This wide-ranging study presents an examination of the extraordinary diversity and range of satirical writing in contemporary Russian literature. Through the close analysis of seminal satirical texts written by five Russian and emigré authors in the 1970s and 1980s, Karen Ryan-Hayes demonstrates that formal and thematic parody is pervasive and that it provides additional levels of meaning in contemporary Russian satire. The author focuses on different subgenres of satire and offers practical criticism on each text.
This wide-ranging study presents an examination of the extraordinary diversity and range of satirical writing in contemporary Russian literature. Through the close analysis of seminal satirical texts written by five Russian and emigré authors in the 1970s and 1980s, Karen Ryan-Hayes demonstrates that formal and thematic parody is pervasive and that it provides additional levels of meaning in contemporary Russian satire. The author focuses on different subgenres of satire and offers practical criticism on each text.
This wide-ranging study presents an examination of the extraordinary diversity and range of satirical writing in contemporary Russian literature. Through the close analysis of seminal satirical texts written by five Russian and emigré authors in the 1970s and 1980s, Karen Ryan-Hayes demonstrates that formal and thematic parody is pervasive and that it provides additional levels of meaning in contemporary Russian satire. The author focuses on different subgenres of satire and offers practical criticism on each text.
During Stalin’s lifetime the crimes of his regime were literally unspeakable. More than fifty years after his death, Russia is still coming to terms with Stalinism and the people’s own role in the abuses of the era. During the decades of official silence that preceded the advent of glasnost, Russian writers raised troubling questions about guilt, responsibility, and the possibility of absolution. Through the subtle vehicle of satire, they explored the roots and legacy of Stalinism in forms ranging from humorous mockery to vitriolic diatribe. Examining works from the 1917 Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Karen L. Ryan reveals how satirical treatments of Stalin often emphasize his otherness, distancing him from Russian culture. Some satirists portray Stalin as a madman. Others show him as feminized, animal-like, monstrous, or diabolical. Stalin has also appeared as the unquiet dead, a spirit that keeps returning to haunt the collective memory of the nation. While many writers seem anxious to exorcise Stalin from the body politic, for others he illuminates the self in disturbing ways. To what degree Stalin was and is “in us” is a central question of all these works. Although less visible than public trials, policy shifts, or statements of apology, Russian satire has subtly yet insistently participated in the protracted process of de-Stalinization.
The Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on recent and contemporary Russian culture and history for students, teachers, and researchers across the disciplines.
Renaissance of Classical Allusions in Contemporary Russian Media builds on a growing body of work concerning post-Soviet media culture during the last, transformative decade. Making sense of the literary allusions in media discourse, Svitlana Malykhina reminds us that allusions can serve as a primary marker of identity—national and cultural—and may also be a way of negotiating the gap between what has to be reported and what can be banned by censorship. Malykhina presents the changes and continuities between rhetoric strategies of Soviet-style media and postcommunist Russian media, identifying the key literary and historical references in public discourse, which are then picked up by the media. The book analyzes the political, cultural, and social factors at play in the development and expansion of these allusions in both official and alternative discourses. Examining the rise of the Internet, which has remained wholly uncensored in Russia, Malykhina reveals that the Russian Internet media began to function as alternative mass media. Yet, the success of the Internet media has also brought complex and unintended consequences. Malykhina offers an empirically rich examination of conventional classical allusions in media discourse, focusing mainly on the rhetorical techniques by which subversive meanings of these references were generated.
Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights is the first anthology of LGBTQ-themed plays written by Russian queer authors and straight allies in the 21st century. The book features plays by established and emergent playwrights of the Russian drama scene, including Roman Kozyrchikov, Andrey Rodionov and Ekaterina Troepolskaya, Valery Pecheykin, Natalya Milanteva, Olzhas Zhanaydarov, Vladimir Zaytsev, and Elizaveta Letter. Writing for children, teenagers, and adults, these authors explore gay, lesbian, trans, and other queer lives in prose and in verse. From a confession-style solo play to poetic satire on contemporary Russia; from a play for children to love dramas that have been staged for adult-only audiences in Moscow and other cities, this important anthology features work that was written around or after 2013-the year when the law on the prohibition of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” was passed by the Russian government. These plays are universal stories of humanity that spread a message of tolerance, acceptance, and love and make clear that a queer scenario does not necessarily have to end in a tragedy just because it was imagined and set in Russia. They show that breathing, growing old, falling in love, falling out of love, and falling in love again can be just as challenging and rewarding in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia as it can be in New York, Tokyo, Johannesburg, or Buenos Aires.
"In this short, surreal twist on the classic Russian novel, a doctor travels to a distant village to save its citizens from an epidemic, but a metaphysical snowstorm gets in his way"--
The Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on recent and contemporary Russian culture and history for students, teachers, and researchers across the disciplines.
