The Rise of Ruscism/Russism: Pro-War Contemporary Art in Russia and Its Genealogy

Abstract This essay examines the project Russian Style (2022–) as a “flagship” example of pro-war contemporary art in Russia. It investigates the cultural logic of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, conceptualized as Ruscism/Russism: an articulation of Russian-identitarian, nationalist, and imperialist segments of society. Linked to populist resentment and the ongoing struggle for hegemony, Ruscism/Russism operates as a mindset, geographic imagination, spatial identity, and technology. To illuminate its syncretism and its formation within—and reshaping of—the art field, this essay examines three principal sources: late-Soviet official art, nonconformist art, and Neo-Eurasianism as a transgressive subculture through case studies of Oskar Rabin, Nikolai Andronov, and Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt, leading figures in these strands. Ruscism/Russism has coalesced from the geoculturally specific, nationalist, and imperialist elements present in these sources, appropriating and intensifying them in novel ways. Methodologically, this study draws on art history, cultural criticism, and cultural geography to investigate contemporary Russia through its art and culture.