The perception of Russian history in joking practices of political anecdotes

The study discusses the several aspects of the perception of the relevant historical events in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet society through the prism of joking culture of anecdotes. Being one of the most popular and common forms of oral folklore, anecdote allowed the Russian man to criticize the negative trends in the development of the Russian state in terms of censorship. Before the revolutionary events of 1917, the anecdote was mainly considered as a short instructive story of the life of Russian monarchs and their families. As a rule, the emphasis was placed on the edifying sense of the story in the end of such an anecdote. During the Soviet period, the anecdote became a kind of political protest against the imperfect totalitarian system in the absence of civil society institutions. The study results demonstrate that at different stages of state development the meaning and ethical message of the political and historical anecdote has changed.