Russian Professional Podcasting as an Explorer to the World of Personality and Translator of Communicative and Cultural Memory

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the study of Russian professional podcasting on the example of the first and second seasons of the Rewind multi-episode podcast project (2019–2020) of the multimedia magazine Arzamas and the Meduza website. The historical period that this project covers is from the revolution of 1917 to the first years of post-Soviet Russia – its heroes were people belonging to the Soviet and Russian intelligentsia. This podcast project resurrects a whole palette of documentary-artistic and analytical genres rejected by post-Soviet radio journalism: portrait radio essay, audio diary, documentary drama, radio film, radio story, journalistic investigation, etc. The most important events of Russian history of the 20th century are shown through the prism of the personal history of podcast heroes. The conceptual and substantive basis and compositional and dramatic bond of an extensive multi-genre radio programme is an audio diary recorded in the past and preserved in the family audio archives of radio programme heroes. It is the audio diary that becomes an invaluable witness of its time and a unique “living” translator of communicative and cultural memory. The author’s analysis of thematic, content, compositional, genre, expressive and technical features of podcasts allows to penetrate into the world of the hero’s personality and identify the priority values transmitted to Russian society. The leading value that holds together such different stories of a podcast project is the family – as the “beginning of the beginnings” of human life, the measure of everything and the concept of life.