This is a study of the cultural significance and generic specificity of the Russo-Soviet joke (in Russian, anekdot [pl. anekdoty]). My work departs from previous analyses by locating the genre's quintessence not in its formal properties, thematic taxonomy, or structural evolution, but in the essential links and productive contradictions between the anekdot and other texts and genres of Russo-Soviet culture. The anekdot's defining intertextuality is prominent across a broad range of cycles, including those based on popular film and television narratives, political anekdoty, and other cycles that draw on more abstract discursive material. Central to my analysis is the genre's capacity for reflexivity in various senses, including generic self-reference (anekdoty about anekdoty), ethnic self-reference (anekdoty about Russians and Russian-ness), and critical reference to the nature and practice of verbal signification in more or less implicit ways.
The analytical and theoretical emphasis of the dissertation is on the years 1961-86, incorporating the Stagnation period plus additional years that are significant in the genre's history. That quarter-century span in the USSR saw not only the coagulation of a way of life that provided ample fodder for oral satire, but also the appearance of a series of texts that provided source material for the topical anekdot cycles that to this day constitute a large portion of the Russian jokelore corpus. Before turning to the Soviet-period anekdot, I discuss the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century distinction between the literary or historical anekdot - a written genre not reliant on humor and in which real-life people figured - and the traditional folk anekdot, an offshoot of the folktale. The twentieth-century anekdot represented a confluence of its folkloric and inscribed forebears, combining features of (and effectively superseding) both traditions. By the 1960s, the attributes and functions the genre had accrued over the course of its development began to resonate with the underlying tropes, conflicts, and values of the society to such a degree that the anekdot became a kind of "genre-laureate" of the age. The dissertation concludes with an examination of the post-censorship anekdot, and a contextualization of the genre in the larger cultural atmosphere of contemporary Russia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-11032003-192424 |
| Date | 16 January 2004 |
| Creators | Graham, Seth |
| Contributors | Mark Lipovetsky, Helena Goscilo, Vladimir Padunov, Colin MacCabe, Nancy Condee |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-11032003-192424/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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