Leagues of Laughter: War, Comedy and the Soviet Legacy in Russia and Ukraine (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781800088795)

An exploration of how comedy has shaped civil society--and become a form of subtle political resistance--in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine.

Leagues of Laughter traces the evolution of a Soviet-created youth game called KVN (Klub veselykh i nakhodchivykh or Club of the Cheerful and Clever) over sixty years as students' nation-states collapsed, competed, and eventually went to war. Through cross-border narratives, the book shows how humor persists--and transforms--amid authoritarianism, censorship, and conflict. With insight and compassion, author A. Austin Garey reveals how laughter became a mode of resistance, identity, and cultural continuity in the long cultural context of the war in Ukraine. In addition to introducing a novel theory of "tradition as stance" to explain how traditions are reproduced and reinterpreted over time, the book offers a compelling comparative analysis of cultural production under political pressure.

Author: A. Austin Garey
ISBN-10: 1800088795
ISBN-13: 9781800088795
Publisher: UCL Press
Language: English
Published: 03/08/2026
Pages: 230
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs