by Valentina Parisi, Università di Macerata

In his preface to Evgenii Kharitonov’s volume Under House Arrest Kirill Rogov wrote about the physical presence of hands in samizdat (self-published) texts of Soviet underground: in his opinion traces of hands could be found not only in Samizdat manuscripts, but also in typescripts. For example, the way Kharitonov typed his own texts introduced elements of handwriting in the typewritten text and, consequently, “entrusted to the typewriter the cultural mythology which accompanies the pen and pencil” (Rogov 2005: 7).

Another example of an even more literal inclusion of the hand of the writer into the Samizdat text can be seen in a few self-published books made by Elizaveta Mnatsakanova (1922-2019) in the 1980s. Here the poet simultaneously photocopied both her manuscripts and her own hands. By recurring to a mechanical way of reproduction she created peculiar effects of juxtaposition and interaction between the handwritten text and the writing hand. Quite unexpectedly, Mnatsakanova’s experiments bear a striking resemblance with works by the Italian visual artist Ketty La Rocca (1938-1976), and especially with her books In principio erat (1971) and Appendice per una supplica (Appendix for a plea, 1972). Here hands are conceived not only as an autonomous tool for self-expression through gestures, but also as a surface for writing (i.e. as a carrier of meaning).

In my lecture I will examine the different functions that images of hands perform in artists’ books created by Mnatsakanova and La Rocca. Namely, I will situate their experiments with the writing hand in the broader context of philosophical reflection about handwriting inspired by Martin Heidegger’s well-known idiosyncrasy for the typewriter (Jacques Derrida’s lecture Heidegger's Hand and Didier Franck’s book Heidegger and Space).

Valentina Parisi holds a PhD in Slavic Studies from the State University in Milan. She has received a postdoc grant from the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane (SUM) in Florence (2009-2011). She has been an EURIAS fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Central European University, Budapest in 2012-2013 and at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) in Delmenhorst (Germany) in 2014-2015. She is the author of the volume Il lettore eccedente. Edizioni periodiche del samizdat sovietico, 1956-1990 (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013). She has recently contributed to the Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture with the chapter Infrastructures of Soviet Underground Culture. She held a three-years research grant (2019-2022) at Pavia University. She is currently a research fellow at the University of Macerata.

Wednesday 7th May 2025, from 2 pm until 4 pm

Salle de réception
Building DE1 - Level 3 - Room R.3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1000 Bruxelles

Free entrance