The lecture will trace how Russian satire changed before the revolution and in the 20th century: from the role of magazines and readers' expectations to Soviet and émigré laughter. Satire lives where society can recognize its weaknesses, laugh at them, and argue with the established order. The lecture will discuss how this genre evolved in Russian culture, what forms it took in different periods, and why its development depended not only on authors but also on readers, magazines, the political situation, and the boundaries of what is acceptable. Special attention will be given to the pre-revolutionary tradition. Listeners will learn about the role that the magazine environment played in the formation of satire: it was the periodicals that helped to respond quickly to events, shape the audience, and develop a recognizable language of mockery. After 1917, the trajectories of the genre diverged sharply. In the Soviet Union, satire faced new ideological frameworks, while in emigration it received different material for observations - life outside the former country, memories of the pre-revolutionary world, political disappointments, and debates about the future of culture. The lecture will be delivered by Dmitry Nikolaev - Doctor of Philological Sciences, leading researcher at the Department of Modern Russian Literature and Literature of the Russian Emigration at IMLI RAS. Where to go in St. Petersburg, we tell on our website.