Russian roulette: Serbian pop culture and global soft-power conflict

Abstract

This article focuses on the recent Russian and Serbian pop-political entanglement. Russians usually rely on hard-power elements like military, energy and economics, but in the last several years they became active as sport club sponsors, telecommunication provider’s partners and film producers. The article examines the latter phenomenon of increasing presence of Russian characters within Serbian media culture, whether it is domestic, Russian or American production, like in the case of Stranger Things, where a Serbian actor Nikola Đuričko plays a Russian smuggler. The central figure though is young actor Miloš Biković, hired many times by Russian film producers in the last decade. His film The Balkan Line (2019) is examined in this article as a representative of Russian soft-power influence as well as their geopolitical stance. The Balkan Shadows (2017–present) and Stranger Things (2016–present) are analysed as pro-western counterparts in this superpower struggle within Serbian media culture.