About the book: 2022 / "A refugee flea comes to the executive committee..." "The wolf leaned back from the zone and decided to quit..." "They're coming animals on a cleanup day, they look, a hare is lying under a tree...” Why did animals so often become the heroes of Soviet jokes? How did zoomorphic cultural codes interact with collective and individual memory, describe and influence social behavior? In his book, philologist and anthropologist Vadim Mikhailin shows how the Soviet zoomorphic anecdote opposed official discourse and its manipulative tasks. He destroyed the mechanisms of formation of cultural myths and often undermined the efforts of state propaganda. Anecdotes about the fatalistic Piglet, the alcoholic Cheburashka, the libertine Fox and other animal characters reflected the moods and fears of citizens, made it possible, without saying anything directly, to actually talk about everything - and were sensitive to changes in society. Vadim Mikhailin - philologist, anthropologist, professor at Saratov University. The book contains obscene language.