Title State laughter : Stalinism, populism, and origins of Soviet culture / Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol

Edition First edition Published Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2022 ©2022

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Description 1 online resource (422 pages) : illustrations (black and white) Contents Cover -- State Laughter: Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction -- 1: The Stalinist World of Laughter: The Fate of the Comic in a Tragic Age -- The Aesthetics of "Radical Populism": Political Dimensions -- "Russian Laughter" and the National Origins of the Stalinist "Popular Spirit" -- After the Carnival: "The Favorite Weapon" -- Victorious Laughter: The Origins of "Positive Satire" -- Harmonizing Laughter: A Dialectics of "Positive Satire." 2: A Killer Wit: Laughter in Stalinist Official Discourse -- The Beginning of the Plot -- Funny Activists -- A Funny Hunger Strike -- The Monster of Wit -- The Sense of an Ending -- 3: The Funny War: Laughing at the Front in World War Two -- Vasilii Terkin: The Typical and the Exceptional -- Vasilii Terkin: "Being" and "Just Being" -- Vasilii Terkin: All Is Well That Ends Well -- Erenburg's War, 1941-1945: A Question of Trust -- Erenburg's War, 1941-1945: Knowing What, and How Much -- Erenburg's War, 1941-1945: A Question of Perspective -- Erenburg's War, 1941-1945: Authenticity and (Self- )Parody Erenburg's War, 1941-1945: A Numbers Game -- 4: "One Might Think It Is a Ward in a Madhouse": Late Stalinism, the Early Cold War, and Caricature -- An Enemy in Pictures -- On the Typical -- Reflecting the Real Reality -- Hieroglyphics and Their Readers -- Scaling Down and the Logic of Wit -- An Enemy in Words -- Sardonic Realism: The Art of Verbal Caricature -- Adventures of Tropes: Political Trolling of the Pre-Internet Age -- From a "Negative Realism" to the "Realistic Grotesque" -- Modes of "Popular Democracy": Between Resentment and Bravado The Art of Double Entendre: Transference as a Satirical Device -- 5: The Gogols and the Shchedrins: Lessons in "Positive Satire" -- The Satire of the Impossible -- Vaudevillian Satire: No Gogols or Shchedrins Here -- Menacing Laughter: Stalin the Satirist -- Menacing Laughter: The Nomenklatura Tragicomedy -- Criminal Laughter: Gogols and Shchedrins in the Age of Ostap Benders -- Nomenklatura Slapstick: The Soviet Kafkas -- The Comedies of Fear: 1939-1949-1953 -- Terror by Laughter -- 6: The Soviet Bestiary: Genealogy of the Stalinist Fable -- Demian Bednyi -- New Soviet Animals -- Funny Violence The Language of Truth -- Ivan Batrak -- Sergei Mikhalkov -- Zoomessing -- Tautology As a Device -- Boredom, Laughter, and the Norm -- The Moral of the Story -- 7: The Merry Adventures of Stalin's Peasants: Kolkhoz Commedia dell'arte -- "The Colonel Will Find It Funny": Constructing Soviet Humor -- The Kolkhoz Vaudeville: Strategies of Contamination -- "Life Has Become Better, Life Has Become Merrier": A Comedy of "Serious Content" -- A Soviet Vanity Fair: Matrimonial Problems of Socialism in the USSR -- "Maximum Indiscretion": Reluctant Lovers Summary 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 Notes This edition also issued in print: 2022 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Audience Specialized Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 02, 2022) Subject Popular culture -- Soviet Union -- History Comedy -- Social aspects -- Soviet Union Wit and humor -- Social aspects -- Soviet Union Communism and culture -- Soviet Union Politics and culture -- Soviet Union Popular culture Comedy -- Social aspects Communism and culture Manners and customs Politics and culture Social conditions Wit and humor -- Social aspects SUBJECT Soviet Union -- Social conditions. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125852 Soviet Union -- Social life and customs. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125858 Subject Soviet Union Genre/Form History Form Electronic book Author Jonsson-Skradol, Natalia, author. ISBN 9780191875991 0191875996

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