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Transylvania is Bothering You (On Radio 101 FM)

The cult radio program Transilvania bespokoit (Transilvania is bothering you) creates an alternative musical canon and produces a new nationalist counterpublic.

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Novikov's "New Russian Classicism"

Timur Novikov’s essay and manifesto, “The New Russian Classicism” as an exponent of pop culture, fashion, and totalitarianism.

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the eXile: Bespredel for Expats

The Moscow-based, English-language magazine the eXile combined gonzo journalism and stiob to provide unique reporting on post-Soviet Russia. At the same time, the outlet fetishized the very 1990s-era lawlessness or bespredel—not to mention Western sexual and economic exploitation of Russia—that it nominally denounced and condemned.

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“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.

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Parfenov’s “Namedni” as memory work in the 1990s

“Namedni” (Recently), Leonid Parfenov’s project dedicated to recent history, was one of the most successful shows of the 1990s. Eschewing big narrative arcs, the program highlighted the past as a collection of memory sites—in this case, exploring the origins of the “New Russian” in 1991.

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Soviet audiences devour the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura"

Stills from the first episode of the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura," which aired in Brazil in 1976-77 and in the USSR/ Russia in 1988-90. In this first episode, aired on Soviet Central Television on 16 October, 1988, it is revealed that the show's title character, Isaura, is not the niece of the wealthy Almeida family—but instead a "slave" with a “mulatto [sic]” mother and a Portuguese father.

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