SUMMARY:

This essay is a contribution to the discussion forum “Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise,” framed as responses by literary scholars, historians, and political scientists to Sheila Fitzpatrick’s essay “Soviet History as Black Comedy.” The essay investigates the mimetic nature of Soviet history and the dialectics of tragedy and comedy in it by referencing the tradition going back to Theodor Adorno and Slavoj Žižek of seeing in laughter a means and ideology of domination.