Young, or Less Soviet: On the Figure of Alienation in the Russian Cinema of the Period of Perestroika

Jakub SADOWSKI

Zespół Wykładowców Języka Rosyjskiego, Instytut Filologii Wschodniosłowiańskiej, Wydział Filologiczny, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, ul. Reymonta 4, 33-332 Cracow, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The Soviet cinematographic culture of perestroika reflected the social and political processes of the time, as well as the Russian culture of 1986-1990 period. The movies of the time showed journalistic qualities, in particular in the selection of themes they addressed. Among them were, on the one hand, various pathologies, for instance those affecting top Party officials, but also pathologies of the economy, of the social life, and, on the other hand, various manifestations of the revolt of the youth and the rise of subcultures. The burning issues were institutionalized violence (e.g. in the army), as well as the multifarious problem of settling accounts with communism by bringing up the question of the Stalinist terror and the subject of the individual and social identities in the totalitarian context. The cinematographic culture of the period of perestroika provided a platform for new aesthetic approaches. In particular it enabled the pursuit of a language capable of describing the phenomena so fat absent from the public discourse due to censorship. The new cinematographic culture also unmasked the close ties between the earlier aesthetics and the ideology. The new themes and the new aesthetics became intertwined in the figure of alienation. The paper discusses the cinematographic descriptions of the intergenerational aspect of the phenomenon of estrangement.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords:

Soviet cinema, totalitarianism, perestroika, censorship, ideology, estrangement, alienation, individual identity, social identity