Ana Devic, University of Glasgow, UK

Postsocialism CULT 462/563

Politics of Popular Culture/ Film

Culture, Conflict, and National Identity, in Russian & Post-Soviet Film

Disciplines: Cultural and Conflict Studies; Political Science and IR; Sociology of Culture; Film Studies

Ana Devic, Ph.D. Sociology
University of Glasgow, UK Email:

This course tackles Eastern European leap from Communism to democracy and capitalism, and the effects of this globally significant change on Russian cinema as a means of social critique, state propaganda, and entertainment.

Drawing on theories of popular culture and politics of media hegemony, we will focus, first, on the history of film and film industry in the Soviet Union during socialism, and the potential of (independent, art) cinema to become a channel for social critique and opposition during the long era of state censorship and propaganda, and exclusive dependence of film-makers on state approval and funding for films. We will then examine the topics and currents of the contemporary film industry in Russia against the background of the globalizing capitalist media market, pressures to produce blockbusters, and the new Russian nationalism and patriotism. The case study of Russian and Soviet cinema is particularly relevant since it has, simultaneously and paradoxically, greatly contributed to the development of Western and world art and cinema, and developed in part separately from Western influences and the Hollywood until the end of the Cold War in 1989. While the course offers a unique opportunity to watch rarely shown Soviet and most recent Russian film masterpieces, it is structured as a field for comparisons – both thematic and cross-regional – in examining the issues in cultural politics and hegemony between the media industry and political control. In particular, it encourages comparisons with cinema developments and film-makers in Turkey and other countries outside of the (so far) most influential film-making regions.

Watching the earlier banned Soviet and new Russian art or blockbuster films reveals how filmmakers see the fall of socialism & Soviet superpower, U.S. global hegemony, and the resurgence of East West boundaries. Previously cut off from Western trends, Russian cinema now carries anxieties and contradictions of brutal shock capitalism, links between the state and mafia business, the wars in Chechnya, crass individualism and lust for riches, cultural, political and economic nostalgiasfor socialism (distinct, often mutually irreconcilable, yet ‘united’ through popular culture and patriotic forms), the Putin-era national pride, and the dilemma of being (or not) part of Europe.

One of the questions raised in the course would be whetherglobal Hollywood film machine can actually dictate film production and storyline everywhere. Between identifying all things Western with Hollywood models, striving for ‘Europe’, and shaping/ reflecting on national identity - where is a place for socially significant cinema? Can films convey local experiences and conflicts, such as wars, poverty, and protest against injustice, and still achieve recognition, if not commercial success? How are local and regional cinema productions reacting to their own state ideologies and national markets? Can we delineate some sharp differences between commercial, patriotic, and alternative films and their audiences?

Mainconcepts and themes to explore in this course: Socialismand capitalism; post-Communist cultural politics;Europe/ West versus ‘Other’; Orientalism; cultural hegemony; propaganda and ideology; ’glocalization’ and ‘Hollywoodization’ of film and popular culture; patriotism and nationalism;terrorism and war; the ‘new rich’ and new poverty; youth culture; gender and sexuality.

Further description

The first wave of Russian post-Soviet films in the mid-1980s - in the so-called perestroika and glasnost period– was about a relentless breaking of taboos in thinking about the communist era politics and ideology, as well as in popular culture, consumption, and sexual behavior. Most of the films released until the early 1990s benefited from the best of both worlds – the continuing financial patronage of the state, and unfettered freedom of artistic expression.

The genre cinema prevailing today in Russian cinematography, which will be in the limelight of this course, seems to reinforce real and invented traditions, and often reproduces stereotypes even while seeking to outrage and consternate. Russian blockbusters, especially those that are also successful in the West, appear to be conservative in their clustering of the society into right or wrong personages, where the good is under constant pressure to succumb to violence (gangster and war genre), or to (Western, global) pursuit of material gain and alienation from the emphatic and spiritual (Russian) self. Many, but not all, Russian films on the Chechen war, as well as those dealing with the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s stand as a case of new Russian Orientalism vis-a-vis its own Southern 'barbaric Others', but also as a self-Orientalizing pursuit, emphasizing the unique Russian humanism in contrast to Western materialism, egoism and lack of empathy. Russia is constructed as the (last?) beacon of Enlightenment, defended and cherished more passionately and uncompromisingly than in the West, with the ensuing nationalist and global conflicts portrayed (perhaps not so paradoxically) as more Manichean, violent, and self-extolling than any Soviet-era idealization of a 'new Communist human' in charge of educating their Southern and Eastern 'younger brethren.'

We will watch and discuss a wide range of films, both art cinema and blockbusters, made by the late Soviet and contemporary Russian film directors. The latter are produced under conditions typical for all countries in which globalization of cultural influences goes hand in hand with neo-liberalization of the economy with its effects on the dismantling of state budgets for film-making, Americanization of the film repertoire, shortage of private investment, and decline of experimental art cinema. Apart from the films, course materials include an interdisciplinary reading package that will help illuminate the relationship between the film-makers’ ideas and film industry conditions, on the one hand, and Russia’s relations with Western politics and the media, new capitalist relations, and ordinary people’s reactions and identities, on the other.

Objectives - By the end of the course, you will have acquiredan advanced knowledge of:

Relevant concepts of the sociology of culture, popular culture and film (production and consumption of film, music, fashion, elite and 'mass' taste, politics of media hegemony).
Russian and late Soviet (‘periphery’) film versus globalization ("Hollywoodization"?); incentives to make comparisons with film industry and film popularity in Turkey and other ‘periphery’ cinema
Thehistory and politics of post-Communist societies, esp. the processes described as the 'transition' from state socialism and authoritarianism to capitalism and democracy

3. Soviet and Russian culture and politics, including, but not limited to, ethnicity and nationality policies, everyday life, cinema and media industry, cultural consumption, humor, youth culture.

4. Ability to make presentations linking literature to individual films and stimulate class discussions.

Methods of Assessment:

The grade will be based on:

-Final take home essaydue , worth 60% of the grade (9-12 pages double spaced), which will not be accepted without the following:

-Regular attendance – 10 %

-In-class 15-20 min. presentation (they can be also group presentations)– 15 %

-Emailing me in the end of each week a ‘diary’ (1-page of very brief, concise summary of main points and issues raised during that week, assessing readings and films) – 15%

-Handing in (via email) your exam essayoutline (1-3 pages) on .

Reading packs

Films will be watched during classes, along with discussing texts, while we will also agree on having extra hours each weekjust to have enough time to see all films, many of which are unique copies.

Schedule of Readings and Films

(The list seems long since italso includes newspaper articles, the full list of films by directors,plus diverse ‘recommended literature’ for those who may have further interest in the subject in the future)

Week 1

a)Relevant Concepts in Studies of popular Culture:

Hegemony and Consensus;the "Third Dimension of Power"

Mariko Tomita and Carl Bybee, "Theories of the news"

This online article summarizes excellent definitions and examples of cultural hegemony (Antonio Gramsci, Steven Lukes) and media framing (Todd Gitlin).

b)What Was Socialism and How ‘Glasnost’, ‘Perestroika’ and ‘Transition to Capitalism’ Came About

Katherine Verdery. What Was Socialism and Why Did It Fall & A Transition from Socialism to Feudalism? Thoughts on the Postsocialist State. In: Verdery, K. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 19-38 and 204–228.

Aleksei Yurchak. Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. 2003. Society for Comparative Study of Society and History.

Aleksander Smolar,From Opposition to Atomization: Civil Society After Communism, Journal of Democracy 7.1 (1996) 24-38.

Michael Brashinsky and Andrew Horton, eds. 1994. Russian Critics on the Cinema of Glasnost, ‘On the Road that leads to Truth,’ pp. 51-59, ‘Forward, singing,’ pp. 105-107, ‘Taxi Blues,’ pp. 135-137.

Recommended:

Nancy Ries. Russian talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997, The Rituals and Paradoxes of Perestroika, pp. 161-187.

Andrei Plakhov, "Russian Cinema Reborn," The Moscow Times, April 1998.

Week 2

State and Nation (alism)

Georgi Derluguian, "Recasting Russia," NewLeft Review, 12, November-December 2001.

Iver Neumann, “Russia as Central Europe’s Constituting Other,” East European Politics and Societies 7: 1993, pp. 349-69.

Yuri Slezkine, The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism, Slavic Review 52, no. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 414-452.

Michael Urban, "Remythologizing the Russian State", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 6, 1998, pp. 969-92.

Recommended: Julie Christensen,Tengiz Abuladze's Repentance and the Georgian Nationalist Cause, Slavic Review, Vol. 50, 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 163-175

WeEk 3

Film Industry and the Search for national Identity

Birgit Beumers, ed. 1999/2000. Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris. Pp. 43-104: "To Moscow! To Moscow? The Russian Hero and the Loss of the Centre" 76-87, and the short speech addresses by Sergei Selianov, Daniil Dondurei, Nikita Mikhalkov, Tatiana Moskvina, David Gillespie, and Natasha Zhuravkina.

Birgit Beumers, "Cinemarket, or the Russian Film Industry in 'Mission Possible'", Europe-Asia Studies vol. 51, no. 5 (1999), pp. 871-896.

Dina Iordanova, "Showdown of the Festivals: Clashing Entrepreneurships and Post-Communist Management of Culture" in Film International, Vol. 4, Nr. 5, Issue 23. October 2006. pp. 25-38.

Susan Larsen. National Identity, Cultural Authority, and the Post-Soviet Blockbusters: Nikita Mikhalkov and Aleksei Balabanov. Slavic Review, Vol.62, No. 3 (2003), 491-511.

Yana Hashamova, “Two Visions of a Usable Past in (Op)position to the West: Mikhalkov's 'The Barber of Siberia' and Sokurov's 'Russian Ark',”The Russian Review, Volume 65, Number 2, April 2006 , pp. 250-257.

Susan Larsen, “In Search of an Audience: The New Russian Cinema of Reconciliation.” In Adele Barker, ed. Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, ed.. Duke University Press, 1999, pp. 192-216.

Special issue of Slavic and East European Journal on post-Soviet Film51. 3 (2007) – selected articles: Helena GOSCILO: Introduction, pp. 214-228; Irina MAKOVEEVA: The New Century: Has the Russian Pandora’s Time Come? Pp. 247-271; Alexander PROKHOROV: From Family Reintegration to Carnivalistic Degradation: Dismantling Soviet Communal Myths in Russian Cinema of the Mid-1990s, pp. 272-295; Vladimir STRUKOV: The Return of Gods: Andrei Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie (The Return), pp. 331-356; Serguei OUSHAKINE: Aesthetics without Laws: Cinematic Bandits in Post-Soviet Space, pp. 357-390.

Week 4

Memory and ForgettIng of the CommunIst Past: NostalgIa; Guilt, Innocence and Dissidence

Sergei Oushakine, The Terrifying Mimicry of Samizdat (On the Soviet Dissidents/ Intellectual opponents to the regime, Public Culture, vol. 13, No. 2 (2001), pp. 191-214.

Serguei Oushakine. 2000. “In the State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Symbolic Development in Contemporary Russia,”Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 6 (Sep., 2000), pp. 991-1016

Alexander Etkind. 2009. “Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror,”Constellations6 (1):182-200.

Alexei Yurchak. “Gagarin and the Rave Kids: Transforming Power, Identity and Aesthetics in Post-Soviet Night-Life” In: Adele Barker, ed. Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex and Society. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999, pp.76–109.

MayaNadkarni and Olga Shevchenko. The Politics of Nostalgia: A Case for Comparative Analysis of Post-socialist Practices, 1-2, Ab İmperio, Issue 2/2004.

Reccommended:

Oksana Bulgakowa, Constructing the Past in Contemporary Russian Film and Architecture, or Where the Russians Live in Russian Films

Svetlana Boym. ‘Post-Soviet cinematic nostalgia: from 'elite cinema' to soap opera’, Discourse, 17, 1995, 3, pp. 75-84

Tatiana Tolstaya. 2003. Pushkin's Children: Writing on Russia and Russians(Mariner Books 2003). The Price of Eggs; The Making of Mr. Putin.

Memorial – Human Rights and Humanitarian Society

The sole NGO in Russia dedicated to research on collective and individual memories of the Soviet past, individual biographies and material culture of the Stalinist purges and prison camps, and involved in monitoring and protesting current violations of human rights of immigrants and marginalized groups in Russia.

Week 5

Globalization of Consumption, Leisure, and Work: New Business Culture and Social Relations; New Inequalities: Becoming Rich and Poor

Vadim Volkov, “Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, (July 1999), Vol. 51 # 5, pp. 741-754.

Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omelchenko, Moya Flynn, Ul’iana Bliudina, Elena Starkova. Looking West: Cultural Globalization and Russian Youth Cultures. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, chapters: Cultural Globalization & On the Outside Looking In.

Olga Shevchenko. 2002 ’'Between the Holes': Emerging Identities and Hybrid Patterns of Consumption in Post-Socialist Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 54, No. 6 (Sep., 2002), pp. 841-866.

Birgit Beumers. 2005. Pop Culture Russia: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. Oxford: ABC-CLIO (chapters: Introduction, pp. 1-12, and 'The Media', pp. 13-70).

Reccommended:

Victor Pelevin. 2001. Babylon (Generation ‘P’). Faber and Faber (selected chapters).

Victor Pelevin. “The Tambourine for the Upper World.” Glas, 1994, vol.7, pp. 40–54.

Dale Pesmen. If You Want To Live, You’ve Got to Krutit’sia: Crooked and Straight. In: D.Pesmen. Russia and Soul: An Exploration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, pp. 189–207.

Caroline Humphrey.The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies After Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. 5-20; 40-63; 175–201:Mythmaking, Narratives, and the Dispossessed in Russia; Creating the Culture of Disillusionment: Consumption in Moscow, a Chronicle of Changing Times; The Villas of the ‘New Russians’: A Sketch of Consumption and Cultural Identity in Post-Soviet Landscape.

Week 6

Globalizing Nation (alism)/ the Wars in Chechnya

Orientalism, Class and Gender Turmoils

Explore this site and its links for definitions, stages and formsof Orientalism:

Deepika Bahri (Emory University, Postcolonial Studies)

Anna Politkovskaya, A small corner of hell: dispatches from Chechnya /translated by Alexander Burry and Tatiana Tulchinsky; with an introduction by Georgi Derluguian/. London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Yana Hashamova, “Post-Soviet Russian Film and the Trauma of Globalization,” Consumption, Markets and Culture, Volume 7, Number 1 /March 2004, pp.53-68.

Georgi M. Derulugian, Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography, University of Chicago Press, 2005 (Chapters: The Nationalization of Provincial Revolutions, pp. 166-218, and The Scramble for Soviet Spoils, pp. 219-286).

Austin Jersild. The Chechen Wars in Historical Perspective: New Works on Contemporary Russian-Chechen Relations. Slavic Review, 2004, Vol.63 (2), pp.367-377.

Yana Hashamova, Castrated Patriarchy, Violence, and Gender Hierarchies in Post-Soviet Film, in Helena Goscilo and Andrea Lanoux, eds. Gender and National Identity in Twentieth Century Russian Culture. DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2006.

Author ? "Construction of gender and family in Russian mobster" films

An opinionated blogger's review.“From Russia with....pretense?”

; Walking with shadows (an opinionated blogger's review)

Georgi M. Derulugian. “Che Guevaras in Turbans,” New Left Review, Sept. 1999, pp. 3-27.

Yana Hashamova. 2007. Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film. Bristol: Intellect, chapters: The Russian Hero: Fantasies of Wounded National Pride, pp. 39-61; West, East, and Russia: Ambivalence, Reflection, and Traversing the Fantasy, pp. 97-111; Conclusion – the West and Beyond, pp. 112-121.

Denise J. Youngblood. 2006. Russian War Films: On the Cinema Front, 1914-2005. University Press of Kansas. Chapter: After the Fall, 1992-2005, pp. 205-218.

Rimgaila Salys, “Three-Rib Circus: Women and Historical Discourse in “Rebro Adama,’”The Russian Review,Volume 60, Issue 4, October 2001, pp. 614-630.

Films - by Directors and Subjects(all with English subtitles)

*- most important, a must

1.Eldar Ryazanov, Irony of Fate or Enjoy your Bath (Ironiia sud'by ili s legkim parom), 1975*

Cult nostalgia film of the ‘ripe’ 1970s socialist consumer culture, comedy-drama about the uniformity and solitude (still shown on main TV channels across Russia every New Year’s eve!)

Films 2-9 are cornerstone films of the late 1980s ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ : turning points away from the fears of state censorship, and toward facing the terrors of Communism, and meanings of economic and political freedom: Stalinist purges (guilt and responsibility), mockery of Communism, youth rebellion, criminal underground, class conflict, poverty, corruption, anti-Semitism.

Kira Muratova (the always underestimated ‘Russian Mike Leigh’): conformism and violence of inter-personal relations during Communist regime; corruption of individuals in post-Soviet capitalism

2.Asthenic Syndrome (Astenicheskii Syndrom), 1989*

3.Chekovian Motives(Chekhovskie motivy), 2002

4.The Tuner (Nastroishchik), 2004*

5.Vasilii Pichul,Little Vera (Malenkaya Vera), 1988*