The rapidly changing socio-cultural context in Russia has not yet been sufficiently covered by the emerging scholarship, which makes Nastroika iazyka an important contribution. Even more important is that the book has made a new step in the development of contemporary sociolinguistics in the Russian language by mainly Russia-based scholars.

According to the editorial introduction, the book was envisaged as a collective monograph about language policy in Russia. What is presented, however, only partially reaches this objective. Few chapters explicitly address language policy and the volume would do with an overarching conceptual vision and a coherent methodology to pass for a collective monograph. But judged for what it is—the volume deserves both attention and praise.

The book is divided in four parts. Part One, “Languages of Post-Soviet Reflection: Experience of Calibration,” opens with a chapter by Evgevii Savitskii that deals with the historical metalanguage used in the description of the Soviet and colonial past in the post-Soviet period. This is followed by Tatiana Vaizer, who develops the trauma theory in relation to poetic translation. Oksana Moroz's contribution elaborates on various attempts to compile an artistic thesaurus of Soviet expression and how Soviet language is approached in literature with ironic reflection. Nikolai Poseliagin returns to the theme of the trauma to discuss strategies of the replacements of the traumatic experiences in Russian public discourse. He claims that the memory of trauma is responsible for a creation of a chain of substitutions whereby the first level substitutes establish their own associations with trauma. This is all acceptable if the chapter relating to the theoretically rich field of lexical semantics in discourse offered some theoretical bearings and term definitions. By contrast, the chapter by Ol΄ga Karpova and Aleksandr Dmitriev discussing successful and unsuccessful attempts at reforms of Russian spelling since the Reform of 1917 is clear, informative, and well researched. In addition to providing an excellent overview of the reforms, the chapter analyzes the agents of language policy that, at every stage of the reform process, affected the outcomes of the endeavor.

Part Two, “Registers of Language Policy: Authorities and the Networks,” begins with Egor Panchenko's chapter. Based on discursive analytical approaches and agenda-setting analysis, Panchenko explores the construction of the news in state-controlled mass media by analyzing discursive macrostructures. He—rather predictably—concludes that the key themes of the media are hinged on the adversarial positions of Russia and the US and the privileging of the names Vladimir Putin and Dmitrii Medvedev. The chapter is followed by Aleksandra Arkhipova, Anton Somin, and Aleksandra Sheveleva providing an analysis of citations and cultural references used in the 2011–12 street protest posters, arguing that the dialogue with the authorities and the establishment of contact with fellow protesters were the main objectives of the citations. The rest of part two consists of a cluster of three chapters by Vera Zvereva, Ingunn Lunde, and Michael Gorham, related to various aspects of the language of the Russian internet. All three scholars are well versed in this field. Zvereva looks into the representation of social distinction online, Lunde discusses the cases of “performative metalinguistics” analyzed from the online viewers’ responses to the three humorous videos discussing the Russian language on YouTube. Lunde argues that the viewers perform their linguistic attitudes toward the content of the videos by stylizing, quoting, and creatively transforming the video content. Finally, Gorham poses a question: “how and why do everyday views about language begin to play an important role in what may be seen as political parameters” (244). To answer this question, he looks into the development of the notion of the internet as a rubbish pit, which is ultimately used by state media technologies as a strategy of restraining the oppositional discourse.

Part Three is dedicated to the official languages of Russia's minor federal units and ethnicities and contains contributions that are equally well-researched, methodologically solid, and produce valuable results. Boris Orekhov and Kirill Reshetnikov map thirty-one languages on the internet, working out the rules for success in terms of raising awareness and visibility for minor languages. Ekaterina Khodzhaeva explores language policy in Tatarstan and the responses to this policy from Russian and Tatar speakers. She concludes that the situation in the republic is far from the desirable Russian-Tatar bilingualism. In the final chapter in Part 3, Tamara Zhuravel΄ investigates the process of language loss in the Usinsk Hollow in Krasnoiarsk. The schools, Zhuravel΄ argues, are the central agents of language policy for minor languages, however, neither the schools nor the minor language speakers demonstrate enthusiasm for language maintenance.

Part Four deals with post-Soviet states and, somewhat less fittingly, with Finland. Sergei Davydov and Ol΄ga Logunova analyze the chronology and content of the representation of post-Soviet states on the three main channels of Russian state-controlled television in 2011–12. The chapter shows that no community of the CIS is highlighted and the very name CIS is hardly used on TV. The depictions primarily relate to the Russian context and official visits are privileged. Overall, the authors argue that television reporting of the so called “near abroad” shows no interest in showing the various sides of life in these states. Kseniia Gusarova then explores Ukrainian Wikipedia. Finally, the Finish scholar Ekaterina Protassova discusses language policy in Finland, aiming at achieving not only Finnish and Scandinavian but also European identity. This goes hand in hand with the growing linguistic impact of their eastern neighbor, resulting in the growth of Russian language studied in Finnish schools and in an increasing visibility of Russian in the country's linguistic landscape.

The book is interesting and at times, exciting, but uneven in the quality of scholarship and the relative relevance of the contributions. Some chapters seem to be put together by thorough consideration, others by a loose connection and an imprecise metaphor of “language tuning.” Valuable guidance to the chapter's interpretations is provided by Gasan Guseinov in a useful and intelligent introduction. Despite some hitches, the book will be important reading for all those who are intently watching the tribulations of Russian language use, discursive trends, and language policies in the Putin era.