Cover
Contents
Introduction
Popular Culture and History in Post-Soviet Nation States
1. The Post-Soviet Condition
2. Popular Histories of the 1990s: Concealed Truths and Alternative Claims
3. History Politics: Nationalising and Disintegrating a Common Past
4. Popular Culture and History: Recoding, Normalising, Adjusting a Contested Past
5. Appropriating History: Entertainment and Estrangement
6. Outline of the Volume: Places of Longing, Combat Zones, Sites of Trauma
List of Games
Filmography
References

I. Places of Longing: Yesterday's Tales, Melodramatic Lives and Astonishing Worlds
Chapter 1: More than Nostalgia
1. Introduction
2. An Aesthetic Utopia
3. Remembrance of Idealism Past
4. "A Deep State" of Late Socialism
5. Retrotopia Unpacked
Filmography
List of Illustrations
References
Chapter 2: Drawn History
1. Introduction
2. The Comic Book. Cossacks in Ukrainian Comic Books
3. What is a Ukrainian Superhero Like?
4. Dira (Hole). A Graphic Novel by Serhii Zakharov
5. Conclusion
List of Illustrations
References

Chapter 3: Narrating Russia's Multi-Ethnic Past
1. Guzel Yakhina: Success and Controversy
2. Diversity Beyond Postcolonial Discourse
3. Camera-stylo Reversed: The "Cinematic Quality" of Yakhina's Novels
4. Conclusion
Filmography
List of Illustrations
References
Chapter 4: The Zone as a Place of Repentance and Retreat
1. Introduction
2. Production Conditions and Policies
3. The Wolves in the Zone (1990): Mission Impossible
4. Symptoms of Cultural Trauma
5. The Atomic Zone Ranger (1999). A Fantasy of a 'Strong Arm'

6. The 2000s: "You don't have to look back all the time..."
7. A Thriller Set against the Backdrop of Perestroika
List of Games
Filmography
List of Illustrations
References
II. Combat Zones: War Heroes, Resistance Fighters and Joyful Partisans
Chapter 5: Alternative Versions of the Past and the Future
1. Introduction
2. Background to Post-Soviet Alternate History
3. Trauma and Resentment as a Driving Force of the Post-Soviet Russian Historical Novel
4. Our Women and Men Back in the Past
5. Conclusion
Postscript
References

Chapter 6: Ludic Epistemologies and Alternate Histories
1. Introduction
2. Playing with Alternate Histories
3. Agency and Role-Playing Games
4. The Objects of Study
5. Witnessing History: Memorial's 74 and the Suspension of Sovereignty
6. Exacerbating Politics with Magic: Red Land's Experiment with Ideological Identity
7. Responsibility and History: Atom RPG and Making Choices
8. Fragmentary Selves in Post-Soviet History
9. Conclusion
List of Games
List of Illustrations
References
Chapter 7: Partisan, Anti-Partisan, pARTisan, Party-Zan, Cyberpartisan