Performing Russia: Folk Revival and Russian Identity

This book examines folk music and dance revival movements in Russia, exploring why this folk culture has come to represent Russia, how it has been approached and produced, and why memory and tradition, in these particular forms, have taken on particular significance in different periods. Above all it shows how folk "tradition" in Russia is an artificial cultural construct, which is periodically reinvented and demonstrates in particular how the "folk revival" has played a key role in strengthening Russian national consciousness in the post-Soviet period.

Laura J. Olson is Assistant Professor of Russian at the University of Colorado, Boulder.