Soviet Nostalgia in the Vampire Trilogy A Tale of the Soviet Vampire by Aleksandr Slepakov (2014–18)

This article analyses Aleksandr Slepakov’s trilogy A Tale of the Soviet Vampire into its socio-political context and within the existing social, political and cultural discourse. It will argue that this Gothic Vampire narrative contains elements of Soviet nostalgia that can be regarded as toxic. Toxic nostalgia is defined first in the context of Soviet-as-imperial and second in the relation to the Zygmunt Bauman’s conception of retrotopia (2017). This concept embraces the longing for the past that contains projects for re-forging this past into the present and the future. And as shall be argued here provides justification for an ongoing rivalry and mistrust of all things Western and American and normalises aggression and invasion of countries viewed as part of that rivalry.