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.