Description
The paper develops research on ‘politics of loneliness’ by looking at how gender and particularly Russian masculinized discourse on sovereigntism is visualized in a conflict with a pop singer Madonna. Here the story of Madonna is studied as a litmus paper indicator of the levels of gendered nationalism (and populism), which masculinize and underpin narrative of Russian national security in relation to its ‘geopolitical neighbors’.
Using methodology of existential feminism, I deconstruct the implicit and invisible juxtaposition of ‘traditional masculine and feminine’ as symbolic frame for encapsulation of Russia’s ontological insecurity propagated and normalized within recent amendments to Russian Constitution. Street posters about ‘We-Russia’ identity, collected by author during the last parliamentary elections, become reference points in visual analysis of religious narrative of how masculinized Russian state is predestined to rescue feminized Russian nation.
As a result, the author claims that not only sovereignty can be ‘organized loneliness’, but the efficiency of such organized loneliness in modern Russia is based of vertical management of female loneliness and transformations of femininity. Here transnational actors like Madonna become inevitable obstacles and threats for channeling already established in Russia status quo of musculinized collective narcissism with all its political consequences for Russian society.
