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Little did newly-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin know that, as soon as he came to power, he would be sharing the spotlight with an 11-year-old British wizard . In Harry Potter in Russia , Eliot Borenstein examines the Russian Pottermania explosion in 2000 and how Harry Potter has become politicized in ways both familiar and unfamiliar to J.K. Rowling''s Western fans. Borenstein reflects on how the franchise led to soul-searching about the fate of children''s literature, the legitimacy and even dangers of fantasy genres, and debates about intellectual property and internet piracy. The book explores the ways in which Potter sparked moral panics about the occult, anxiety over the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and even fears that the titular icon and his ilk were a Trojan Horse in a Western plot to corrupt Russian morals and destroy the country. Harry Potter in Russia also delves into the significance of fan fiction, parodies, cheap-knock offs, and repeated comparisons between the Boy Who Lived and the Man Who Ruled.>
About the author
Eliot Borenstein is Professor and Chair of Russian & Slavic Studies, Interim Chair of East Asian Studies, Collegiate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Academic Convenor for the Global Network at New York University, USA. Before coming to NYU, Borenstein directed the Fulbright Program for the Russian Federation and taught at the University of Virginia, USA. His first book, Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1919, won the AATSEEL award for best work in literary scholarship in 2000. In 2007, he published Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture, which received the AWSS award for best book in Slavic Gender Studies in 2008.
A 2009 Guggenheim recipient, Borenstein wrote Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (2019), which received the 2020 AATSEEL Book Prize and the 2020 Wayne S. Vucinic Book Prize. His other books include Pussy Riot: Speaking Punk to Power (Bloomsbury, 2020), and Meanwhile, in Russia…: Russian Internet Memes and Viral Video (Bloomsbury, 2022).
