Nostalgia for the Soviet in Modern Russian Web Series

The research aims to study the elements that elicit nostalgic feelings from viewers of web series set in the USSR. The goal of the study is to examine the mechanisms of nostalgia for the Soviet era in contemporary Russian web series. The study will describe the theoretical underpinnings and practical manifestations of nostalgia, as well as analyze scientific articles and monographs from both foreign and Russian language sources. The empirical basis for the research will be the Russian web series «Chikatilo» (directed by Sarik Andreasyan, 2021), «Patient Zero» (directed by Evgeny Stychkin and Sergey Trofimov, 2022), «Fisher» (directed by Sergey Taramaev and Lyubov Lvova, 2023), and «The Word of a Kid. Blood on the Asphalt» (directed by Zhora Kryzhovnikov, 2023). The second chapter presents a detailed analysis of selected passages from the series, using the cultural-historical approach (with elements of narrative analysis) and Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis. Upon completion of the study, we expect to be able to draw conclusions about the manifestations of nostalgia in contemporary Russian online projects.