Introduction: Reading Russian Literature, 1980–2024—Literary Consumption, Memory and Identity

Reading literature has always been a more collective experience in Russia than in most European countries. In the late nineteenth century, group readings simultaneously allowing 30 to 40 people to keep abreast of the most sought-after texts was a fairly common practice, as were the numerous (illegal) circles for self-education (kruzhki) that mushroomed in imperial and Soviet Russia (Leibov and Vvodin. 2020. What and how Russian students read in school, 1840–1917. In Reading Russia. A history of reading in modern Russia, ed. Damiano Rebecchini and Raffaella Vassena, vol. 2, 259–379. Milano: Ledizioni). However, the extent to which contemporary practices of engaging with literature still foster a sense of collective identity and memory remains largely unexplored. This chapter introduces the volume, which examines the nexus between literary consumption, memory, and collective identity formation in Russia from the 1980s until the present. It explores both continuities and shifts in their multifaceted relationship during the profound—and ongoing—transformations of Russian society and its literary landscape. In the introduction, we discuss the main thematic lines of the volume and the individual chapters, which analyze the reading habits and self-understanding of diverse audiences that are dispersed along regional, gender, generational, and technological divides. Drawing on a variety of primary sources, including memoirs, diaries, fan art, and BookToks, the authors of this collection seek to do justice to the diversity of an enormous reading public that is often routinely referred to as the ‘Russian reader.’