Life by the art rules: utopian vision and heroic communities (the case of Frunze commune)

Abstract

Every attempt to implement utopian projects (of global transformation of the reality or of the creation of a new society from nothing) has failed consistently at the state level facing the phenomenon that J. Scott describes as «metis», i. e. a special kind of practical knowledge that couldn’t be taken on account and unified in the framework of the utopian project logic. The collapse of the utopian projects of urban planning results from the fact that their creators were trying to build the ideal city, a work of art. If the creation of an ideal city needs not only an architectural plan, but also suitable building materials, the creation of an ideal utopian society demands not only an idea of which way of human coexistence is ideal, but also people who are ready to build their life in accordance with this idea. In order to create such a community, all its members have to see the life of the community as a work of art. The everyday life, that is, habitual actions performed automatically, should become meaningful. The ideal city was impossible without an ideal architectural plan, an ideal human society was impossible without ideal internal mechanisms of order and control, which would not only turn a number of people into a single organism, but also transform their everyday life, building their life according to the model of art. The present paper based on an example of a utopian community, describes and analyses the practice of realization such an utopia.