Appropriating History
The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian Popular Culture

Popular media plays an important role in reconstructing collective imaginations of history. The contributors to the volume investigate this phenomenon using case studies from Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian popular cultures. Dramatic events and ruptures of the 20th century provide the material for playful as well as neo-imperialist and nationalist appropriations of the past. They show how in mainstream films, TV series, novels, comics, and computer games, the reference to Soviet history offers role models, action patterns, and even helps to justify current political and military developments. The volume thus presents new insights into the multi-layered and explosive dynamics of the popular cultures of Eastern Europe.

Table of contents

• Introduction: Popular Culture and History in Post-Soviet Nation States
  Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller | 11–26

I. Places of Longing: Yesterday’s Tales, Melodramatic Lives and Astonishing Worlds

• More than Nostalgia. Late Socialism in Contemporary Russian Television Series
  Mark Lipovetsky | 29–44
• Drawn History. Ukrainian Graphic Fiction about National History
  Svitlana Pidoprygora | 45–68
• Narrating Russia’s Multi-Ethnic Past. The Historical Novels of Guzel Yakhina
  Eva Binder | 69–88
• The Zone as a Place of Repentance and Retreat. Chernobyl in Belarusian Films of the 1990s and 2000s
  Olga Romanova | 89–108

II. Combat Zones: War Heroes, Resistance Fighters and Joyful Partisans

• Alternative Versions of the Past and the Future. Soviet and Post-Soviet Pop Literature
  Maria Galina and Ilya Kukulin | 111–131
• Ludic Epistemologies and Alternate Histories. The Soviet Past in Role-Playing Games
  Daniil Leiderman | 133–153
• Partisan, Anti-Partisan, pARTisan, Party-Zan, Cyberpartisan. On the Popularity of Partisanhood in Belarusian Culture
  Nina Weller | 155–185
• Mummified Subversion. Reconstructions of Soviet Rock Underground in Contemporary Russian Cinema
  Roman Dubasevych | 187–204

III. Sites of Trauma: Horror Fantasies, Weird Sceneries and Realms of Terror

• Dealing with Cultural Traumas. Popular Representations of the Past in Contemporary Belarusian Prose
  Lidia Martinovich | 207–223
• Nostalgia for Trauma. Russian Prize Literature and the Soviet Past
  Valery Vyugin | 225–239
• The Affective Landscapes of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Domesticating Nuclear Disaster in a Video Game
  Oleksandr Zabirko | 241–263
• Come and See, Once Again. A Russian Television Series on the Seventh Symphony in Defeated Leningrad
  Matthias Schwartz | 265–290

Epilogue

• Public History, Popular Culture, and the Belarusian Experience in a Comparative Perspective. A Conversation
  Aliaksei Bratachkin in conversation with the editors | 293–308