The Power of Myth: Mikhail Zhvanetskii's Satire in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

The satiric writer Mikhail Zhvanetskii occupies an important place in Soviet/Russian culture; he has been an extremely popular satirist and now enjoys the status of a living classic. This paper follows Zhvanetskii's evolution from a provincial amateur writer to the master of Russian satire and humor, and attempts to explain the exceptional status of his legacy, which spans more than fifty years. Special attention will be paid to the genre in which Zhvanetskii has established himself, and his method will be examined in the light of the concepts of carnival, myth, and auto-communication. The first part of the article briefly outlines his place in Soviet estrada and his role as a satiric writer during the Soviet period. The second part deals with the period from the 1990s to the present and describes his legacy in the new reality.