Mikhail Zhvanetsky is the most popular Russian satirist of the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods. After spending the first decade of his career in virtual anonymity, writing monologues and sketches for performance by others, he developed an immense following as a performer of his own material in the 1970s. Zhvanetsky's readings of his sharp, irreverent miniatures became legendary events during the second half of Leonid Il'ich Brezhnev's eighteen-year rule (1964-1982), a time of socio-economic and cultural stagnation and political cynicism within the educated public. The unflinching contemporary topicality and ironic double meanings that characterize Zhvanetsky's satire guaranteed that he would have periodic run-ins with the authorities and could not perform in large venues or publish in mass print runs. Nevertheless, he became a household name, in large part because his readings were informally recorded on tape and circulated widely in homemade copies.

Although he has published several collections of...