Erotic utopia

"The first generation of Russian modernists experienced a profound sense of anxiety resulting from the belief that they were living in an age of decline. The premised it on a decadent view of history according to which every culture passes through the stages of growth, stagnation, and death. A similar urgency informed their fear of degeneration, the fin-de-siecle European malady that claimed a growing number of individuals and whole nations. What made the early Russian modernists unique was their utopian prescription for overcoming the inevitability of decline and death both by metaphysical…