Harry Potter in Russia: The Politics of Enchantment Under Putin

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.

Eliot Borenstein is Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies, Collegiate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Academic Convenor for the Global Network at New York University, 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. His is also the author of Plots Against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (2009 - winner of the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize), Pussy Riot (2020, Bloomsbury Academic) and Meanwhile, in Russia... (2022, Bloomsbury Academic). Borenstein was also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009.