Authors

Angelos Theocharis ¹ Durham University, UK

Discussion

The recent global turn in Russian studies (Strukov and Hudspith, 2018; Platt, 2019; Byford et al, 2020) represents an effort to capture the global expansion of contemporary Russophone culture in the last decades. After the dissolution of USSR in 1991, the unprecedented global dispersion of populations from the post-Soviet space led to the progressive formation of vibrant Russophone communities from Argentina to the U.S. and Canada, from Sweden and Germany to Israel, South Africa, and Australia. The global presence of Russian speakers has resulted in the deterritorialization of Russian culture since its production is not limited (if it ever was) to the Russian/Soviet territory. According to Byford, Doak, and Hutchings, what “we call Russian culture is co-produced and reproduced, consumed and reinvented across the globe, in different languages of the world and by agents with or without connections to Russia itself” (2020: 1). In this paper, I draw on my doctoral research, which looks at Russophone book clubs in the UK, and I examine how the study of diasporic cultural production and consumption of Russian literature contributes to the new theoretical paradigm in Russian studies. I contend that the disconnection of Russian culture from a specific location has facilitated the formation of a global Russophone reading community transcending borders and negating the existence of a centre-periphery structure between the Russian Federation and its diaspora.