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.” Yuri Slezkine argues that whereas the discrepancy between expectations and reality and the clash between grandiose claims and real-world conditions are universal phenomena, one country has been singled out as the subject of “black comedy” – the Soviet Union. Slezkine asks why we do not have a similar culture of mockery of Western politicians and failed Western claims and ambitions. He explains this discrepancy as based on a sense of relief due to the collapse of the enemy; the insecurity of Western liberalism; and the easiness of laughing at the Other, one who simultaneously embodies witness and difference.