College: Selwyn College
Email: db941@cam.ac.uk
Supervisor: Prof Emma Widdis
Project title: From stage to screen to society: KVN and the transformation of Soviet youth entertainment in the 1960s
Research:
My project examines spectatorship and audience engagement in Soviet entertainment television during the 1960s, focusing on the show Klub veselykh i nakodchivykh [Club for merry and quick-witted]. My research, titled From stage to screen to society: KVN and the transformation of Soviet youth entertainment in the 1960s, analyses how institutional conditions and creative practices enabled KVN's evolution from an experimental television format to a participatory cultural phenomenon. Before my doctoral studies, I completed my Bakalavr and Magistr programs in Philosophy at Ural Federal University and an MA in Sociology at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka). Outside academia, I worked as a curator, responsible for the exhibition series ’Center of Thaw Research’ at Voznesensky Center (Moscow, Russia) and co-devised public programming for the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, Russia).
Research interests:
history of Soviet television, history of Soviet sociology, sociology of culture
Scholarships/Prizes:
2023-2026 Hill Foundation Scholarship
Conferences:
'Sportization’ of Club for Merry and Cheerful (KVN) (1967). Constructing the Soviet: Regional Diversity and Searches for Identity. European University at St Petersburg, 28-29th April 2023
Sensitive topics in contemporary theatre (joint presentation with Valentina Anufrieva). “Theatre in public space: aesthetics, economics, and politics of in situ shows.” Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 12-13th November 2020
The repeated turn: from creative economy to cultural economics. Cultural Economics: Traditions and Perspectives, Higher School of Economics’s Perm Campus. 19-20 February 2018
Publications:
Untitled [Review of the book Lindi S. (2022). Razum v tumane voini. M.: Alpina Publishers]. Neprikosnovenny Zapas: Debates on Politics and Culture. 2023. № 4 (150), pp. 219-223.
The Garage Journal Reader / ed. by D. Bezuglov. M.: The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. 2021. 464 p.
Bonfires in the glade: toward the relationality of “Global East.” in Critical remarks on Martin Müller’s article “In Search of the Global East: Thinking between North and South.” Russian Sociological Review (Soziologicheskoye Obozrenie). 2020. Т. 19, № 3, pp. 130–166
Other activities and roles:
Since May 2024, I am part of an editorial collective at The February Journal: https://thefebruaryjournal.org/en/
Personal website:
Biweekly newsletter (in Russian): bitsandhitches.substack.com
