The dissident is dead. Long live the dissident – Boris Akunin and popular literature as counterculture under Putinism
Journal: FORUM University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts
Year: 2018

This paper explores the reappearance of the dissident in Russian contemporary literature followingPutin’s rise to power, focussing in particular on how the country’s formerly highbrow dissident counterculture is now moving closer to the realm of popular culture. Tracing the link between the intelligentsia, literature, and dissent all the way up to the supposed death of all three phenomena in the post-collapse years, this article argues that a dissident revival is not only ongoing but directly li