‘The right not to have anything’: the ‘Nasreddin in Russia’ newspaper

ABSTRACT

The Nasreddin in Russia newspaper is part of an initiative undertaken by migrant workers along with a group of local artists in St. Petersburg, Russia. It serves as an alternative platform from which the voices of the migrant workers, often silenced in the traditional media, may be heard. Most of the research dealing with migrant workers in Russia focuses on the legal and political aspects of the issue. The present article is a qualitative study that analyzes the contents of four issues of the newspaper. The article uses thematic analysis and discourse analysis to identify and interpret the main matters of concern raised in the Nasreddin in Russia newspaper.

KEYWORDS:

• Traditional media
• alternative media
• newspaper
• Russia
• Muslim migrant workers
• ‘Nasreddin in Russia’ newspaper

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Narmina Abdulaev is a lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University. She holds a B.A. in History and Hebrew Literature, and an M.A. in Communications both from Ben-Gurion University. Her Ph.D dissertation, under supervisors Prof. Tamar Alexander and Dr. Eliezer Papo, deals with folklore on the internet and analyzes the character of Nasreddin Hodja in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, before and after internet revolution. Her new research dealing with celebrity studies and fandom online and offline.

Notes

1. ‘The first issue of Nasreddin in Russia was published in 2014, while overall four editions have been released as of today. The participants of the project, including the artists Olga Jitlina and Anna Tereshkina, are currently preparing the fifth, which is going to be published with support from Garage Museum of Contemporary Art’: 23 March 2019 ahttps://garagemca.org/en/event/artist-talk-over-a-cup-of-tea-with-olga-jitlina-and-anna-tereshkina-about-their-project-nasreddin-in-russia.

2. http://www.olgajitlina.info/nasreddin-in-russia-newspaper Retrieved: 20 April 2018.