Real Russians: Cultural Citizenship Defined by Soviet Political Humor

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 14. Trauma, Memory, Belonging

Abstract

In Soviet Russia, nationalism operated through a gendered essentialism that served to bolster a masculine sense of self and nation. Full cultural citizenship was conferred according to racial and gendered hierarchy that positioned the Russian man at its center. This project explores the racial and gendered contours of a Russian national identity as expressed through the Russian anekdot—a politically subversive joke that was shared with great frequency during Soviet times. In conducting a paired content and discourse analysis of 1,290 Russian jokes, I illustrate how a hierarchy of cultural citizenship is established through the definition of particular racial, national, and gendered groups as “other.” I specifically trace how these “others” are feminized in ways that serve to construct a masculine Russian nationalism that necessarily empowers the centered Russian man. My project demonstrates how Russian men are distinguished from Russian women as well as from ethnic “others” through discourses of masculinity and femininity.

Author

• Michelle Hannah Smirnova, University of Missouri-Kansas City