Smirnova, Michelle, “What is the Shortest Russian Joke? Communism. Russian Cultural Consciousness Expressed Through Soviet Humor” – 2014

In this article, sociologist Michelle Smirnova explores the role of humor in totalitarian regimes. She focuses on the Russian communist context to illustrate how political jokes known as anekdoty operate in the intricate relationships between citizens and perpetrators of the regime. Smirnova conducts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of 1,290 anekdoty collected from the Russian archives and spanning the four decades between 1951 and 1990. What she sets out to discover in her analysis of these jokes is how they interact with the dominant discourse established by the communist regime. While previous research on humor and totalitarianism has focused on providing a clear-cut answer, arguing that anekdoty are either a form of resistance or a method of reinforcing the narratives disseminated by the perpetrators of the regime, Smirnova seeks to underline the ambivalence of political humor, suggesting that it counteracts the communist discourse in some ways, while supporting it in others.

The article begins with a contextualization of the anekdoty. Smirnova explains that they were shared in the private sphere in communist Russia by citizens seeking to briefly lift each other’s spirits and temporarily escape the drudgery and hardship of everyday life under the regime. She notes that publicly uttering anekdoty resulted in prison sentences, as political humor was defined in Russian legislature as anti-Soviet propaganda. This attitude of the perpetrators of the communist regime who sought to control even citizens’ laughter indicates that anekdoty were perceived as a threat to the totalitarian agenda. Smirnova explains that anekdoty were effective in countering dominant discourse because their humorous aspect served to underline the inconsistencies between the glorified communist ideal and the dreary reality of the Soviet Union. Throughout the article, she provides a plethora of examples of political jokes in which representatives of the Russian communist regime and the dominant narratives surrounding it do not align with the harsh reality that thousands of citizens experienced.  

But anekdoty were not always a form of resistance. They also served to reinforce dominant discourses, especially in terms of national identity and exclusion of those who are not Russian. Despite the discourses of equality that the perpetrators of the totalitarian regime perpetuated, inequality characterized the communist reality. Smirnova argues that various forms of discrimination persisted due to this imbalance in the regime’s narratives. This phenomenon was also translated into anekdoty in which the Russian man is the ultimate portrayal of the self, while any other individuals are perceived as other. Political jokes rife with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and nationalism thus discursively furthered the inequalities that the communist regime set in place. This type of anekdoty reinforced existing stereotypes of individuals and groups within and outside of the Soviet Union and served to exclude them from what Smirnova refers to as the Russian experience of communism.  

This article provides significant insights into cultural consciousness – a concept the author uses to refer to the way in which people become united in a shared space where they engage with the dominant discourse of communism. At the same time, cultural consciousness involves processes of self-identification that either align with or diverge from the official communist narratives. Because cultural consciousness deals with individuals’ engagement in discursive practices that give indications of collective identity and identification with the nation, Smirnova’s work lends valuable perspectives into the dynamics of perpetration, participation, and resistance in a totalitarian context.

Author of this entry: Sabria Schouten

Smirnova, Michelle, “What is the Shortest Russian Joke? Communism. Russian Cultural Consciousness Expressed Through Soviet Humor,” Qualitative Sociology 37,  no. 3 (2014): 323-343, DOI 10.1007/s11133-014-9281-0.