News & Events >  

 

Olga Mesropova

Olga Mesropova, Russian Studies

NEWS RELEASE
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Iowa State University
www.las.iastate.edu

11-2-09

Contacts:
Olga Mesropova, World Languages and Cultures, (515) 294-7884 (olgames@iastate.edu)
Steve Jones, Liberal Arts & Sciences Communications, (515) 294-0461 (jones@iastate.edu)

Mesropova to look at Russia's ideology of
glamour in LAS' Dean's Lecture Series, Nov. 17

AMES, Iowa – Russia has seen monumental changes in its popular culture since the fall of Communism nearly two decades ago.

Olga Mesropova will discuss one aspect of the transformation during the fall 2009 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Dean’s Lecture Series. She will present “Putin's Russia and the Ideology of Glamour” on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The lecture is free of charge.

Mesropova, associate professor of Russian Studies in ISU's Department of World Languages and Cultures, researches popular culture in the post-Soviet Union, including Russian film, comedy and popular performance. She said Russia was a poor country after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but President Vladimir Putin, in office from 2000 to 2008, consolidated wealth making the nation appear robust and even glitzy.

"What Putin wanted to do was present an aura of wealth and glamour," said Mesropova, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. "Under Putin the whole idea of glamour made wealth seemingly accessible to everyone."

Mesropova said Russians were able to partake in a glamorous lifestyle vicariously through a growing list of films, television programs, books and other forms of popular media focused on prosperity, youthfulness and luxury. TV programs looking at the daily lives of the well to do and books such as "How to Marry a Millionaire" became increasingly popular during Putin's reign.

"I'll look at various forms of popular culture and popular literature, a little bit at television and film and how all these forms represent the aesthetics of glamour," Mesropova said.

Mesropova has researched Russian standup comedy from its early days to the post-Perestroika era, focusing on humor and satire under Boris Yeltsin and Putin. She is the author of the cinema-based textbook, KINOTALK: Cinema for Russian Conversation.

The lecture series is coordinated by Iowa State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is co-sponsored by the University Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB). A reception will follow the lecture.

-30-