Alla Pugacheva: Russian High-Profile Celebrity As a Mediator of Anti-War Sentiment

Abstract

This paper examines the role of female macro-celebrity as a mediator of public views during an ongoing full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The focus is on the 75-year-old cult pop-artist Alla Pugacheva—one of the few high-profile Russian celebrities who declared an anti-war stance. By using digital ethnography and multimodal discourse analysis of Pugacheva’s mediated public stance over two years (2022-2024), the study shows that the actress constitutes a unique cultural mediator due to her exceptional socio-cultural capital and particular communication patterns. Pugacheva bridges the realm of celebrities, dissidents and cultural elites becoming a distinct post-Soviet phenomenon or post-Soviet cultural intermediary.