Article
SOVIET CINEMA AND NOSTALGIA FOR THE USSR IN THE RUSSIAN VILLAGE
The paper discusses the phenomenon of nostalgia for the USSR which is widely spread among Russian rural settlers from various regions. The focus of analysis is biased by taking in the consideration specialties of the media consumption common to villagers. The satellite TV which came to Russian village in 21th century enhances nostalgia for the USSR because of the emergency of Soviet films transmitting. The basis of the research is formed by five expeditions conducted in villages of Kostroma region (2012), Rostov-on-Don region (2013), Republic of Tatarstan (2014), Irkutsk region (2014) and Tambov region (2018). The results of semi-structured indepth interviews with 240 villagers correlate with analysis of the television content which interviewees watch. The authors show that permanent transmitting of Soviet films on popular among rural settlers TV-channels sustains nostalgia for the USSR and constructs the ideal image of the USSR. “Generalized elsewhere” of the USSR as it could be interpreted in media ecology tradition appears to be paradise. Paradise of the USSR is not lost but it is immortalized on TV screen which shows the world of fairy tale where nothing dies.
The article considers the phenomenon of nostalgia for the late Soviet times. The author presents the results of his observations over the nostalgia segment of the Russian blogosphere. The article is based on the concepts of the past, collective memory and nostalgia, which have been worked out by M. Halbwachs, D. Lowenthal and S. Boym.
This subchapter deals with the medial and communicative functions of Soviet cinema during the interwar period. More specifically, it explores how the concept of Soviet viewership articulated within the framework of public discourse influenced the form of cinematic communication between the audience and the Soviet regime during the 1920s and 1930s. Giving a brief overview of the discussions on Soviet viewership during the 1920s, this paper next addresses the transformations, both on the level of the film industry and on the level of the cinematic message, brought to the Soviet film industry with the coming of sound. Special emphasis is paid to the history of sound recording technology and how new tools of expression expanded the ideological and political power of audiovisual media. Finally, this paper determines how the legacies of the avant-garde were appropriated by the cinema of Socialist Realism.
Postcommunism as an object of study has produced a wide literature, focused mainly on theoretical matters, with a considerable stress on "democratization" theory and analyses of political economy. In this volume, Rainer Matos suggests that postcommunism can be seen through another lens: nostalgia for the old regime, for massive subsidies, public order, international prestige, financial certitude, the welfare state and even the security apparatus of communist regimes.
The author does not only look at European countries, as is common in the incipient literature on postcommunist nostalgia; he also touches upon other cases in different latitudes (the Middle East, Asia, Africa) to discover a kind of longing expressed in varying degrees in the contemporary world, and in a manner as modern as the new liberal values claim to be. While Russia is the main interest of the book, nostalgia for socialism is revealed as a unifying thread of several political, economic, social, and cultural processes that otherwise would not have much in common.
Through an anthropological focus, primary and secondary sources, as well as interviews, Rainer Matos contributes to the study of a phenomenon which is more common than we usually think, expressed for the first time in the Spanish language and that helps to question the legitimacy of liberal political mythology by giving voice to nostalgic actors who find themselves in a limbo between past and present.
The article is about soviet childhood and the museum of the soviet arcade machines
The present introduction to Oksana Bulgakowa's biography of Sergei Eisenstein the experience of biographical and critical writing on Eisensteon in Russia and abroad is being briefly described and characterized. Also the significance of the very figure of the artist is specified, and main issues in researching his voulumetric heritage are also considered.
Andrei Tarkovsky's last film The Sacrifice what shot during spring and summer 1985 one Gotland and in Stockholm. This book contains more than 250 photographs taken over the course of the shooting period, from the first day of filming to the last. You will not see in these photographs a posing director, or posing members of the film crew, no; rather you will se a visual record capturing our workday, rehearsals, pensive moments, minutes of repose and instances of extreme tension. Time and memories slip away, but photographs bring back to life the details, atmosphere and mood. This book fulfils a desire to share with everyone who values the oeuvre of Andrei Tarkovsky that "sculpted time" - those captures moments - when we filmed, in Sweden, the work that was to become his testament to the world, in order to impart, in whatever way possible, the irrepressible, incandescent energy that burst forth from the director in a continuous torrent, affecting and enchanting every one of us who came into his presence.
In her research, Anastasia Fedorova explores how in the first half of the twentieth century Japanese and Russian filmmakers, critics, and audiences interacted with each other through the medium of film. Drawing on primary sources collected in Japan, Russia, and the U.S., she presents the concept of Realism as a recurrent concern and the chief motivating force behind the interactions between Soviet and Japanese cinema.
The article dwells on the problem of an indefinite legal status of television parody in the Russian Federation. This has been viewed in terms of stipulations in paragraph 3, article 1274 in Civil Code of the Russian Federation, allowing free use of products made in the genre of parody. The author attempts to formulate the criteria for attribution of various materials to the genre of parody. These criteria have not been thoroughly studied in scientific literature yet, despite the growth of number and popularity of television programs referring to this genre on modern TV.
Memory narratives commonly include characters such as heroes (triumphant or fallen), martyrs, perpetrators, and victims. In recent years, the victim has become the central character in the dominant, western-centric, and globalized memory culture. A victim’s definition is problematic: few existing memory narratives include “ideal,” or innocent victims who suffered meaninglessly. The lines between victims and other characters in memory narratives are blurry in many cases, for instance, between a victim and a perpetrator. Using the case of Russian museums dedicated to the Soviet repressions, I study the problematic relation between victims and heroes, adding to the discussion of the victim character’s complexity. Often, victims of Soviet repressions are presented as both victims of political persecution and heroes who did not just suffer through their imprisonment but continued to live productive and creative lives. The resulting victim-hero character indicates that the category of a victim is too limiting and adds to calls for the theorization of victim taxonomy.
This collection of essays was published in a form of a catalogue for one of the propgrams screened at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Fstival in October 2019. The program entitled "The Creative Treatment of Grierson in Wartime Japan" was co-organized by the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the National Film Archive of Japan and presented a broad variety of wartime Japanese documentaries as well as British and Soviet films that have influenced them. The collection of essays explores the development of wartime Japanese documentary cinema from variety of historical and theoretical perspectives.