Search for National Identity in Russian/Soviet Cinema

The course will investigate the creation, development, and changes in the idea of national identity during the last 100 years in the cinema of Russia and the Soviet Union. Students will watch and analyze films produced during World Wars I and II, when nationalistic ideas were openly expressed, as well as films made after the October Revolution, during Stalin’s Cultural Revolution, the Thaw and Perestroika and in Putin’s Russia of today, when images of Mother-Soviet Russia and Mother-Russia were restructured in the search for national identity. Students will compare films on the same subject from different historical periods and will examine the rewriting of the past in Russia and in the Soviet Union. The focus of attention will be paid to recent films, from Pavel Lungin’s Taxi-Blues (1990) and Luna-Park (1992) to Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch 1 and 2 (2004, 2006).