“It’s very hard to convey any arguments or facts to them”

Post-Soviet zombies and infectious information

Abstract

Tracking the career of the post-Soviet zombie from its emergence at the cusp of the Soviet collapse until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this essay analyses the zombie as a mythical figure mobilised for working through shifting social relationships and cultural anxieties. Post-Soviet discourse reveals a concern with the process of zombification, which is understood to take place through communication rather than physical contact. In the context of the Donbas war since 2014, the image of the living dead has been used as a rhetorical device to cast doubt on all communication, both mediated and personal, and to ethically relinquish loved ones from responsibility for their misguided understandings. Fear
of malicious influence through information has also led to practices of media hygiene, which, in turn, imply a recognition that zombification could happen to anyone, even the speaking subject. As such, accusations of zombification form part of an emic vocabulary of diagnosing the operation of power in Ukraine.