TUSOVKA IS DEAD –LONG LIVE TUSOVKA! 85 EL EONORA NARVSELIUS Tusovka died – long live tusovka! Post-Soviet culturally polyphonic youth groupings in L’viv (Ukraine) Since the publication of Hilary Pilkington’s studies 1 there has ap- peared no other detailed research of that range devoted to youth (sub)cultures on the territory which used to be the Soviet Union. Moreover, in spite of the growing interest of social sciences in mul- ticultural, transnational and transcultural youth all over the world, the analogous involvements of urban youth in the post-Soviet space remain a kind of terra incognita in the field of the post-communist studies. Meanwhile, the current climate of continuing social and po- litical transformation in the newly independent post-Soviet Ukraine benefits the rapid processes of making and remaking cultural identi- ties on the basis of new and old models emanating both from within and outside the present geographic borders of this post-colonial 2 suc- cessor state. Contemporary urban youth as an object of socialisation into the uncertain reality of the post-communist ‘risk society’ 3 find themselves in a situation unimaginable to the majority of their Soviet counter- parts two decades ago: they can (seemingly) unrestrictedly choose, experiment and play with patterns of their identity. hey are free to construct, reconstruct, reinvent – or negate by means of mocking, parodying or even brutal vulgarising – the elements of their earlier and present socio-cultural ‘Selves’. hey do this not just in order to find some adequate foot-holds which can be used in practical aims,