Mythopoetic images of Russia’s medieval cultural space in modern popular culture

Abstract

This article analyzes the reception of the Middle Ages by the 20^th-century Russian popular culture. It describes the genesis, development, and current state of the production of popular culture images that draws on the visual and semantic lexicon of medieval Rus’. Similar practices in Eastern culture are analyzed to identify the most representative examples. The issues addressed are explored using materials from cinema, the music industry, literature, and computer games. The article thoroughly analyzes the content of social media communities (specifically, VKontakte) to identify how the ethnocultural heritage of Russia’s peoples is represented. Particular attention is paid to the gaming industry — specifically the representation of this heritage in gaming environments and the most effective ways of its transmission. Films are also analyzed, noting the poor quality and low popularity of most of them, along with their inability to popularize the mythopoetic images of medieval Rus’. The pastiche of medieval images is examined separately within the context of contemporary sensibility, which aims to maintain collective identity and reinforce memory structures and forms of feeling. This reflects a desire of popular culture to create a broadly accessible and stable understanding of the collective past. Representations of the Middle Ages in today’s popular culture foster an emotional connection with the past while maintaining a sense of historical distance. This offers a relatively safe mode of cultural consumption, generating the emotional unity and forms of affective integration that are in demand today. When a popular cultural product is well-made, ‘emotional communities’ form around it. This approach allows for the construction of a collective identity based on shared experiences and feelings associated with the perception of medieval images — a characteristic feature of contemporary culture.