Discursive Affective-Emotional Work in the Context of a Ressentiment Society: Ways for Switching Emotional Registers in Russian Nostalgic Media

The image of Russian society as “charged with ressentiment” dominates studies of Russia and is based on the unfavourable background of unfinished socio-cultural transformations, unresolved cultural traumas, and the lack of an ideological vision of the future. Long-term sociological surveys of Russian society testify to the presence of ressentiment and also nostalgic feelings (VTSIOM 2022). The aim of the research is to explore the Russian emotional background using the example of interrelated media products - a documentary project (“Namedni”), aesthetic communities associated with the nostalgic understanding of Soviet culture and its material objects (“Russkaya Khton”), and stand-up performances about the “hard” 1990s in Russia. The possibility of sharing feelings in online communities creates an arena for expressing ressentiment, including various forms of discursive affective-emotional work with it. As the analysis of the content and online discussions of these projects shows, leaders and participants in media discourse use different ways of dealing with these affects and emotions. The authors argue that there are different ways of discursively dealing with the emotional-negative side of ressentiment and nostalgia, in particular the nostalgic aestheticization of the objects of negative feelings, laughing distancing or defamiliarisation, and kaleidoscopic sensemaking of the past. The results of the study reveal the multifaceted nature of media discourses against the background of Russian nostalgic ressentiment: on the one hand, the affective nature of attitudes towards the past is evident; on the other hand, media discourse initiates reflexive attitudes towards the past.