State Laughter: Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture by Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: State Laughter: Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture by Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol David Brandenberger (bio) Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol, State Laughter: Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 448 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-0-19-884041-1. "In Soviet Russia, Joke Laugh at You"* Political humor has never received very much attention in historical analyses of the Stalin era. More than a laughing matter, the neglect of this subject in retrospect may have distorted even the most subtle appraisals of this authoritarian society. As the then historian in training A. G. Man'kov put it in his diary in 1933, "at some point in the future, when someone is given the difficult task of writing the history of our everyday life, it's difficult to imagine that he will be able to skirt the subject of political jokes." Continuing, Man'kov explained the centrality of jokes and anecdotes to any understanding of the period: Within them, everything is captured in whimsical form: the ordinary citizen's hatred and protest against the cruelty and injustice of state [End Page 277] policy; his hope and despair; his laughter and tears. Is there anything, anything at all, that hasn't made it into those jokes? They're openly swapped out-loud among drinking buddies while clinking glasses; they're whispered to one another while chuckling at intersections and tram stops; they're exchanged at work among colleagues while keeping a watchful eye out. Hope, despair, laughter and tears … Sometimes these jokes are ribald or vulgar, but that only increases their appeal to the ordinary man, who's embittered enough to be driven to such things.1 Nearly twenty years later, one of Man'kov's contemporaries echoed his sentiments, contending that "by studying the anecdotes, you can study the Soviet regime. … From a study of anecdotes, you can create the most correct picture of the Soviet Union."2 Of course, a close look at the memoir and scholarly literature reveals that the culture of Soviet political humor has actually been given some halting attention. Émigré newspaper and journals of the 1920s cataloged what were held to be authentic jokes from the USSR, as did postwar publications and the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System.3 Western journalists described such jokes as a form of political protest both during the interwar period and the Cold War.4 More recently, a few historians have analyzed the theory and practice of Soviet political humor, arguing that although some of this grassroots joke-telling showed signs of political dissent, other examples appear to express less articulate everyday emotions like stress, frustration, solidarity, and resistance to authority.5 [End Page 278] Their work has been complemented by that of a handful of anthropologists, who have deepened this analysis while systematizing the historical record itself.6 Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol note that if the social history of Stalin-era joke-telling has benefited from recent studies, the role of the state and official humor remains effectively unexplored. Somewhat unusually for a field often dominated by political history, this neglect is indeed visible in the scant scholarly literature on the subject.7 Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol argue that official humor played an important role in Soviet society by allowing the regime to defuse popular discontent through the calculated use of satire, irony, and ridicule. In so doing, they reject the notion promoted by M. M. Bakhtin that the carnival is always an expression of resistance and instead contend that the state deliberately harnessed laughter as a way of mobilizing and disciplining Soviet society. In chapter 1, Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol argue that official humor emerged early in the Soviet period in an atmosphere that was initially intolerant of any sort of satire. Much like socialist realism, official humor slowly matured by combining elements of traditional folk culture with more modern political priorities. Over time, a sense of "positive satire" took shape that [End Page 279] promoted criticism of official faults and errors in ways that strengthened the legitimacy and authority of the regime rather than undermining...