Vlad Strukov

Video Anekdot: Auteurs and Voyeurs of Russian Flash Animation:

In this article, the author addresses the issue of flash animation and humour in computer-mediated communication. He traces Russian national graphic traditions of humour and publicity and provides historical insight into the aesthetics of flash animation. He also suggests a notion of the video anekdot, a form of flash animation that relies on the tradition of oral humorous performances that proliferated in the USSR as an attempt to overcome state censorship. With the abolishing of censorship, the anekdot continues to exist on the internet in the form of short flash animation films. The author analyses new structures of the anekdot and its relation to the previous forms of humorous and satirical art (lubok, the Soviet poster and caricature). Reflecting on the dominating themes and narrative structures of the video anekdot, he concludes with general remarks on transformations in Russian culture in regard to its traditions of oral performance and visual representations.

Introduction: New Media in New Europe-Asia

THIS COLLECTION OFFERS AN IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION of the role of new media in the political, social and cultural life in the region of Europe-Asia, which is defined loosely as Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and Central Asia. This region shares a common cultural and ideological past which has been shaped by histories of imperial expansion, the rise of national identities and rapid entry into the global community in the 1980s and 1990s. By focusing on new media, which is understood primarily as internet-enabled networked social practice, the collection puts forward a political redefinition of the region which is determined by the recognition of the diversity of new media uses in the countries included in the study. At the same time it is apparent that media use in all countries in the region is characterised by ‘dissent’, whereby protests are directed against political regimes, local governments, cultural traditions or forces of globalisation. In this regard, new media in Europe-Asia displays the same potential for social intervention and political reform that has been manifested in other regions, particularly in the Arab world. While cognisant of the 2011–2012 protest movements in Arab countries, China, Russia and other places, the contributions to this collection focus on the period prior to the advent of ‘internet revolutions’. This is because the research presented here aims to capture new media use in the region at its pivotal moment—at the time of its entry into the post-broadcast era—and thus the collection documents this transitional moment and relates it to the history of change in post-communist states. By focusing on the countries’ transition from the broadcast to the post-broadcast era, this collection builds on concerns put forward in a 2007 special issue of EuropeAsia Studies which explored the impact of the mass media on society, politics and culture. That collection, ‘Symposium on the Post-Soviet Media’, focused predominantly on print and televised media, whereas ‘New Media in New Europe-Asia’ considers internet-enabled media. In spite of the change of focus, the two collections have a lot in common. First, both of them are concerned with the involvement of (new) media in political processes; in fact, the collections consider political activity in

Europe on the Global Screen: Geopolitical Scotoma, Transnational Cinema of Memory and Hollywood’s Security Choices

I theorize (in)visibility through the concepts of geopolitical scotoma and global amnesia. I explore how audio-visual mnemonics (feature films and media reports) are used to construct a specific narrative available for global consumption (the global screen) whilst other narratives remain untold (geopolitical scotoma). I aim to examine how European interregional and transnational agency is employed to encode, store and transmit cultural experiences in order to structure the securitization agenda, and I am also concerned with how an external, globalized agency (Hollywood) is required to articulate global securitization imperatives. My focus is on the 2015 nominations and how they give voice to European mnemonic concerns; conversely, I propose a consideration of the Oscar nomination process as a means for European creative industries to engage in strategies of (de-)securitization on global arena. By analysing common themes found in the 2015 film nominations such as migration, crisis of identity and power struggle in the context of interethnic conflicts, I demonstrate how these films function as emblems of global suffering whilst retaining their particular European dimension.

Spatial Imagining and Ideology of Digital Commemoration (Russian Online Gaming)

Abstract I trace the impact of digital economy on the cultural production on Runet by examining the Russian online gaming industry and focusing on a massively multiplayer online role playing game, Allods Online. I explore the game as a new form of cultural commemoration that goes beyond established discourses of nostalgia, war and trauma. I utilise Henry Lefebvres concept of the production of space in my examination of the ludic environment of Allods Online as an ideological space. I call for a renegotiation of the Russian mediascape in its post-broadcast phase for it to include new ludic spaces of production of cultural symbols.

Russian celebrities home and abroad: united under Putin, March 2011

This report aims to map out the Russian celebrity-scape and explore the changing nature of celebrification in a post-totalitarian state. The report develops some of the ideas presented in Celebrity and glamour in contemporary Russia: shocking chic (Goscilo and Strukov, 2011), and reflects on the role of Russian celebrities abroad. Each individual celebrity discussed here showcases a specific type of celebrity in contemporary Russia, and each exemplifies the different modes used by celebrities to maintain their notoriety. Beginning with a consideration of the celebrity status of Russian politicians, the report then examines the system of stardom as represented by sports personalities, artists and performers. In all cases, we are concerned with the transnational nature of contemporary celebrities and demonstrate how national and international realms of celebrification merge. Perhaps nothing illustrates the evanescent nature of celebrity in Russia and elsewhere more eloquently than the ousting on 28 September 2010 of Yuri Luzhkov. Moscow’s mayor for 18 years by appointment and popular acclaim, Luzhkov ruled Russia’s capital as his royal demesne, transforming it into a megapolis reflecting not only Russia’s fantasised identity as a glamorous, international showcase, but also Luzhkov’s personal ambitions as the magician–overseer of a city symbolising a resurrected empire of plenitude and political clout. The aftermath of President Dmitry Medvedev’s summary dismissal of Luzhkov recalls Stalin’s posthumous fate: an almost instant demotion from stardom to irrelevance. Quite simply, frequent media coverage of Luzhkov the celebrity dwindled to just a few reports on the accusations of massive fraud levelled against his wife and his regime (Washington, 2011). Luzhkov’s anodyne replacement since 21 October 2010, Sergei Sobyanin recently accepted Vladimir Putin’s offer to head the Moscow branch of the ruling United Russia party, but he presents no threat to the Kremlin. A former member of Putin’s retinue, he professes to harbour no career ambitions and calls himself a ‘manager’ (Roth, 2011) – the former self-identity of Russia’s enduring premier celebrity, Putin, whose supremacy Sobyanin presumably would never challenge. In the meantime, Putin continues to expand his public relations repertoire. A recent ‘act’ of his brought down the house at an international charity event when he fingered piano keys and launched into a heavily accented version of the popular old hit, ‘Blueberry Hill’,

The Popular Geopolitics Feedback Loop: Thinking Beyond the ‘Russia against the West’ Paradigm

Abstract Treating popular geopolitics as an interdisciplinary environment, this essay interrogates the viability of employing popular geopolitics as a tool for understanding the relationship between the popular and the political on the international stage as it relates to the Russian Federation. Using several representative artefacts of pop-culture and their reception, we attempt to demonstrate that a powerful trans-regional feedback loop has been established, wherein Russian and ‘Western’ currents feed into and off of each other. These flows sustain older geopolitical codes and frames, while steadily developing new patterns and dimensions of exchange that ‘explain’ variations triggered by the vagaries of globalisation.

Nemesis or mimesis? The theme of retribution in contemporary Russian cinema

The articles in this thematic cluster expand on papers delivered at the AAASS (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies) convention in 2008, focusing on the aesthetic links between retribution and film adaptations or remakes. Thus, each article in the cluster analyses a film produced in Russia in 2006–07 in relation to an earlier film, which provides the more recent film with the master plot and a constant point of reference and contrast. Progressively, such allusions advance further into the past, embracing the most important stages of Russian modernity; they also broaden to include non-cinematic texts, such as literary works and paintings as part of the general discussion of the tactics of revenge and cultural conformation. Therefore, the cluster is not structured chronologically; instead, the order of the articles highlights some theoretical concerns, including different narrative strategies used by the film-makers in order to address the issue of retribution and film adaptation. Finally, the analysis is structured in such a way that it takes into account not only traditional Russian sources but also Hollywood

‘For all who draw the sword will die by the sword’: the symbolism of Filipp Iankovskii's The Sword Bearer

ABSTRACT The article explores the symbolism of Filipp Iankovskiis The Sword Bearer (2006) in the context of the films retributive policies and with the purpose of defining the function of nemesis in the cinematic text in relation to its representational strategies. The study is within the general strand of investigation of the filmic representation of affective states in the context of their national cultural tradition. The article presents a number of readings of the film, including psychoanalytical (Luce Irigaray) and philosophical (Russian mysticism) approaches, especially in relation to mimetic theory. Comparisons between the film and its American and Russian precursors are drawn to highlight universal and specific aspects of the conflict and its visual presentation. Finally, the article puts forward a theory regarding the connection between contemporary Russian film and the philosophical, literary and artistic legacy of the Russian fin de siècle by drawing extensively on filmic, literary and fine art analogies, including artworks by Mikhail Vrubel.

A Journey through Time: Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark and Theories of Mimesis

In the mimeticist inheritance, film as a form of art stands out as a language of time. Temporal coherence and congruity construct — in a schematized structure — a response to a reality and a production of an imaginary world. It would be misleading to evaluate the quality of vraisemblance in a world-reflecting schema and maintain mimesis as a single, fixed reading of art and aesthetics. Rather mimesis presents a quest for meaning, whether that meaning is the issue of discovery or invention, or — most plausibly — both. Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark (Russkii kovcheg, 2002) is a universally acclaimed production that questions interpretations based on mimetic dogmas, transcends film genre boundaries and celebrates illusion, visions and dreams. It is a cinematic text that draws on the whole material fabric of culture, including its visual and musical artefacts.