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Conspiracy Culture
Post-Soviet Paranoia and the Russian Imagination
Keith A. Livers (Author)
9781487507374
Hardback, published 8 September 2020
320 pages
23.1 x 15 x 2.8 cm, 0.62 kg
"Anyone interested in Russian media, conspiracy culture, and broader Russian cultural context will find this book valuable and at times quite entertaining." "Conspiracy Culture asks its readers not merely to think about conspiracy, but to reconsider the evolving contemporary Russian cultural canon in terms of the conspiratorial thinking that is part of its foundation." "Livers’s book will be among the popular studies to understand what brought Russia to the war and where to look for clues to avoid such disasters in the future."
Contemporary Russia stands apart as one of the most prolific generators of conspiracy theories and paranoid rhetoric. Conspiracy Culture traces the roots of the phenomenon within the sphere of culture and history, examining the long arc of Russian paranoia from the present moment back to earlier nineteenth-century sources, such as Dostoevsky’s anti-nihilist novel Demons. Conspiracy Culture examines the use of conspiracy tropes by contemporary Russian authors and filmmakers including the postmodernist writer Viktor Pelevin, the conservative author and pundit Aleksandr Prokhanov, and the popular director Timur Bekmambetov. It also explores paranoia as an instrument within contemporary Russian political rhetoric, as well as in pseudo-historical works. What stands out is the manner in which popular paranoia is utilized to express broadly shared fears not only of a long-standing anti-Russian conspiracy undertaken by the West, but also about the destruction of the country’s cultural and spiritual capital within this imagined "Russophobic" plot.
Acknowledgments Introduction: The Anti-Russian Conspiracy 1. From Vampire Capitalism to Enlightened Selfhood: Viktor Pelevin’s (Anti)-Conspiracy Novels 2. The Great Anti-Russian Plot: Aleksandr Prokhanov’s Conspiracy Novels of the 2000s 3. Timur Bekmambetov’s Night and Day Watch: Russia’s Secret Others 4. From the "Dulles Plan" to Pussy Riot: Conspiracy Theories in Today’s Russia Conclusion: Mr. Putin and Comrade Trump Bibliography