Fake news som livsstil

Eduard Limonovs identitetsprojekt

Resumé

The article presents an updated portrait of the controversial Russian writer and politician, Eduard Limonov (b. 1943), with a view to discussing him as at once an example of and a comment on contemporary conditions for art and politics in Russia under so-called developed Putinism. Based on Judith Butler’s definition of identity as constituted by performative acts, the article analyses Limonov’s varied activities throughout more than half a century as a coherent project insofar as he seems to be primarily concerned with creating the scandalous yet heroic identity of “Limonov”, disregarding in the process any distinction between fact and fiction. First, as an underground artist in the Soviet Union and exiled, scandalous writer, then a rebel and founder of the now banned National Bolshevik Party in post-Soviet Russia, and, finally, an activist and politician in Putin’s Russia, where he attempted to run for president in 2012. Previous attempts to pinpoint the ambiguous phenomenon of Limonov are discussed and used as a background for characterising his present predicament: the carefully created identity of “Limonov” seems to have been outmaneuvered by a political development very much in line with his own key policy issues, by a president successfully posing as exactly the kind of hero and saviour, “Limonov” was cast to be, and by a growing prevalence of and, consequently, indifference towards fake news.