Russian Television Today

<p>Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express a new understanding of what it means to be Russian answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their recent history: ‘What really happened to us?’ and accordingly ‘Why?’ </p><p>The book covers important issues in Russian television today including:</p><ul> <li>the reworking of new ‘national’ on-screen heroes </li> <li>its relationship with classic literature</li> <li>the revisionist portrayal of a romantic portrait of life in the Soviet era</li> <li>the role of thematic elements such as love fidelity humour and irony </li> <li>the particularly pressing problem of crime and its representation on screen as Mafia or police adventure and its political usage by the Putin administration. </li> </ul><p>This book provides a detailed account of the critical issues in contemporary Russian television relating them to broader social and political developments in Russian society.</p>