This book examines folk music and dance revival movements in Russia, exploring why this folk culture has come to represent Russia, how it has been approached and produced, and why memory and tradition, in these particular forms, have taken on particular significance in different periods. Above all it shows how folk "tradition" in Russia is an artificial cultural construct, which is periodically reinvented, and it demonstrates in particular how the "folk revival" has played a key role in strengthening Russian national consciousness in the post-Soviet period. Laura J. Olson is Assistant Professor of Russian at the University of Colarado, Boulder. She has been researching and performing Slavic folk music since 1987. 'This book offers valuable insights into post-Soviet Russian society, culture, and grass-roots political developments.' - MLR, 102.1, 2007 'Olsen has a talent for clear exposition and cogent summary, as she shows in her survey of the appropriation of folk song in the eighteenth century by the literate cl asses and the main trends in folk-song performance in the nineteenth.' - MLR, 102.1, 2007