Dina Akhmetzhanovna Amanzholova,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Institute of the Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
“All the Questions are Linked with Our Ideal of a Soviet Man”: Cinema for the People of the USSR (1920–1930s)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-5-7
Visualization almost immediately became an important part of the repertoire of Soviet national politics, a powerful tool for explaining, promoting and consolidating in the mass consciousness a positive image of power aimed at bringing to life the most fascinating ideas, including the equality of peoples. New images, symbols and priorities were designed to change the criteria for identifying a person in a changing system of social, cultural, political, economic coordinates, who, among other things, is directly involved in the recreation of the surrounding space – personal, public and even global. In cinema, the social capital accumulated in the joint history of peoples was actualized in accordance with the programmatic attitudes of the authorities and the colossal demand of people for justice, equality regardless of nationality, including access to basic tools for ensuring social progress. The article examines the features of the development of cinema as a component of national policy in the early Soviet period. Specific examples of the organization of film screenings, the activities of Sovkino and the first experience of the development of film production in national republics in the 1920–1930s are analyzed. The main attention is paid to the methods, specifics and effectiveness of using cinema as a means of propaganda, education and formation of the Soviet system of values, the development of national cultures in their transition from tradition to modernity in its Bolshevik interpretation, the participation of national intelligentsia in creating a new artistic reality and introducing it into the mass consciousness.
Publishing: 28/10/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 28/06/2022
How to cite: Amanzholova D.A. “All the Questions are Linked with Our Ideal of a Soviet Man”: Cinema for the People of the USSR (1920–1930s) // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 5 (25), pp. 92–102. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-5-07.pdf]
The article was prepared within the framework of the project of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. AP08857194 (“Visual Anthropology and the History of Images of Kazakhstan Culture in 19th–21th Centuries: Evolution and Gaining of Agency”).
Links: Issue 5 2022
Keywords: soviet national politics; cinema, ethnicity; education; propaganda; culture