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Советская деревня в русском поле киноисследований
The development of film studies in Russia, and in particular the historiographical research of Soviet cinema, is not yet marked by a high degree of intensity. In this situation, the publication of Ludmila Mazur and Oleg Gorbachev's book «Soviet Films about the Village: Experience of Historical Interpretation of the Artistic Image» can be regarded as a landmark event for this field of research. Developing the photo and film historical analysis program proposed by V.M. Magidov, the authors used it for the study of feature films, drawing on the traditions of western film theory. Our article turns to a critical reflection on the implementation of this project in the material of Soviet village cinema. We characterize different aspects of this implementation, ranging from the social history of village cinema to the study of how Soviet cinema depicted significant events in Soviet history. The main focus is on the discussion of sections related to the analysis of Soviet films about the village as a historical source. The text touches upon theoretical grounds for the study of "images of the past", the principles of periodization of the development of the cinematic representation of the village and the formation of the researched film corpus, and the question of correlation of quantitative and qualitative methods in the film analysis. Noting the results of the monograph's analysis of the representation of the everyday culture of Soviet village, the author poses questions about the possibilities of studying village films as one of the main genres of Soviet cinematography, about the relation between theory and history in the analysis of feature films and the necessity to study the issues of their production and reception, about the significance of the problems of social imagination for productive use of feature films as a historical source.