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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.
Olga Mesropova
Around LAS
February 19 to March 4, 2007
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