Throughout history, dark humour has helped us cope in a crisis

In these strange times, people naturally turn to the past for orientation: Londoners recall the spirit of the Blitz, while citizens of St Petersburg look back to the Nazis’ Siege of Leningrad to remind themselves what they can overcome. But tales of suffering and heroism take us only so far. Humour is just as important. It punctures the sense of pervasive anxiety and shines a light into unfamiliar and dark places.

Here, too, the past can serve as a guide. History reminds us that laughing in the face of fear is a powerful impulse, regardless of the risk involved. Soviet citizens lived in a world where a single wrong word could mean denunciation and their lives being torn apart by Stalin’s ruthless secret police. A harmless joke could lead to the dreaded 5 a.m. knock, ransacked apartments, and a terrifying ride in a ‘Black Raven’ prison car to an NKVD cell.