The article analyzes the content and main results of monograph “Russian Masscult: from Baroque to Postmodern” by I.V. Kondakov. The author investigates the sources of mass culture, tracing its development from ancient times to the present. Innovative is the approach to defining the origins of mass culture, which, according to the author, dates back to ancient times. The monograph gives a deep analysis of the development of entertainment forms in Russian culture, related to mass forms of manifestation, considers the relationship between classical and mass culture, traces the process of popularization of science. Modern mass culture depends on many factors, including the formation of national culture, the transformation of cultural landscape. The crisis of the classical paradigm led to the appearance of postmodern genres and styles, which made us assess the functional content of mass culture in a different way.
