Ontologies and Teleologies of the ‘Living Word’ at the Institut zhivogo slova

• In Event: Trajectories of Culture in Early Soviet Russia, 1917–1929: Liberalism, Modernism, Cultural Exchange and Propaganda II

Abstract

Established with the aims of instructing, theorizing and disseminating the uses of the “living word,” the Institut zhivogo slova (1918-1924) failed to live up to the lofty ambitions of its founding figures. Perhaps for this reason, the institute is significantly understudied, with most scholarly investigations focusing on piecing together the history of the institute’s activities and ambiguous demise. In this paper, I dissect the conceptual rifts at the institute’s origins concealed by its own namesake – the “living word.” By 1918, the phrase “living word” already had multiple meanings in scholarly usage, from the Biblical to the folkloric to the theatrical. Examining the institute’s official notes as well as research papers and recordings produced by its scholars, I argue that the attempt to institutionalize the “living word” exposes divergent and ultimately contradictory approaches to what language is or should make possible in newly revolutionary Russia. On the one hand, post-revolutionary ideologies and exigencies stimulate a teleological conception of rhetoric as a means of affecting others and effecting political results. On the other hand, the advent of the phonograph motivates a highly ontological understanding of the relationship between a speaker and their words. As I will show, whether language is original or instrumental to the speaker is a dichotomy which troubles the institute from its earliest days but which, nonetheless, resonates profoundly with pre- and post-revolutionary discussions of aesthetics and politics.

Author

• Kathleen Lillian Mitchell-Fox, Princeton U