Russian Television Today: Primetime Drama and Comedy (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)

Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express a new understanding of what it means to be Russian, answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their recent history: ‘What really happened to us?’ and, accordingly, ‘Why?’ The book covers important issues in Russian television today, including: the reworking of new ‘national’ on-screen heroes its relationship with classic literature the revisionist portrayal of a romantic portrait of life in the Soviet era the role of thematic elements such as love, fidelity, humour and irony the particularly pressing problem of crime and its representation on screen as Mafia or police adventure, and its political usage by the Putin administration. This book provides a detailed account of the critical issues in contemporary Russian television, relating them to broader social and political developments in Russian society. "The most important stories in Russia have traditionally been those of literature; today that function is fulfilled by TV drama. This book examines the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, demonstrating how they grapple with key questions of both national identity and recent history. Russian Television Today shows how visual drama succeeds in offering some answers or consolation, laying claim to a window on past generations and showing Russian viewers what might be salvageable from the Soviet experience. Just as President Putin uses that experience to hone a fresh understanding of what it means to "be" Russian, so TV's heroes and heroines frequently express themselves with a related, soothing simplicity. Extending and complicating any such harmonies, this book then turns to other important developments: the manufacturing of new "national" on-screen characters and their peculiar relationship to both classic or Soviet literature and Latin-American soaps - all filtered through the enduring emphases of love, fidelity, humor, and irony. Since, however, those filters are often designed to block an unpleasant actuality, this book also pays considerable attention to the pressing problem of domestic crime and its troubled representation on screen - either as Mafia or police adventures." "Overall, Russian Television Today provides a detailed account of critical social and aesthetic issues in Russia's primetime visual media, all the way from historical epics to the recent, more profitable emphases of situation comedy and reality shows."--Jacket