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This module examines how Russian and Soviet fiction cinema represented and responded to key historical, ideological and social events over 100 turbulent years. Spanning the pre-revolutionary 1910s to the Putin-era 2010s, it covers 16 fiction films chosen for the way they speak to the module’s broad themes of history, ideology and society. Many of the films are landmarks of world cinema, popular with viewers and film critics alike. Others are less well-known, but no less interesting. Some found favour with the authorities of the time; others were censored or banned outright.

The module considers cinema as a novelty, as entertainment, as an art form, as a tool for education and propaganda, as a repository of cultural memory, as a site for discussions about national identity, and as a means of resistance and protest. Topics covered include (but are not limited to): social developments in the late-Tsarist period; WW1, revolution, civil war and the Bolshevik-Ukrainian war; the Stalinist thirties; WW2; post-war Stalinism; the Khrushchev ‘thaw’; the Brezhnevite ‘stagnation’; glasnost and perestroika; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the social upheaval of the 1990s; and the Putin era.

The module also provides an overview of the aesthetic and technical evolution of cinema across this period, examining: silent film aesthetics; the theory and use of montage; the relationship between silent Soviet and American cinema; Soviet comedy; the impact of sound technology on film style; Socialist Realism; cinematographic experimentation and innovation; auteur cinema; the introduction of new genres (such as the gangster film); the work of women filmmakers; the Putin-era blockbuster; and contemporary social commentary cinema.

You do not have to have studied cinema previously to take this module. It will introduce you to key discipline-specific terminology and enable you to develop discipline-specific skills, such as sequence analysis. All the films are shown with English sub-titles, so knowledge of Russian language is not essential either.

Teaching Delivery

We meet once a week, for one hour, in Terms 1 and 2. There are three contextualising lectures, but all other teaching is in small-group tutorials and is discussion-based. You are required to watch one film and complete some short readings as preparation for each tutorial. You will have the opportunity to complete three different types of formative work, all designed to help you prepare for the summative assessment, and will receive regular feedback on your work, in various formats. The module includes a session that focuses on preparing you for the module’s summative assessment.Ìý

Learning Objectives

By the end of the module, you should be able to:

• demonstrate broad knowledge of how Russian and Soviet cinema represents key historical, social and ideological events and in-depth knowledge of the individual films studied on the module;
• analyse a film independently, using discipline-specific terminology;
• formulate your own small-scale research topic and identify a relevant, clearly focussed and appropriate research question within that topic (transferable skill);
• engage critically with academic work on the individual films studied on the module;
• articulate your ideas in class discussions and presentations (transferable skill);
• articulate your ideas in writing, demonstrating knowledge and understanding of your chosen topic, high-level skills in analysis and interpretation, and the ability to construct and evidence an argument.

Recommended Reading

• Beumers, Birgit. 2009. A History of Russian Cinema. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
• Beumers, Birgit (ed.). 2016. A Companion to Russian Cinema. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
• Condee, Nancy, Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorova (eds). 2020. Cinemasaurus: Russian Film in Contemporary Context. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press
• Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). 2013. The Russian Cinema Reader, Volume One: 1908 to the Stalin Era. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
• Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). 2013. The Russian Cinema Reader, Volume Two: The Thaw to the Present. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press
• Woll, Josephine. 2000. Real Images: Soviet Cinema and the Thaw. London: I.B. Tauris.
• Youngblood, Denise J. 2007. Russian War Films: On the Cinema Front, 1914–2005. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.