scholarly journals Editor as a phenomenon of Soviet art culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Evgeniy D. Yeremenko ◽  
◽  
Zoya V Proshkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Russian Art ◽  
Film Editing ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Soviet Art ◽  
Editorial Work ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Pointed Form

The article is devoted to understanding the image of the Soviet editor in Russian art (using examples of fiction and cinema). The author examines the personal qualities that contributed to the entry of a person into the profession («editorial character») and provides a chronological observation of the «editorial evolution» – in publishing and film production-throughout the Soviet period and the first years of Russia in the 1990s. An important aspect that has been updated since the early 1920s is the active inclusion of women in editorial work. The characteristics of editors of different Soviet periods are analyzed using examples from the prose of M. Bulgakov, V. Shishkov, L. Rakhmanov, A. Tobolyak, V. Astafyev. Portraits of Soviet film editors are considered in the works of J. Gausner, N. Bogoslovsky, V. Makanin, D. Rubina and M. Kuraev. Representatives of the editorial profession are also represented in the films of A. Tarkovsky, V. Zheregy, K. Shakhnazarov and A. Benckendorf. There are two main types in the artistic depiction of editors and their activities: satirical (in a pointed form ridiculing personal and professional shortcomings) and dramatic (reflecting the complexity of editorial characters in their inseparability with the influence of society, historical era). In the final part of the article, the vectors of professional diffusions in the film-editing corps are outlined with the end of the Soviet era and the need to adapt to the new, post-Soviet realities.

Soviet Art House

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Soviet Art ◽  
Feature Films

This book examines cinema in the Brezhnev era from the perspective of one of the USSR’s largest studios, Lenfilm. Producing around thirty feature films per year, the studio had over three thousand employees working in every area of film production. The discussion covers the period from 1961 to the collapse of centralized state facilities in 1986. The book focuses particularly on the younger directors at Lenfilm, those who joined the studio in the recruiting drive that followed Khrushchev’s decision to expand film production. Drawing on documents from archives, the analysis portrays film production “in the round” and shows that the term “censorship” is less appropriate than the description preferred in the Soviet film industry itself, “control,” which referred to a no less exigent but far more complex and sophisticated process. The book opens with four framing chapters that examine the overall context in which films were produced: the various crises that beset film production between 1961 and 1969 (chapter 1) and 1970 and 1985 (chapter 2), the working life of the studio, and particularly the technical aspects of production (chapter 3), and the studio aesthetic (chapter 4). The second part of the book comprises close analyses of fifteen films that are typical of the studio’s production. The book concludes with a brief survey of Lenfilm’s history after the Fifth Congress of the Filmmakers’ Union in 1986, which swept away the old management structures and, in due course, the entire system of filmmaking in the USSR.

The Cinema Centaur

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-160
Author(s):  
Catriona Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Work Culture ◽  
Corporate Values ◽  
Direct Relevance ◽  
Film Editing ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Western Films ◽  
Film Studios ◽  
The World ◽  
Generous Support ◽  
The 1960S

The 1960s witnessed the transformation of “film factories” from metaphor to lived reality. Lenfilm’s output rose once more to the levels its predecessor studios had reached in the 1920s, but the conditions of production were now far more complex and demanding, with staffs more than ten times the size. And while the 1960s was an era of optimistic emphasis on the Soviet film industry’s capacity to equal and surpass the world in technological terms, during the 1970s, the conviction took hold that the technological superiority of Western films was of direct relevance to audience share. Increasingly, ambitious filmmakers petitioned Goskino for permission to shoot on Kodak and to use Arriflex cameras; criticism of inferior Soviet film stock and GDR-produced film editing tables mounted, both across the USSR and at Lenfilm itself. Yet investment in studio infrastructure and technology remained at best haphazard, particularly at Lenfilm, which enjoyed less generous support from the center than Mosfilm, but also more limited resourcing than film studios in the capitals of Soviet republics. At the same time, Lenfilm had an unusually diverse, energetic, inventive, and loyal workforce, with corporate values that inspired manual workers and porters as well as “creative” personnel. Hierarchical at some levels, the work culture was egalitarian at others, and the frenetic process of scrambling to finish films in trying circumstances created strong bonds. The chapter explores the various conflicts and contradictions, but also rewards, that this situation generated.

Esfir Shub

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Liubov Dyshlyuk
Keyword(s):  
Important Work ◽  
Film Editing ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
History Of ◽  
Major Figure ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
First Time

An unsurpassed master of compilation cinema, Esfir Shub is a major figure in the history of Soviet film. Shub's concept of film editing emerges clearly in the four articles that are presented here for the first time in English. They are selected from Zhizn' moya – kinematograf (Cinema Is My Life, 1972), a collection of her essays, public speeches, and letters as well as descriptions of unfinished projects. The texts document Shub's thoughts on montage and her important work as a pioneer of found footage cinema, offering insights into the making of such groundbreaking archival compilation films as The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927), The Great Road (1927), and Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicholas II (1928).

scholarly journals Prishvin and Trotsky: a Man “like a pharmacist” in the novel “The World Cup”, journalism and the Writer’s Diary

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-177
Author(s):  
A. M. Podoksenov ◽  
V. A. Telkova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Russian Art ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
First Time

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the subject of the article is the question of the influence of L. D. Trotsky [Bronstein], who was one of the key leaders of Bolshevism, who headed the October Revolution, on the worldview and creativity of M. M. Prishvin, which has not yet been considered in the European studies. It is shown that in Russian art it is difficult to find an artist of the word, whose work would be to the same extent conditioned by the influence of the ideological and political context. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time an attempt was made to show how, through individual characters in his works, Prishvin in an artistic and figurative form reflected the characteristic features of behavior, everyday habits, the style of thinking and speech of Trotsky. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of previously unpublished due to censorship restrictions of the writer’s works: the story “The World Cup”, journalism of the revolutionary years and the 18-volume Diary, which became available to the reader only in the post-Soviet period. It is shown that, depicting Trotsky as a “pharmacist” who, according to his recipes, is trying to create the future of a huge country, Prishvin seeks not only to artistically reflect his moral appearance and personality traits, but also to convey the features of the ideological and political struggle in Soviet society.

scholarly journals Mikhail Prishvin's «Diaries» as a publishing project

Bibliosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
N. Р. Dvortsova
Keyword(s):  
System Analysis ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Local History ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Editorial Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publishing Houses

The research centers upon the bibliographical study of the history (1991–2017) and prehistory (1957–1990) of M. M. Prishvin’s «Diaries» (1905–1954) publication recognized as the longest (18 volumes) diaries in Russian literature.  In modern science Prishvin’s «Diaries» are studied in a number of aspects: as a historical and cultural chron­icle of the country in 1905–1954; the writer’s self-consciousness and creative laboratory; a fiction text in the system of its motives, literary and philosophical contexts, as well as from the point of view of its publishing fate which is narrowly understood as a fragmentary history of its publication.  The paper novelty is due to, first, reconstruction of the history and prehistory of the «Diaries» publication, and second, the system analysis of the publication history in connection with the changing economic models of publishing business, types of publishing houses, their repertoire, strategies, and features of the editorial work during the publication of the collected works. Moreover, the author distinguishes three types of ego-texts in Prishvin’s works (sketch books, diary, and diary books) and, accordingly, different publication strategies.  The study reveals that within the prehistory of the «Diaries» publication there were two main approaches to their publishing: first, they were published in shortened versions (1986); second, in fragmentary versions based on the thematic or chronological principle, most often in a journal variant.  Prishvin’s «Diaries» are considered in the context of the writer’s whole collected works: the pre-Soviet («Znanie Publishing House», 1912–1914) and the Soviet («Gosizdat», 1927–1930, 1929–1931; «Goslitizdat», 1935–1939; «Khudozhestvennaya literature», 1982–1986) periods.  The history of Prishvin’s «Diaries» publication in the post-Soviet period is described as a collective book project carried out by the efforts of five state and non-state publishing houses: «Moskovskii Rabochii» (1991–1995), «Russkaya kniga» (1999–2004), «ROSSPEN» (2012); «Novyi Khronograf» (2013–2014); and «Rostok» (2006–2017). The author demonstrates the «Diaries» connection with the repertoire and strategies of these publishers.  After the reconstruction of the history and prehistory of Prishvin’s «Diaries» publication from the initial fragments to full print and electronic versions, the author convincingly proves that this long-term collective book project belongs to the local history of the Russian publishing industry in the XX–XXI centuries.  

Soviet Film: The Giant Laboratory of Technological Innervation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Mourenza
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Soviet Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
Russian Film

This chapter analyses the two articles on Soviet film that Walter Benjamin wrote after his stay in Moscow: ‘On the Present Situation of Russian Film’ (1927) and ‘Reply to Oscar A. H. Schmitz’ (1927). These early texts on film are discussed in connection with ‘The Author as Producer’ (1934) and ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility’ (1935–1939), for they anticipate the debate about film and the politicization of art discussed in the latter texts. This chapter also discusses Benjamin’s insights about the use and conception of technology in the Soviet Union, the different political groupings in the Soviet art scene, and his position in these debates.

The Masters

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Belodubrovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Select Group ◽  
Film Directors ◽  
Party State

Chapter Three discusses the implications of the director-centered mode of film production and suggests why entrusting self-governance and self-censorship to a select group of director-masters was counterproductive. The Soviet film industry did not have producers, and only directors had the creative and technical expertise to make films. This unique expertise, which was hard to replicate, as well as their status as “engineers of human souls,” put Soviet film directors in a formidable position vis-à-vis the party-state. Moreover, most of them were not propagandists, but artists, and their professional agenda was never entirely subsumed by Stalinism.

What Was Soviet and Ukrainian About Soviet Ukrainian Culture? Mykola Kulish’sMyna Mazailoon the Soviet Stage

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-365
Author(s):  
Mayhill C. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
Nationality Policy ◽  
Soviet Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Republic

AbstractIn the Soviet Union theatre was an arena for cultural transformation. This article focuses on theatre director Les Kurbas’ 1929 production of playwright Mykola Kulish’sMyna Mazailo, a dark comedy about Ukrainianization, to show the construction of “Soviet Ukrainian” culture. While the Ukrainian and the Soviet are often considered in opposition, this article takes the culture of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic seriously as a category. Well before Stalin’s infamous adage “national in form and socialist in content,” artists like Kulish and Kurbas were engaged in making art that was not “Ukrainian” in a generic Soviet mold, or “Soviet” art in a generic “Ukrainian” mold, but rather art of an entirely new category: Soviet Ukrainian. Far from a mere mouthpiece for state propaganda, early Soviet theatre offered a space for creating new values, social hierarchies, and worldviews. More broadly, this article argues that Soviet nationality policy was not only imposed from above, but also worked out on the stages of the republic by artists, officials, and audiences alike. Tracing productions ofMyna Mazailointo the post-Soviet period, moreover, reveals a lingering ambiguity over the content of culture in contemporary Ukraine. The state may no longer sponsor cultural construction, but theater remains a space of cultural contestation.

scholarly journals 1992-2012. Attempts at Privatization of Film Studios

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Olga Petrovna Ziborova
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
Film Studios ◽  
Russian Film ◽  
Post Soviet Period

The article deals with the changes taking place in the property sphere of Russian film industry under the influence of economical and political factors, namely the transformations that the major Soviet film studios had gone through in the post-Soviet period.

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