This is the first book to explore the phenomenon of glamour and celebrity in contemporary Russian culture, ranging across media forms, disciplinary boundaries and modes of inquiry, with particular emphasis on the media personality. The book demonstrates how the process of 'celebrification' in Russia coincides with the dizzying pace of social change and economic transformation, the latter enabling an unprecedented fascination with glamour and its requisite extravagance; how in the 1990s and 2000s, celebrities - such as film or television stars - moved away from their home medium to become celebrities straddling various media; and how celebrity is a symbol manipulated by the dominant culture and embraced by the masses. It examines the primacy of the visual in celebrity construction and its dominance over the verbal, alongside the interdisciplinary, cross-media, post-Soviet landscape of today's fame culture.Taking into account both general tendencies and individual celebrities, including pop-diva Alla Pugacheva and ex-President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the book analyses the internal dynamics of the institutions involved in the production, marketing, and maintenance of celebrities, as well as the larger cultural context and the imperatives that drive Russian society's romance with glamour and celebrity.

Dedication List of illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Part I The Art of Politics, and the Politics of Art 1. The Ultimate Celebrity: VVP as VIP Objet d'Art - Helena Goscilo 2. The Mistress of Moscow: a Case of Corporate Celebrity - Michelle Kuhn Part II Prosaic Glamour 3. Akunin's Secret and Fandorin's Luck: Postmodern Celebrity in Post-Soviet Russia - Brian James Baer and Nadezhda Korchagina 4. Glamour à la Oksana Robski - Tatiana Mikhailova Part III Mediating Glamour: Film, Estrada, and New Media Stars 5. Fatherland, Family, and Faith: The Power of Nikita Mikhalkov's Celebrity - Stephen M. Norris 6. "Much Ado and Nothing:" Mikhail Zadornov as a Celebrity of Russian Comedy - Oxana Poberejnaia 7. Russian Internet Stars: Gizmos, Geeks, and Glory - Vlad Strukov Part IV Gendered Sounds and Screams of Stardom 8. Feminism à la Russe? Pugacheva-Orbakaite's Celebrity Construction through Family Bonds - Olga Partan 9. Elevating Verka Serdiuchka: A Star-Study in Excess Performativity - Jeremy Morris Part V Moscow Snobbery: From 'High' Art to Haute Cuisine 10. Zurab Tsereteli's Exegi Monumentum, Luzhkov's Largesse, and the Collateral Rewards of Animosity - Helena Goscilo 11. Hot Prospekts: Dining in the New Moscow - Darra Goldstein