Uncensored?: Reinventing Humor and Satire in Post-Soviet Russia

"Uncensored? Reinventing Humor and Satire in Post-Soviet Russia" is a wide-ranging scholarly analysis of humor and satire in Russia during the regimes of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. The volume brings together an international group of emerging scholars and established authorities in the fields of Russian humor, satire, and popular culture, who explore a broad range of post-Soviet media and genres (such as literature, folklore, film, television, journalism, estrada comedy, and rock music). The book's contributors pose a wide array of related questions: What are the functions of humor and satire in Russia's "post-censorship" environment? To what extent are contemporary Russian satirical writers and performers free to express themselves? What (and who) are the principal targets of post-Soviet humorous and satirical production? Viewed as a whole, the articles in "Uncensored?" present a series of compelling observations of the socio-political climate in post-Soviet Russia through a shared topical prism of humor and satire.