Humor and Rumor in the Post-Soviet Authoritarian State

Informed by ethnographic fieldwork in an authoritarian regime, this book shows how jokes and rumors remind communities of their fears, support paranoia, shape conformist behavior, and, consequently, reinforce the existing hegemony. In this study on everyday life in a repressive regime, Anastasiya Astapova unveils political humor as it is lived.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Belarus, an example of an authoritarian state, Humor and Rumor in the Post-Soviet Authoritarian State presents over one hundred contemporary political jokes in the contexts of their performance. Throughout, Anastasiya Astapova demonstrates the salience of the joke genre, the multiplicity of humor manifestations, and the fundamental presence of intertextual links between jokes and another folk genre—rumor. Informed by real-life fieldwork in an authoritarian regime, Humor and Rumor in the Post-Soviet Authoritarian State challenges many common theories of political humor, including the interpretation of political jokes as weapons of the weak. It illustrates how jokes and rumors remind communities of their fears, support paranoia, shape conformist behavior, and, consequently, reinforce the existing hegemony. In this rare study on everyday life in and reactions to repressive regimes, Astapova unveils political humor as it is lived.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Why Does the Jelly Tremble? Surveillance Rumors and the Vernacular Panopticon

Chapter 2: Why Do All Dictators Have Moustaches? Political Jokes in the Authoritarian State

Chapter 3: Joking about the Fear (of Joking)

Chapter 4: The Making of the President: Lukashenko’s Official Image and Vernacular Ridicule

Chapter 5: When the President Comes: Potemkin Villages

Chapter 6: “There is a High Probability of the Mustachioed Dude’s Victory”: Election Without Choice

Conclusion: Every Joke Has Only a Shred of Joke to It