ABOUT THIS BOOK

What happened when J. K. Rowling’s mega-blockbuster—born in the United Kingdom and launched to global heights by Hollywood and the full force of Western marketing—came knocking on President Putin’s door? The arrival of boy wizard and international star Harry Potter in a recently neoliberal Russia was enormously influential, but neither smooth nor uncontested. The franchise quickly became a lens that focused Russian ambitions and fears during an era characterized by both the hegemony of globalized popular culture and a nationalized conservative backlash.

With crisp, engaging prose, Eliot Borenstein leaps from Harry Potter into an exploration of the culture wars and moral panics sparked in Russia by Western-inspired children’s literature, extending back into the Soviet period and through the invasion of Ukraine. As cultural products pitched ostensibly to children, the Harry Potter books and films became the perfect objects for criticism, translation, adaptation, parody, attack, mimicry, and meme-making, allowing Russians to carve out their own space in the worldwide market of magical multiverses.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Eliot Borenstein is a professor of Russian at New York University and the author of several books, including, most recently, Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny and Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism in Contemporary Russia.

REVIEWS

“This volume shows how importing J. K. Rowling’s multimedia franchise into Russia has provoked not only Russians’ fantasies but also their national anxieties and fears. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, The Politics of Fantasy provides an invaluable guide through the Russian multiverse that Harry Potter has inspired.”

— Julie Cassiday, author of Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism

“Presenting the Harry Potter mythos as a universal language with its own local dialects, this book offers precious insights into post-Soviet cultural and political evolution within the global context. Borenstein convincingly presents cultural appropriation as a two-way street in which ‘local’ interpretations and variations not only flatten and instrumentalize but also enrich the original material.”

— Mark Lipovetsky, author of Postmodern Crises: From Lolita to Pussy Riot

“Compelling to both Harry Potter fans and scholars of Russian cultural politics, The Politics of Fantasy shows how Harry Potter was not just translated into Russian but has become a Russian cultural product in its own right, serving as a battleground for broader debates about values, identity, and foreign influence in the Putin era. . . . Highly recommended.”

— Choice Reviews

“[A] witty, instantly gripping and well-informed book.”

— The Times Literary Supplement

“Delightful. . . . Packs a powerful punch, both as a compelling scholarly study and an academic page-turner. . . . [A] fascinating examination of the culturally productive world of Harry Potter in Russia.”

— Slavonic & East European Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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