ARMAGEDDON REVISITED: SOVIET FILM AND MEMORY OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
Description
The Soviet Union suffered immensely as a result of World War II. When the dust settled and Soviet citizens began to rebuild their lives, the memory of the social, economic, and human costs of the war still remained. The Soviet state sought to frame the conflict in a way that provided meaning to the chaos that so drastically shaped the lives of its citizens. Film was one such way. Film, heavily censored until the Gorbachev period, provided the state with an easily malleable and distributable means of sharing official history and official memory. However, as time went on, film began to blur the lines between official memory and real history, providing opportunities for directors to create stories that challenged the regime's official war mythology. This project examines seven Soviet war films (The Fall of Berlin (1949), The Cranes are Flying (1957), Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Liberation (1970-1971), The Ascent (1977), and Come and See (1985)) in the context of the regimes under which they were released. I examine the themes present within these films, comparing and contrasting them across multiple generations of Soviet post-war memory.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
2014-05
Agent
- Author (aut): Scribner, Quinton Donald
- Thesis director: Benkert, Volker
- Committee member: Von Hagen, Mark
- Committee member: Manchester, Laurie
- Contributor (ctb): Barrett, The Honors College
- Contributor (ctb): School of International Letters and Cultures
- Contributor (ctb): School of Politics and Global Studies
- Contributor (ctb): School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies