediary role of

ideologues) to polarize claims (Geertz 1973: 205).

There are more than enough examples from Soviet culture. In discuss-

ing education, Lenin categorically declares: `Each word expressed by it

[pre-socialist education establishment] was falsied in the interests of the

bourgeoisie' (Lenin 1950b (1920): 265, my emphasis). And elsewhere:`We_

have now seen in practice that in a period of social revolution,

proletarian unity can only be implemented by the extreme revolutionary

party of Marxism, this can be done only through a merciless struggle

against all other parties' (Lenin 1950a [1920]: 488, my emphasis).

Interpreting the subordination of ideology and culture in Marxism

would lead to the conclusion that the structure of Soviet culture must t

into the antithetic model of ideology. Or is this subordinate relationship

the reverse? The antithesis phenomenon in culture therefore requires

further examination.In its most general form, `antithesis' (if we proceed from Webster)

means the rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements

of words, clauses, or sentences; opposition contrast; the second of oppos-

ing constituents of an antithesis; the direct opposite; contrary; the second

stage of a dialectic process. Observing the occurrence of antithesis in

culture it becomes apparent that setting opposites, contrasts, and opposi-

tions appear in all spheres of the self-description of a culture and a person.

Based on results of biosemiotic research it is even indicated that the

identication of `self' in relation to `other' is the most ancient and alsothe rst (semiotic) opposition in living organisms in general (Sebeok 1989;

Bickerton 1990).

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There are substantial publications on antithesis. The diering

manifestations of antitheses have provided sucient interest for linguists

and literature scholars: (binary) oppositions, zero-feature, etc. (Bally

1932, Ivanov 1973, Jakobson 1985b [1975], Saussure 1959 [1916]); for

philosophers, cultural anthropologists, and semioticians: dual culturalmodels, antibehavior, anticulture (Abramian 1981; Jakobson 1971 [1967],

Le vi-Strauss 1967 [1958], Lotman and Uspenskii 1994 [1977], No th

1994a, Piatigorskii 1992, Uspenskii 1994 [1985]); for folklore scholars:

the polar placement of persons and events (`Setzung') and symmetry

(Abramian 1983, Meletinskii 1976, Olrik 1909); for analytical and social

psychologists, psychoanalysts, and sociologists: mirror stage of onto-

genesis, universal dualism of spiritual experiences, `us' `them', negative

identity (Jung 1994 [1930], Lacan 1977 [1937], Porshnev 1979 [1966],

Russell 1979); for biosemioticians and cyberneticians: invader, asymmetry

of brain hemispheres, semiotic and non-semiotic identication mecha-

nisms of the `foreigner' (Erikson 1966, Ivanov 1978, Jacob 1974). This

writer, however, has not succeeded in nding more extensive theoretical

treatment of the antithetic structure of ideology.

Therefore, we come to the following tasks: 1) to describe in more detail

the formal structure based on the ideological and/or cultural antithesis; 2)

to discover, on the level of the observed structure, the mutual (functional)

associations between ideology and culture; 3) to implement the sketchedtheoretical diagram in the interpretation of Soviet culture.

In the following, the Soviet ideology and culture is interpreted using

the culture theory developed by the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school. In

the framework of this theory, it is particularly interesting to examine

more deeply a culture semiotic model which permits the placement of

the results of the current analysis of ideology into a much wider context.

Semiosis forms the culture type

As is known, the Tartu-Moscow school semioticians dene culture as a

semiotic system occurring between a person and the world, which func-

tions for the processing and arrangement of information stored by a

person (Lotman and Uspenskii 1984: X). This system is observed as both

an abstract model of reality (or as a world picture or culture language) as

well as its realization in sign structures (Lotman 1969: 463).

Lotman and Uspenskii claim that in culture semiotics it is not possible

to limit oneself to the functional analysis of culture as a sign system.Citing Foucault's similar approach (Foucault 1994 [1966]) they place

importance in culture on the relation of culture to the sign and to

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signication (semiosis), as a basic factor forming culture type. In their

opinion, it is important to observe how in culture the relationship between

the level of expression and the level of content of a sign is interpreted.

On the basis of this relationship they dierentiate between two culture

types. For one of these, the symbol is suitable for the illustration of thetype of relationship of the content and the expression, but for the other,

it is a ritual (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 151, 152).

In the rst, conventional, arbitrary relations dominate between content

and expression, as with symbols generally. Naming something in a cul-

ture (giving a name), as the manner of expressing content, is not at

all primary the expressed content is important. In the second culture

type Soviet culture, as my example the relationship between

manner of expression and content for a sign is generally seen as the

only option. The form of expression is indivisible from the content as in a

ritual, it dictates denite limits on the content and vice versa (Lotman

and Uspenskii 1971: 151, 152). Soviet culture, in our opinion, could

belong to just this culture type. Somewhere (probably in the `Gulag'),

Solzhenitsyn has written of a locomotive driver who was executed on

the spot because he had wrapped his sandwich in a newspaper which was

decorated by a picture of Stalin. The Soviet culture type is centered on

(`correct') naming. Incorrect designation is the same as `foreign' content.

Here we need to remember the re-naming of streets, squares, institutions,etc. in the Soviet Union in accordance with the political situation. At the

end of the 1930s, all Soviet citizens named Trotskii very quickly changed

their names (generally it was sucient to add an `i': Troitskii). Jaan

Undusk writes of Stalin's years in power: `It was often the case that people

were not in love with communism, which they had not yet started to

believe in, but rather with the word ``communism'', which everyone had

acquired, it was on everyone's lips and between their teeth:

Kaks helget nime rahva armastuses

on liitund u hes sonas: kommunism.

[Two shining names (i.e., Lenin, Stalin) in the love of the people have united in

one word: communism.]

[Aleksei Surkov: To the Leader of the Peoples, translated by Paul Viiding]

(Undusk 1994: 1881).

Compare this with Stalin's oath on the occasion of the death of Lenin:

`There is nothing higher than the name of the member of this party, whose

founder and leader is comrade Lenin' (Stalin 1947 [1924]: 46).

Culture as a whole can be interpreted either as a mechanism whichcreates a collection of texts or as texts as a realization of culture

(Lotman and Uspenskii 1994 [1977]: 245). In determining culture type

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the taking into account of the self-assessment of culture in this issue, as

indicated by Lotman and Uspenskii, is very important. In the rst case,

the model is a textbook as a collection of rules generating text. Such a

culture is aware of itself as a system of rules creating texts: one can only

speak of precedent, if there is a rule which describes it. (Europeanclassicism can be seen as an example.) In the second case, the textbook as

chrestomathy or a catechism is the model texts, citations, collection of

questions-answers (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 152, 153). Such a culture

is aware of itself as a culture of norms a collection of `correct' texts;

here the rules are reected as the sum of precedents.

Being oriented to expression (nomination), Soviet culture is aware of

itself as the Correct Text. The content of culture, looking from the view-

point of the self-reection of culture, has been served up (pre-determined);

for comprehending the text one has to learn the corresponding relation-

ship between content and expression. The path to comprehend culture

is similar to the philological analysis of texts (Lotman and Uspenskii

1971: 152). It could be added that Western political scientists and

the Soviet intelligentsia (who were able to decipher precedents) could

unerringly interpret the near future of the state on the basis of signs,

which had a denite meaning as words do in a dictionary. For example, the

order of listing of CPSU Politburo members in an article or the way they

were lined up at the Lenin mausoleum during parades unambiguouslyexpressed changes which had occurred (were in the process of occurring)

in national politics. Soviet culture ritualized behavior. The dominance

of text as a precedent and its authoritative expression over the content

of the text and the rules which generate content is also illustrated quite

well by the citation convention which developed in the USSR. In the

case of `the classics of Marxism-Leninism' (i.e., Marx, Engels, Lenin

and [up to 1953] Stalin) as opposed to all other authors there was

no requirement to tie a citation to specic research (article), in which

the classic expressed the cited thought. It was sucient to refer only to thevolume and page of the (collected) work. The year of publication for

the volume was also not mentioned. In the case of Marx and Engels, no

dierentiation was made between them: it was always a case of `Works' by

K. Marx and F. Engels. The reader had to be completely satised by the

graphical fact of a citation to an authoritative text.

Antithesis as a dominant characteristic of semiosis

The clash of the two dierent culture types as sketched here with another

(`foreign') culture demonstrates an interesting dierence. The culture

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which is aware of itself as a collection of rules, and is a culture oriented

primarily towards content, sees the other culture as a non-culture. But a

culture oriented towards normative texts and expression treats foreign

culture as anticulture (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 154, 155).

Firstly, a few remarks on terms. The concepts and spelling of non-culture (or

non-text) and nonculture (or nontext) must be kept separate. The latter pair of

terms refers to `nature', which eo ipso is not culture [text]. (Lotman 1970b: 7)2

The Tartu-Moscow school semioticians have termed as non-culture the

`sphere' which functionally is a culture but which does not (currently)

fulll its rules (Lotman 1970b: 7). It `does not seem to exist' and falls

outside (is forgotten) or is excluded from (due to the low[er] level of

authority) the limits of a specic culture. Non-culture is subjectively madeequivalent to chaos, entropy (in the system organizednonorganized).

From the viewpoint of a scientic meta-language, this is of course

another culture (or another culture type). For a person outside the

culture, the non-culture is also simply a dierent sort of culture. Culture

does indeed function on the background of non-culture and has a

complicated relationship with it, through the processes of forgetting/

remembering and de-semiotization/semiotization. (Lotman 1970b: 8;

Lotman 1970a: 78, 79; Lotman and Piatigorskii 1968: 8488)3

Anticulture and non-culture are separated from culture by a border,which has a direct association with the orientation of culture towards

either expression (or text) or content (or rules). The border in the system

cultureanticulture is inexible, `insuperable'. The border between

culture and non-culture, however, is hazy, gradated, smoothly transi-

tional (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 154, 157). If one uses the concepts

from formal logic, then it should be permissible to speak in general terms

of anticulture as contradictory opposition (apposition occurs in a form

expressing mutual exclusion in a yes/no or and/or type), non-culture, how-

ever, is represented by contradictory opposition (the elements expressedare the extreme type concept of one and the same gender concept,

for example distantclose).4

In the opposition pair culturenon-culture, culture is aware of itself as a pro-

ductive source, which in a normal distribution process forms culture from the

non-culture sphere. It could be claimed, becoming historically more specic, that

the culture type characteristic of the western European scientic era, is mostly

able to be interpreted by proceeding precisely from a semiotic model oriented to

content and rules. (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 154, 157)

A most unusual situation develops, however, in the system culture-

anticulture. The semantics of this can be expressed through the opposition

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pair correctincorrect, `which may approach (even coincide) the anti-

thesis truefalse'. Here the culture is not only dierentiating itself

from `chaos', `nonorganized', or `entropy', but is apposite to a `sphere

preceded by a negative sign'. A `culture with a negative sign' is perceived

as a `special kind of mirror reection' of culture `where the connectionsremain, but become the opposite' (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 154, 155).

Culture separates itself from anticulture with a denite border and closes

in on itself. If the spread of culture to non-culture areas occurs (as already

indicated) as the expansion of knowledge to areas of nonknowledge, then

the transfer of knowledge to the anticulture sphere is from the viewpoint

of culture only possible as `victory over lies' (Lotman and Uspenskii

1971: 157). In Theses on the Semiotic Study of Culture it is formulated as

follows: `A dierence must be made between culture non-text and

anti-text: a statement which is not preserved, and a statement which is

destroyed' (Ivanov et al. 1998a [1973]: 4.0.0).

Unfortunately, the remarkable theoretical discussions on the formal

characteristics of anticulture by J. Lotman and B. Uspenskii are restricted

to the summary description cited above. In other publications, these

authors concentrate on the documentation of anticulture manifestations

on the basis of material on older Russian culture. (Lotman and Uspenskii

1975: 168254; Lotman and Uspenskii 1993 [1976]; Lotman and

Uspenskii 1994 [1977]; Uspenskii 1994 [1985], etc.).The conception by J. Lotman and B. Uspenskii of antithesis in culture

denitely provides a justication for concluding that Soviet (or totali-

tarian) ideology is not the unique domination sphere of antithesis and that

anticulture has a wider manifestation space than Soviet culture. But even

more important is the fact that antithesis is seen as an attribute of the

reection of culture and self-reection, within the framework of a certain

denite semiosis type.

Such an approach permits, in my opinion, postulation of a question

on the treatment of antithesis as a mechanism of culture as intellect, whichproduces certain types of texts. Antithesis should be able to be inter-

preted as an invariant operational `schema' of culture as `intellectually

operating entity' (one of many schemata), if proceeding from I. Kant's

(1902 [1790]: 221223) conceptual and theoretical tradition.5

Characteristics of an antithetic schema

Our task, within the framework of the present article, is to describeantithesis as the characteristics of an intellectual mechanism, and their

appearance in the self-reection of Soviet culture. We will restrict

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ourselves to observation of the topological and (auto)communicative

characteristics of antithesis as an intellectual schema, based on the

theoretical paradigm of the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school.6

Typology of the culture space: Spatial complementarity

Every linguistic statement describes a space-time process (Ivanov 1978:

130). The speaking subject (or certain culture system) is observable in a

time-space coordinate structure.7 Here `there is a dierence between the

space structures of the worldview and the meta-language which describes

it. In the rst case, the space characteristics are given to the object being

described, in the second, to the language being described'. In the words of

J. Lotman, a clear homeomorphism still dominates between the space

characteristics of object- and meta-languages, because `one of the uni-

versal peculiarities of human culture, possibly connected with the anthro-

pological features of human consciousness, is the fact that the worldview

inevitably acquires features of spatial characteristics' (Lotman 1969: 463).

Therefore, a space can be dened as collection of possible interpreted

characteristics (Ivanov 1978: 41).

A certain `matching up of the space with the viewpoint of the bearer

of the text' provides the culture model with an orientation (Lotman 1969:465). The orientation of the culture subject (or subjective orientation) is

understandably dependent on estimation. J. Lotman dierentiates

between the inner, limited, and external, open space, of a culture world

picture, and the applicable orientation from the inside out or from the

outside in (Lotman 1969: 465477). Such a classication principle may

be justied in the case of the self-descriptions of various world pictures,

including in the system culturenon-culture (see Figure 1). Compare

also Ivanov et al. (1998a [1973]: 1.1.2 and 1.2.0). However, it should

not be applicable for the system cultureanticulture (see Figure 2). Aculture surrounded by non-culture is a space with hazy borders: it

develops smoothly into a so-called borderless amorphous environment

(where, besides, the elements of nonculture and non-culture functionally

become the same). In the system cultureanticulture the anticulture

elements are in one to one topological accordance with culture elements,

because, as is known from logic, the members of binary oppositions are

in a conditional relationship. This means that the existence of one member

of some opposition notes the actualization of its opposite in (culture)

consciousness, although this opposite may be formally unspecied.8 Sincethe repertoire forming culture is in the self-description of the system

culture-anticulture dually arranged and regulated by strict borders,

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then the anticulture (or `outside' the culture) space is not seen as an

open space.9 Here we have two closed culture areas, which (ideally!)

are separated by an uncrossable (impenetrable) border. The border

blocks this is repeatedly emphasized such activity by `them'

directed at `us' which could deform `us'.

But still indeed paradoxically the self-reection of the Soviet

system was at the same time inseparable from anticulture. Determining

the basic values of culture on the level of self-reection could not occur

without being aware of (or making explicit) the anticulture elements ofcourse if one did not risk varying from the language of the system.

Therefore, culture and anticulture form a complementary pair, regarding

functioning they are in their own way Siamese twins. Anyone doubting

this should read any ocial self-description on the rst and last page in a

Soviet culture publication (the exception of course conrms the rule).

Topology of the culture space: Symmetrical reduction

There is another important topological line symmetry closely asso-

ciated with the closed binary structure of the system cultureanticulture.10

Figure 1. CultureNon-Culture

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The places mutually reserved by opposition pairs on the dual eld change

the system, on a topological plane, to bilaterally symmetrical and

semantically anti-symmetric. The language of this system does not

recognize a non-culture, which is neutral and ruins the symmetry.Non-culture is reduced to either culture or anticulture.11 Such a black-

white reduction in Soviet culture presumed self-conscious `being on

guard', regarding both `us' and `them'. Foreign cultural gures were

classied as (potential) enemies or `friends' (ours); in the USSR all letters

from foreigners were checked as a rule; all foreigners visiting `us' were

restricted in where they could go, etc. Within the culture, those young

people who did not belong to communist youth organizations were called

`nonorganized youth' (Soviet functionaries' slang!) and they had (great)

diculty in being admitted to higher education institutions, and in gettingcertain jobs. These same ocial understandings were used to assess people

who did not attend parades or go to vote: `If you're not for us, you're

Figure 2. CultureAnticulture

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against us'. Those against (real and fabricated) were marked as

`(bourgeois) nationalists', `opportunists', `revisionists', `liquidators',

`traitors', etc. And these were in essence treated as a part of `them'

the anticulture: `It cannot be an accident that the Trotskists, Bukharinists

and nationalist saboteurs, in ghting against Lenin, against the Party,reached the same point as the Menshevik and social revolutionary

parties they became agents of fascist spy organizations, became spies,

saboteurs, murderers, wreckers, traitors of the fatherland' (Lu hikursus

1951 [1938]: 326).

In addition, the polarizing elements of anticulture, on both sides, are

subject to yet another symmetrical reduction principle: all anticulture

elements become synonymous with each other and so do culture elements.

Two translatively symmetrical sequences (which understandably are

mutually semantically anti-symmetrical) are created. The opposite pairs

forming this sequence are in a certain context semantically interchange-

able: `each opposite pair can be treated as the translation of the basic

opposition benecialnon-benecial' (Ivanov 1978: 96). V. Ivanov

associates this semiosis-mechanism with the mythology of `elementary'

societies.12 But the recently analyzed understandings of J. Lotman and

B. Uspenskii regarding signs in culture types oriented to rituals allow the

interpretation of V. Ivanov's conclusion in a much wider context. For

example, in the consciousness of Russian Old Believers, `paganism',`heresy', `Catholicism', and even everything `new' was reduced to a

semantically symmetrical ornament, with the secondary axiological

common term `Satanism' (Lotman and Uspenskii 1994 [1977]: 232). In

an analogous way, Peter the Great was called the Anti-Christ because

he adopted the title of emperor; but for the Old Believers, `emperor',

`Rome', and `Anti-Christ' formed a semantically leveled ornament,

where `satanic' (sinning) became the content value dominant (Lotman

and Uspenskii 1993 [1976]: 203). In the self-descriptions of the

Soviet system antithesis: lawfully progressive (good)lawfully reactionary(bad) begins to replace (suocate) opposition terms. In the self-

consciousness of Soviet culture denite assessment cliches are created

on the level of the noted main opposition (and its secondary

opposite pairs ourishingdeterioration, luxuriancelanguishing,

etc.) (cf. Iakimovich 1998: 342, 343), which results in the primary

semantics of culture reality being reduced or becoming secondary,

e.g., `It is time to end the decaying view [of capitalists] that there is no

need to interfere in production' (Stalin 1935 [1931]: 446). The issue of

whether there is a need or not, that is not oered the reader as theprimary issue: the primary issue is to put and `end' to the `decay'

(capitalism)!.

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Topology of the culture space: Mirror projection

The appearance of antithetic semiosis in the topology of culture space

would not be complete without looking at the reexive or mirror

projection. As we know, S. Freud formulated projection as the transferof the individual's sub-conscious aggression to the outside world, i.e., to

the other people(s) (Freud 1938 [1906]: 854856). A mirror projection, in

our opinion, is a `me' (`us') described by dening a negative (often also

reected as aggressive) `other' (`others') as an antithesis i.e., via the

`others'. H. Smith, in his famous book The Russians, refers to the fact that

after an aviation accident in the Soviet Union, there always followed a

month of reports in the ocial press about air accidents in America, West

Germany, Taiwan, and wherever but somewhere else. The same logic

applies to health epidemics, price increases, crime, harvests, setbacks,

water shortage, jailing of political prisoners (Smith 1976: 368). This

example is particularly interesting because a projection precedes the

mirror projection. Firstly, `our' problems are transferred to `them' and

then a mirror projection antithesis is created: for `their' `drought' we have

the 0-feature `no drought'.

A mirror projection cannot possibly be conned only to being a tool of

ideological propaganda, as initially may be assumed (although it is that

as well!). There is reason to believe that mirror projection has in theself-regulation of culture a universal role. It is also apparent that the

mirror projection begins to dominate just in such dual semantically

antisymmetrical culture systems. These claims are supported on the one

hand by B. Porshnev's research results, which indicate that historically

the them-concept was created much earlier than the subjective our-concept

(Porshnev 1979 [1966]: 81). This is supported by E. Cassirer's claim that

pointing at one's body occurred before the use of pronouns (cf. Ivanov

1978: 137). On the other hand as opposed to many cultures mirror

projection has been continually characteristic of particularly Russianculture. It could even be said that it comprises the formative axis of

Russian culture. `New' has never as a rule been seen in Russia as the

continuation of the `old' or as an innovation, not dependent on the

`old', but still and always as the negation of the `old', as its radical

abandonment (ottalkivanie), even as the justication of its destruction

or as its destruction (see Lotman and Uspenskii 1994 [1977]; Lotman

and Uspenskii 1993 [1976]; Uspenskii 1994 [1985]). Sacramental

antibehavior refers back to pagan rituals: it was presumed that in the

world beyond the grave, all connections are opposite right is left, truthis the opposite, if there it is night, then here it is day, etc. (Uspenskii 1994

[1985]: 321).

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In another context and with less strict limitations, the same pheno-

menon is observed by T. Gross (1996: 17231735). He describes the

positive reinforcement of `me' as occurring due to the depiction of

the `other' (foreigner) as negative, and in the role of this `other' can be the

individual, culture, and also `an even wider formation'. T. Gross mentionsas examples the apposition of barbarians to Romans, and setting opposite

America or communist regimes to Western Europe. The `other' is dened

merely by placing it outside one's own system. Gross, however, does not

dierentiate between the `not-me' and the `anti-me' as the `other'. I should

stress that, in Soviet culture, the `anti-me' as the `other' (together with

the mirror projection procedure) is explicitly represented in the

infamous `self-criticism' ritual, which is `one of the most dynamic forces

in the development of society, in the special form of uncovering

dissension._

Party members are obligated to implement this and to

apply for the removal of the deciencies' (ENE 1972, 4: 189) i.e.,

bringing about the antithesis of one's own negative side!

Examples of the described antithetic schema variation can be found

without diculty in Soviet ideological self-descriptions. The hackneyed

display of capitalist countries' social situation via unemployment, non-

free medical services, `rampant' prostitution, or the exploitation of

workers, was of course directed primarily (and implicitly) to the antithesis

born from a mirror projection. In the USSR we of course did nothave unemployment or prostitution, and free medical services were of

course guaranteed_

In regard to exploitation or other matters, then the

semantics of both this and other analogous signs ends up in the realm of

translative symmetry and reducing primary semantics. Meanings are

determined by the basic opposition regressiveprogressive (see previous

section). Reexive projection was extensively used in art. As a classical

example, V. Maiakovskii's `Verses about the Soviet passport' deserve

quoting. The situation imagined by the poet occurs on the border of the

US. The Soviet passport, described as the `duplicate' of the `pricelessship ballast' for the Soviet person, is described through the attitude of the

ocial in a mirror projection manner. The attitude is expressed cumu-

latively on the level of four antitheses, of which the last has even the form

of a mythologized hyperbole:

Beret

kak bombu,

beret

kak ezha,kak britvu

oboiudoostruiu,

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beret,

kak gremutshuiu,

v 20 zhal

zmeiu

dvuhmetrovorostuiu.(Takes it-

as if it were a bomb,

Takes it

As if it were a hedgehog,

As if it is

a dual blade,

Takes it

As if it were a rattlesnake

With 20 fangs,

A snake

Twenty meters long.)

And then, right at the end, the `our'-side of the antithesis is exhibited

together with the content of the `duplicate':

Tchitaite,

zaviduite,

ia

grazhdaninSovetskogo Soiuza

(Read,

Be envious

I am

a citizen

of the Soviet Union)

(Maiakovskii 1956: 242).

Topology of the culture space: Enantiomorphic symmetry

Mirror projection, as we have seen, indicates the index aspect of the

semiosis of the negative `other' and the positive `me' (`us'). Using the

concept of the mirror, however, is simultaneously associated with

the iconic similarity relationship of antithesis.13 This interplay between

the similarity and dierence relationship has been called the equivalence

paradox (A A and A|A) (J. Levin 1988: 9), which is indeed the contentof enantiomorphic symmetry. In such a paradox the fact emerges

that anticulture is not nonculture or non-culture; it is also not culture,

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yet as became apparent in the discussion earlier regarding the com-

plementarity of the cultureanticulture system it is still also, as

anticulture, simultaneously culture! In other words, it could also be

stated: every armation has a concealed negation (cf. Ivanov 1978: 42).

Expressing this statement in topological terms it could be claimed that ifwe describe two objects, which are mutually mirror symmetric, then from

within each of the objects, if placed on top of each other, they coincide.

However, if we look in a mirror (in other words, describe both objects

from the position of one object), then if the objects are placed on top of

each other, the right side of one object becomes the left side of the other

object, and vice versa. This `understanding and observation paradox' has

been thoroughly described by Kant (1905 [1783]: 3841). The reversal of

right/left in enantiomorphic symmetry implies also the reversal of other

base positions aecting the physical and ethical world (Levin 1988: 11).

The psychoanalyst J. Lacan has even claimed that already in the so-called

mirror stage (between the fth and eighteenth month of life), the child

recognizes its body in a mirror as being inverted and opposite to itself,

an external (foreign) `other' (Lacan 1977 [1937]: 14).

Mirror symmetry is explicitly apparent in, for example, the Christ

Anti-Christ pair or in the medieval carnival antithesis. In Russia, the old

pagan culture became the unavoidable prerequisite of culture as such.

According to this schema, such a `new culture', which always saw itself asthe negation and complete destruction of the `old' actually became a

powerful impetus for preserving the `old', covering the inherited texts and

preserved behavioral forms, but turning these functions upside down,

mirror symmetrically (Lotman and Uspenskii 1994 [1977]: 226). The same

can be seen in Soviet culture, for example in turning upside down the

semantics of the red corners (krasnyi ugol) (in the `old' culture icon

corner, in the `new' an intimate room decorated with the picture of the

Party leader and meant for carrying out ideological events). The symbolic

substitution of religious passages of the cross on Red Square withdemonstrations by the workers is also mirror symmetrical, as well as

the symbolic replacement of the nobility with `the conscience, wisdom

and honor of the working class' the communist party. The pair of

opposites formed by the czar's autocracy and `democratic centralism' is

of course also enantiomorphically symmetrical. And so enantiomorphic

symmetry rises to organize the culture on supra-segmental levels of texts

(cf. No th 1994b: 101).

Attention, however, has been directed towards the disappearance of

asymmetrical culture systems, these becoming transformed into sym-metrical ones, and vice versa i.e., towards the internal dynamics of

culture systems. Generally, a person (on the basis of studies by

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A. Abramian) tries to avoid mirror symmetry to the benet of symmetry

(Abramian 1981: 77, 85, 86). The model for this tendency is the

handshake right hand with right hand! If we bring an example from

Soviet culture, then we notice a strange but constant regularity in the

political sympathies of Soviet dictators. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev,etc. for some reason generally managed to get on remarkably well with

(from a Soviet viewpoint) right-wing leaders: in the US with the

Republicans, in the UK with the Conservatives, and in Germany with

the Christian Democrats. But with left-wing and `weak' leaders there were

continual conicts.

Autocommunication of culture: Antithetic self-reection

A viewpoint causing mirror symmetry has two important features: an

individual looking into a mirror is relating to himself; and he sees that

of himself which, without looking in the mirror, he does not see. During

self-observation (self-admiration or self-hatred), the `me' is transformed

into the `other' for oneself. This feature of a mirror is expressed of course

in enantiomorphic symmetry. In Renaissance period art, the female gure

denoting pride was often supplied with a mirror, in which Satan was

reected (Hall 1997: 169, 170). The allegory for triviality could be a nakedwoman, who looks into a mirror whilst combing her hair, in the presence

of the gure of Death (1997: 545). Initially, it may seem that auto-

communication in the worldview of an individual has an facultative

meaning. But proceeding from the presumption of the analogy with the

individual and collective intellect, J. Lotman brushes this understanding

aside with a simple argument. If, instead of the concept `individual' we use

the concepts of the addresser and the addressee, it could be claimed that

in describing the communication, within the borders of some national

culture, for example, the area covered by the concept of addresser is justabout the same as covered by the addressee. But if we observe human

culture, then `remaining within the limits of the experience which is

at least historically real' the concepts of addresser and addressee

coincide, and communication must be interpreted, within the limits of

human culture, as autocommunication (Lotman 1970d: 15).

In the system cultureanticulture, autocommunication is central, the

function forming the structure. This claim is supported by the domination

of the complementarity of self-reection, mirror projection, and mirror

symmetry in the system cultureanticulture discussed earlier.As regards content, autocommunication is a paradoxical phenomenon

(Lotman 1973b: 228): the subject passes on a message to someone who

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already knows it anyway. Therefore, there is no mnemonic purpose in

the message transfer. This means that autocommunication must have

another important role, regarding culture. In claiming that a person uses

words in order to organize his individuality,14 J. Lotman emphasizes that

in transferring a message to oneself, the `me' itself is transformed: `the``me'' reorganizes its individuality' (1973b: 228). Here it should be added

that also a collective individual could feel the need to look itself in the

face, in order to become aware of what it is, for itself and for others.

In Soviet culture, such autocommunication became a genre of its own,

in the form of party programs, report speeches, slogan issues created for

the May and October celebrations, etc. The gems of this genre are

understandably the canonic short course of history of the CPSU

(Lu hikursus 1951 [1938]) and the `Stalinist' constitution (Konstitutsiia

1937). Readers who are familiar with these understand that in this genre a

clear enantiomorphic symmetry dominates. But in contrast to the classical

us-them model, here the plus and minus sides have reversed. Phenomena

which exclude, conceal, or condemn, subconsciously or consciously, the

`me' (`us') become the enantiomorphic projection of oneself, which we

indeed recognize in all the possible publications in the cultureanticulture

type systems, such as their all possible commandments and Mao-type

slogans.

In the self-reection of Russian culture, where observing oneself hasalways been of primary importance, and the most fundamental, regarding

the observation of the outside world (Lotman 1994: 407), anticulture is

indeed mostly sought from within culture. Russian culture does not see

itself as an evolutionary process but as a duel between the `old' and the

`new'. Together with Marxist world revolution theory, an `outside'

antithetic area was born, alongside the internal enemy, as a `capitalist

system', but Soviet Russian culture's autocommunication contaminated

and leveled out both of them in imagining a common enemy (in the spirit

of Figure 2):

Za vse

za voinu,

za posle,

za ranshe,

so vsemi

s ihnimi,i so svoimi

my rasschitayemsya v Krasnom revanshe_

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(For everything

For the war,

For that which came after,

For that which was before,With all them (enemies)

With theirs,

And with ours

We will settle the scores in a Red revenge_

)

(Maiakovskii 1956: 78)

Autocommunication: Antithesis as a secondary code

Culture, as is claimed by J. Lotman, has a tendency, in the typological

plane, to be either a communicative or an autocommunicative system

(Lotman 1973b: 242, 243). In the system cultureanticulture, as

became clear above, autocommunication is the fashionable method of

information exchange.

Autocommunication encourages the transformation of texts into

meta-texts. In the internal speech system `words and pictures become

indices' (Lotman 1970c: 165). This important observation was developedby J. Lotman into the autocommunication secondary code idea, which

in summary is as follows (see Lotman 1973b: 232240). Text, which in

autocommunication does not provide us with new information, but

transforms to a self-picture of `me', restricted to simply translating

the existing information into a new system of meaning, circulating in a

functional way as a code, not as a message.15 For example, if a reader of

Anna Karenina cries out (or thinks): `Anna that's me',16 then this

makes the text of Tolstoi's novel a model for the re-consideration of the

life of the reader. The meme system is dierent from the meyousystem due to word reduction: the words become the signs of the

words, the signs become indices. Tolstoi's text thus acquires a new

(i.e., additional) role this becomes the index and code of `my'

worldview. `Reading' an initial notication in the key of another code

creates a situation where the elements of the initial text are interpreted

as belonging to a further, syntagmatic construction which has been

entered from the `outside'. J. Lotman limits himself in dierentiating the

alternate code, by noting repeated, ornamental, rhythmic constructions:

it is these which begin to govern the associations of the addressee.Asemantic texts which have thoroughly organized syntagmatically

become the initiators of our associations the more emphatic the

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syntagmatics, the more associative it is! The reader understands

such a text only if he knows it in advance. Of course, information

exchange oriented to autocommunication cannot avoid cliches. On the

contrary: autocommunication has inclined to change texts into

syntagmatic cliches.I would add that such a system is familiar to everyone due to fairytales.

On the level of natural language the fairytale of course has semantics;

as a culture phenomenon the fairytale, however, is pure syntagmatics

i.e., a secondary code. A fairytale does not contain any new information

for anyone everything is known in advance. This was understood

superbly by A. Olrik, who at the beginning of the century claimed to be

researching the `biology' of fairytales (Olrik 1909: 1).

As can be concluded from the analysis of translative reduction,

complementarity, projection, and mirror projection, antithesis acquires

in the structure of enantiomorphic autocommunication a secondary

semantic and syntagmatic role. And it reorganizes the primary semantics

of the message which is reected. In a mirror projection text, the primary

content of a message retreats in the face of the logic of antithesis. Anti-

thesis, dominant in the system cultureanticulture, starts to produce,

as a semantic and syntagmatic superstructure, a certain type of text.

Therefore, antithesis is not merely a rhetorical trick, the emotional

reaction of an individual, a logical operation or a manifestation ofsubconscious aggression. Antithesis is a constructive element of culture,

J. Lotman would say: porozhdaiushchii mekhanizm. The autocommuni-

cation model of culture contains both the self-reection as well as the base

algorithms to comprehend the mirror reection. Antithesis also belongs

with these universal algorithms, retreating in some and rising to dominate

in other culture systems, including Soviet culture.

An approach which examines in depth the autocommunication of

culture and the dierent forms of symmetry oers an intriguing aspect in

the future treatment of antithesis in (meta)rhetoric. The analogy with themany manifestations of culture enantiomorphics and the asymmetric

functionality of the brain hemispheres is potentially very interesting in this

relationship. But this is the topic of a new article.

Notes

1. Ricoeur's problematic claim, which he used in his Chicago lectures in 1976, at that timecould have seemed somewhat more acceptable.

2. The spelling of the terms `nonculture' and `non-culture' has been incorrect even in basic

texts dealing with these issues, due to editorial mistakes. For example, in the English

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translation of Theses on the Semiotic Study of Culture, section 4.0.0.a `non-text'

(`ne-tekst') has been translated as `nontext' (`we should distinguish the nontext from

the ``antitext'' of a given culture'), and this mistake has occurred in numerous reprints

and translations (Lotman et al. 1975 [1973]; Ivanov et al. 1998a [1973]; Ivanov et al.

1998b [1973]); the basis for the Tartu publication was the text published in the collected

works: Structure of Texts and Semiotics of Culture. There is also inconsistency in the

spelling of the term anticulture, but the graphic image here (with a hyphen or without)

does not denote content dierences.

3. In Theses of Russian Culture Semiotics, compiled by Lotman a year before his death,

he wrote the sentence: `The concept of ``nonculture'' (nekulturnost') and ``outside

culture'' (vnekulturnost') should be permanently removed from scientic vocabulary

and replaced with ``other culture'' (inokulturnost')' (Lotman 1994: 416). These terms,

however, have been used here by Lotman is a completely dierent axiological

context, i.e., to encourage the valuing of Russian culture policy and the modern

paradigm of cultural self-awareness, in the context of world culture integration.

Emphasizing this aspect does not annul, in my opinion, the heuristic meaning andimplementation potential in culture theory of the concepts of `non-culture' and

`nonculture'.

4. In interpreting antithesis as an element of culture code, the comment by L. Wittgenstein

saying that although contradictory truth is impossible, contradiction is still not

pointless in a symbolic (i.e., semiotic) plane, should be kept in mind (Wittgenstein

1996 [1921]: 9295).

5. The main positions on the important aspects of culture as intellect are reected in

J. Lotman's works (1973a; 1977: 9, 13, 1618; 1990: 402, 403, 407, 408). It is also

important that Lotman postulates on the basis of the four main characteristics (semiotic

heterogenity, memory, self-propagation of meanings, and existence of a selection block)

of an individual, of text and culture as intellectual objects as their analogy of structure

and functioning principles.

6. The author of this article is interested here in typological special characteristics, which

means that the real variance of the phenomena under analysis has been knowingly

set aside.

7. These localization problems of the coordinates have been examined on the linguistic

lexical and form level by R. Jakobson in his shifter theory (1972 [1971]), R. Thom on the

basis of a topological model for natural language (1975), and J. Lotman in his theory on

subject and event (1970d: 280289).

8. This important characteristic of binary oppositions has been repeatedly referred to in

the analysis of linguistic systems by R. Jakobson (1985a [1976]: 70; 1985b [1975]: 144).9. Semioticians describe the basic analogy of such systems with dual phonological codes.

Every phonological dierential feature (or element of a mythological or other system) is

equal and opposite to another dierential feature (symbol) or a certain series of features

(symbols) in the paradigm (or syntagma) under observation (Ivanov 1978: 96).

10. W. No th dierentiates between four types of symmetry in language: reexive or

mirror symmetry, translative or ornamental, radial, and anti-symmetry. Mirror

symmetry may be bilateral (cf. the mirroring of letters A/A or O/O) or enantiomorphic

(cf. mirroring of letters b/d or p/q). According to W. No th, anti-symmetry is

enantiomorphic mirror symmetry. A bilateral or translative symmetry pair or row can

be made anti-symmetric by some (e.g., semantic) additional feature (No th 1994b: 98).11. As a parallel example, reference could be made to the sixteenth century old-Russian

grammar, where all `Orthodox' languages were referred to as the one language (Lotman

and Uspenskii 1971: 156).

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12. Within the context of this conclusion, it is important to denote that also on the level

of an intellectual procedure, we still have a semiosis which is mythologized (produces

identity). The phenomenon occurs as is noted by A. Olrik in the form of stage

duality and of twins in the `epic laws' of fairytales (Olrik 1909: 57).

13. The universality of the mirror mechanism in culture, space, and on the molecular level

is emphasized by J. Lotman (1984: 20, 21). In the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school the

mirror is termed `a semiotic machine for describing a foreign structure' (Redkollegiia

1988: 5).

14. A person's behavior is dependent on how he names himself. A person for example could

announce: `I am not yet a scoundrel' (Lotman 1967).

15. A code is `a presentation of information in such a form which is suitable for

the transmission of the message on a certain information channel' (Ivanov 1978: 130).

16. It is said that G. Flaubert commented on Madame Bovary: `Emm.

a that's me'.

Tolstoi himself is said to have identied himself with Natasha from War and Peace.

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Peet Lepik (b. 1935) is Chair of Culture Theory and Assistant Professor at Tallinn

Pedagogical University, Estonia npl@hot.eeo. His principal research interests include the

legacy of Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school and the semiosic structure of

intellectual schemes in culture.

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