Poking Fun at the Transformation: Postsocialist TV Satire in the 1990s

Veronika Pehe

doi:10.18146/view.264

Poking Fun at the Transformation: Postsocialist TV Satire in the 1990s

Authors

Veronika Pehe Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2732-5449

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18146/view.264

Keywords:

TV satire, news parody, postsocialism, economic transformation, Za chwilę dalszy ciąg programu, Česká soda, Czech television, Polish television

Abstract

This article examines postsocialist TV satire of the 1990s in the Czech Republic and Poland using the examples of the programmes Česká soda (Czech Soda Water, ČT, 1993-1997) and Za chwilę dalszy ciąg programu (Next Episode in a Moment, TVP, 1988-1994). These pioneering shows were among the first to introduce the format of television satire and news parody to postsocialist screens. The article explores how the programmes’ creators forged a highly particular format stemming from local variety show traditions. It analyses the ways in which these shows articulated criticism of the transformations of postsocialist countries from planned to market economies and reflects on their enduring popularity and function as sites of memory of the 1990s.

Author Biography

Veronika Pehe, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Veronika Pehe is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Prior to that, she held a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence after completing her PhD in cultural history at University College London in 2016. Her research covers popular culture and the politics of memory in East-Central Europe, as well as the history of the economic transformations in the region after 1989.

Downloads

Published

2022-12-22

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 22 (2022): Television Satire in (Post)Socialist Europe

Section

Explorations

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).