Yuliya Suleyeva

Supervisors: Dr Seth Graham, Dr Maria Rubins

Present status: PhD candidate, Post-graduate Teaching Assistant

Modules Taught: Understanding Politics: How Politics Works (Term 2)

Working title of thesis: Cultural Censorship in Post-Soviet Russia: State Discourse and Free Expression

Research: My research explores the intensification of a polyphonic articulatory process regarding the role and nature of culture in post-Soviet (more specifically, since the late 1990s) Russia in an increasingly restrictive and prescriptive environment actuated by a constellation of forces. It addresses a continuously expanding state and Russian Orthodox Church engagement in the cultural sphere and aims to provide an analysis of various aspects of the multi-levelled and multi-directional censorious process. Such aspects range from direct legislative prohibitions and impositions (laws against offending religious feelings and gay propaganda, the Iarovaia law and ‘The Foundations of the State Cultural Policy’ decree) to literary and artistic prizes criteria and curatorial and publishing choices.