State Laughter

Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture

Evgeny Dobrenko, Natalia Jonsson-Skradol (Autoren)

Buch | Hardcover

448 Seiten

2022
Oxford University Press (Verlag)
978-0-19-884041-1 (ISBN)

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Stalin's reign of terror was not all doom and gloom, much of it was (meant to be) funny! Tracing the development of official humour, satire, and comedy, Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol do away with the idea that all humour in the USSR was subversive, instead exploring why laughter was a core component to the survival of the Soviet regime.

Stalin's reign of terror was not all doom and gloom, much of it was (meant to be) funny! From comedy films to satirical theatre, from caricature to court speeches, and from Stalin's own writings to bawdy folk songs, humour pervaded the popular culture of the USSR. Until now, conventional wisdom has held that humour was a hallmark of the subversive, but in State Laughter Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol do away with that notion. Instead, tracing the development of official humour, satire, and comedy from the revolution through to the 1950s, they explore how and why laughter was a core component of the survival of the Soviet regime. Grounded in Soviet intellectual and cultural history, State Laughter offers the first comprehensive analysis of state-sponsored popular culture in Stalin's Soviet Union.

Evgeny Dobrenko is Professor of Russian Studies at Ca' Foscari University. He has previously held posts across the, then, Soviet Union, the USA, and the UK, including, among others, the Moscow and Odessa State Universities, Stanford, Amherst, and the University of California. Over his career he has authored, edited and co-edited some 20 books and more than 250 articles and essays on Soviet and post-Soviet literature and culture, Stalinism, Socialist Realism, Soviet national literatures, Russian and Soviet film, critical theory, and Soviet cultural history. Natalia Jonsson-Skradol has published over 20 articles on functions and uses of language in oppressive regimes. Her work has appeared in Slavic Review, Utopian Studies, Slavonic and East European Review, German Quarterly and in other academic publications. She has lived and worked in Israel, Germany, Austria, and the UK.

Erscheinungsdatum	21.02.2022
Zusatzinfo	16 black and white figures/illustrations
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	165 x 240 mm
Gewicht	812 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
ISBN-10	0-19-884041-1 / 0198840411
ISBN-13	978-0-19-884041-1 / 9780198840411
Zustand	Neuware