Additional information
by A. Austin Garey (Author)
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 Biography
A. Austin Garey is a research scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Number of Pages: 230
Dimensions: 0.72 x 9.5 x 6.32 IN
Publication Date: March 08, 2026
