SUMMARY:

This introduction to the book forum “The Power of Soft Matter” discusses Julia Vaingurt’s book Soft Matter: The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism (2025), which identifies weakness as a defining aesthetic and ethical strategy in late Soviet nonofficial culture. By analyzing authors who intentionally cultivated vulnerability and failure, the book illustrates how these artists rejected the state’s ideological obsession with heroism and power in favor of a shared, tentative humanity. The essay synthesizes diverse scholarly responses to the book in the forum, highlighting its role in reconceptualizing Russian cultural history through the lens of solidarity found in common fragility.