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Революция 1917 года в постсоветских телевизионных сериалах: деконструкция значения и трансформация нарратива
There are two factors influencing on representation of revolutionary events of 1917 in the popular TV-series in the post-Soviet Russia. First, it is the negative revaluation of revolution which took place in public discussions of the 1990th when both the dominating elite, and opposition expressed equally negative relation to this event. Subsequently this position was then developed in historical policy of Vladimir Putin who, though having proclaimed the doctrine of the “total continuity” (connecting pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and democratic values), has been never hiding suspicious attitude toward the October revolution. For mass culture this meant permission to include “dark sides” of the history of revolution in popular narratives, that was impossible during the Soviet period (for example, the facts of cooperation of Bolsheviks with criminals). Secondly, the “popular cultural memory” about revolution created by means of Soviet feature films had paradoxically the contradictory character as well as
initiated a number of reinterpretations of this event in post-Soviet cinema of the 1990-2010th. Soviet films represent revolution as, first of all, a civil war made for the sake of the future, for the sake of a new society and implementation of the revolutionary ideals. “Memory of revolution” in this case was consciously constructed with emphasis on its “validating” function which was necessary for legitimization of the current political situation in the Soviet state. Such films were made generally during the 1930th – 1950th. In the period of the “Thaw” some films proposed different approaches to revolution, and many of them were not permitted to screen until the 1980th. The different film versions of revolution became available for a wide audience beginning from the middle of the 1980th, when the year 1917 was represented as a changeable, illusive and ambiguous “place of memory”. In the article the character and content of TV-representations of revolution created during the post-Soviet period in the context of wider “policy of identity” are analyzed.