ABSTRACT
The essay explores the so-called “cultural revolution” of Perm (2008–2012), an attempt by liberal governor Oleg Chirkunov to modernize cultural life and transform the city with its old military plants and somewhat provincial image into a capital of cultural innovation. The discussion will touch upon the polemics to which the cultural revolution gave rise, the discourses that were employed by its local opponents and supporters (restorative and nostalgic vs. forward-looking and modernizing) and, particularly, Aleksandr Prokhanov’s roman à clef “Man of the Star” (2012). The analysis will reveal that the novel is not only an all-out attack on Perm’s cultural revolution but even anticipated its ultimate demise in 2014 when a monumental Soviet stele was restored to replace “Red People,” a group of sculptures that had come to symbolize the liberal spell of Chirkunov’s administration.
