Lecture: Glamour in Putin's Russia
| Date/Time: | Tuesday, 17 Nov 2009 at 7:30 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | Sun Room, Memorial Union |
| Cost: | Free |
| Contact: | |
| Phone: | 515-294-9934 |
| Channel: | Lecture Series |
| Categories: | Lectures |
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From Around LAS
February 19 to March 4, 2007
Pop culture, Russian style
World languages and cultures' Olga Mesropova explores humor in her native country after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Olga Mesropova has vivid childhood memories of the Soviet Union.
And the memories of television, movies and other popular culture mediums in the communist country are predictable - few choices and heavy governmental censorship.
That all has changed in post-Soviet Russia.
"After the collapse of the Soviet Union Western television programs and other pop culture inundated Russia," says the assistant professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures.
Government censorship ended in the mid-1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Playboy magazines were soon sold on every street corner. Cosmopolitan became readily available. But that was nothing compared to life in Russia when the old American soap opera "Santa Barbara" was aired on Russian television.
"The streets were virtually empty," Mesropova said, "because everyone was sitting at home watching 'Santa Barbara.'"
Mesropova researches popular culture in the post-Soviet Union, particularly Russian film, comedy, and popular performance.
"The changes that Russian popular culture has undergone since the collapse of the Soviet Union are astounding. In less than a decade the country went from rapid westernization to looking for 'nationally Russian' forms and genres, from communist-style censorship to freedom of expression, and from rejection of communism to reevaluating the past," Mesropova says. "Today's Russia has started to develop its own entertainment industry producing original programming including soap operas, game shows and even reality shows."
While most recent Russian popular genres and media remain understudied in both Russian and Western scholarship, Mesropova has focused her research on humor and satire in Russia under Yeltsin and Putin. "Humor is what ties everything together for me, it is a unique topical prism for a broader discussion of post-Soviet culture," she says.
Mesropova is the author of several articles on the subject. Currently, she is also co-editing a collection of essays with a colleague from University College London entitled Uncensored? Reinventing Humor and Satire in Post-Soviet Russia. This volume, that is under contract with Slavica Publishers (Indiana University) and is slated to come out in 2008, examines Russia's humor and satire in a wide range of genres and media, including prose fiction, drama, film, television, folklore, animation, periodicals, comics, caricatures, and pop music.
"In the book we are trying to address a number of issues. Did Russians, as some critics suggest, 'stop joking' once they had freedom of speech? Has post-Soviet satire been reduced to mere entertainment? Who and what are the principal targets of post-Soviet humorous and satirical expression? And, perhaps most importantly, to what extent are Russian satirists free to express themselves in today's Russia?" Mesropova says.
With humor as the main focus of her research, Mesropova's most recent projects have also focused on Russia's new detective genre, the so-called "ironical detective novels."
"These are formula books, they merge humor, romance, and detective plots. Many of them are written by newly emerging female writers, and they are quickly becoming Russia's new best-sellers."
Despite the dramatic changes since the fall of the Soviet Union, censorship, or at least what Mesropova calls "neo-censorship," is sneaking its way back into the Russian entertainment industry.
"Many programs produced since (Russian President Vladimir) Putin came to power have a pro-government or pro-Putin feel to them," she says. "By the same token, humor and satire flourish precisely when they are banned and censored. So Russian humor, and popular culture in general, are likely to remain a fascinating area of study for many years to come."
Mesropova's cinema-based textbook, KINOTALK: Cinema for Russian Conversation, has come out in January 2007 with Slavica Publishers. She is also currently working on a book on Russian standup comics and another one, Heroines of the Post-Soviet Screen, which takes a look at images of women in Russian film and television.