The Making of an Anti-Bourgeois Hero

Excerpt from an early episode (the second) of a new version of the popular talk show Vzgliad, co-hosted by Aleksandr Liubimov and Sergey Bodrov Jr., which aired weekly on the TV channel ORT in 1996-1999.

View Artifact

Top Secret: Investigative Journalism and True Crime During Perestroika

Sovershenno sekretno, the first privately owned periodical in Soviet Russia since 1917, showcased a combination of transparency and sensationalism that became a distinguishing feature of journalistic writing in the post-Soviet period.

View Artifact

Novyi Vzgliad: Violence, Political Irony, and National Pride

Novyi Vzgliad authors write some of the most scandalous and incendiary political commentaries of the 1990s, producing new forms of political irony. Iaroslav Mogutin and Eduard Limonov turn violence into a paradoxical source of identity. The main artifact here–an article by Mogutin–exemplifies this process.

View Artifact

The World Made of Plastic Has Won

Egor Letov performs his song “Moia oborona” (My defense), during his “concert in the hero city Leningrad,” part of Grazhdanskaia oborona’s 1994 tour Russkii proryv (Russian breakthrough).

View Artifact

Mumiy Troll's Breakthrough “Utekai (Take Off)" Becomes the 1997 Song of the Year

Mumiy Troll’s 1997 breakthrough song “Utekai” (Take off) displayed the combination of surrealism, dark humor, and provincial romanticism that defined the band’s trademark style.

View Artifact

“Stalin, Beria, Gulag!”: The Natsboly Oppose Gaidar and Mikhalkov

Two early direct actions organized by young members of the National Bolshevik Party combined self-martyrdom with totalitarian stiob.

View Artifact