State Laughter Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture

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.

1 - The Stalinist World of Laughter: The Fate of the Comic in a Tragic Age
2 - A Killer Wit: Laughter in Stalinist Official Discourse
3 - The Funny War: Laughing at the Front in WWII
4 - "One Might Think It Is a Ward in a Madhouse": Late Stalinism, the Early Cold War, and Caricature
5 - The Gogols and the Shchedrins: Lessons in "Positive Satire"
6 - The Soviet Bestiary: Genealogy of the Stalinist Fable
7 - The Merry Adventures of Stalin's Peasants: Kolkhoz Commedia dell'arte
8 - "A Total Racket": Vaudeville for the New People
9 - Metalaughter: Populism and the Stalinist Musical Comedy

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.