Abstract: The subject of this research is cosplay as a modern large-scale practice of copying and public demonstration of the costume, image and behavior of famous heroes of popular culture: movies, animated movies, comic strips, and video games within the framework of thematic festivals, processions, and clubs. This article provides scientific grounds for comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of cosplay as a modern cultural form and practice through determining its cultural and historical prototypes, as well as artistic and social development. The empirical material contains the interviews with the Russian cosplayers, observations, publications in field-specific mass media, and digital broadcasting of cosplay events. The novelty of this work consists in revealing the cultural-historical prototypes of cosplay – totemic primitive festivities, medieval carnival, first forms of theater, as well as in outlining the artistic and social trends of cosplay, among which are the development of the language of modern visual culture and improvement of popular culture through creative materialization of the characters of screen culture. The author describes the socio-psychological mechanisms, which underlie the practice of cosplay and are close to the genetic foundations of the existence of theater: imitation and identification. The article carries out the typology of cosplay genres; determines the universal features and the specifics of the national forms of cosplay.