Russian War Films

A panoramic survey of nearly a century of Russian films on wars and wartime from World War I to more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya, with heavy emphasis on films pertaining to World War II.

Russian Cinema provides a lively and informative exploration of the film genres that developed during Russia's tumultuous history, with discussion of the work of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Mikhalkov, Paradzhanov, Sokurov and others. The background section assesses the contribution of visual art and music, especially the work of the composers Shostakovich and Prokofev, to Russian cinema. Subsequent chapters explore a variety of topics: The literary space - the cinematic rendering of the literary text, from 'Sovietized' versions to bolder and more innovative interpretations, as well as adaptations of foreign classics The Russian film comedy looks at this perennially popular genre over the decades, from the 'domestication' of laughter under Stalin to the emergence of satire The historical film - how history has been used in film to affirm prevailing ideological norms, from October to Taurus Women and Russian film discusses some of the female stars of the Soviet screen (Liubov Orlova, Vera Alentova, Liudmila Gurchenko), as well as films made by male and female directors, such as Askoldov and Kira Muratova Film and ideology shows why ideology was an essential component of Soviet films such as The Maxim Trilogy, and how it was later definitively rejected The Russian war film looks at Civil War and Second World War films, and the post-Soviet treatment of recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya Private life and public morality explores the evolution of melodramas about youth angst, town and village life, personal relationships, and the emergence of the dominant sub-genre of the 1990s, the gangster thriller Autobiography, memory and identity offers a close reading of the work of Andrei Tarkovskii, Russia's greatest post-war director, whose films, including Andrei Rublev and Mirror, place him among the foremost European auteur film-makers Russian Cinema offers a close analysis of over 300 films illustrated with representative stills throughout. As with other titles in the Inside Film series it includes comprehensive filmographies, a thorough bibliography and an annotated further reading list. The book is a jargon-free, accessible study that will be of interest to undergraduates of film studies, modern languages, Russian language and literature, as well as cineastes, film teachers and researchers.

An in-depth, illustrated history and technical study of this iconic weapon of the Middle Ages. The crossbow is an iconic weapon of the Middle Ages and, alongside the longbow, one of the most effective ranged weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Unfortunately, despite its general fame it has been decades since an in-depth history of the medieval crossbow has been published, which is why Stuart Ellis-Gorman’s detailed, accessible, and highly illustrated study is so valuable. The Medieval Crossbow approaches the history of the crossbow from two directions. The first is a technical study of the design and construction of the medieval crossbow, the many different kinds of crossbows used during the Middle Ages, and finally a consideration of the relationship between crossbows and art. The second half of the book explores the history of the crossbow, from its origins in ancient China to its decline in sixteenth-century Europe. Along the way it explores the challenges in deciphering the crossbow’s early medieval history as well as its prominence in warfare and sport shooting in the High and Later Middle Ages. This fascinating book brings together the work of a wide range of accomplished crossbow scholars and incorporates the author’s own original research to create an account of the medieval crossbow that will appeal to anyone looking to gain an insight into one of the most important weapons of the Middle Ages.

Contributions by Thomas J. Cobb, Donna A. Gessell, Helena Goscilo, Cyndy Hendershot, Christian Jimenez, David LaRocca, Lori Maguire, Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad, Ian Scott, Vesta Silva, Lucian Tion, Dan Ward, and Jon Wiebel In recent years, Hollywood cinema has forwarded a growing number of images of the Cold War and entertained a return to memories of conflicts between the USSR and the US, Russians and Americans, and communism and capitalism. Cold War II: Hollywood’s Renewed Obsession with Russia explores the reasons for this sudden reestablished interest in the Cold War. Essayists examine such films as Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s Hail, Caesar!, David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, and Francis Lawrence’s Red Sparrow, among others, as well as such television shows as Comrade Detective and The Americans. Contributors to this collection interrogate the revival of the Cold War movie genre from multiple angles and examine the issues of patriotism, national identity, otherness, gender, and corruption. They consider cinematic aesthetics and the ethics of these representations. They reveal how Cold War imagery shapes audiences’ understanding of the period in general and of the relationship between the US and Russia in particular. The authors complicate traditional definitions of the Cold War film and invite readers to discover a new phase in the Cold War movie genre: Cold War II.

The Cold War was as much a battle of ideas as a series of military and diplomatic confrontations, and movies were a prime battleground for this cultural combat. As Tony Shaw and Denise Youngblood show, Hollywood sought to export American ideals in movies like Rambo, and the Soviet film industry fought back by showcasing Communist ideals in a positive light, primarily for their own citizens. The two camps traded cinematic blows for more than four decades. The first book-length comparative survey of cinema's vital role in disseminating Cold War ideologies, Shaw and Youngblood's study focuses on ten films—five American and five Soviet—that in both obvious and subtle ways provided a crucial outlet for the global "debate" between democratic and communist ideologies. For each nation, the authors outline industry leaders, structure, audiences, politics, and international reach and explore the varied relationships linking each film industry to its respective government. They then present five comparative case studies, each pairing an American with a Soviet film: Man on a Tightrope with The Meeting on the Elbe; Roman Holiday with Spring on Zarechnaya Street; Fail-Safe with Nine Days in One Year; Bananas with Officers; Rambo: First Blood Part II with Incident at Map Grid 36-80. Shaw breathes new life into familiar American films by Elia Kazan and Woody Allen, while Youngblood helps readers comprehend Soviet films most have never seen. Collectively, their commentaries track the Cold War in its entirety—from its formative phase through periods of thaw and self-doubt to the resurgence of mutual animosity during the Reagan years-and enable readers to identify competing core propaganda themes such as decadence versus morality, technology versus humanity, and freedom versus authority. As the authors show, such themes blurred notions regarding "propaganda" and "entertainment," terms that were often interchangeable and mutually reinforcing during the Cold War. Featuring engaging commentary and evocative images from the films discussed, Cinematic Cold War offers a shrewd analysis of how the silver screen functioned on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As such it should have great appeal for anyone interested in the Cold War or the cinematic arts.

The key question asked in this book is, how did Stalinist war cinema present Soviet women's resistance against the Nazi forces during World War II? This book challenges those scholarly works which support the idea of the compatibility of femininity and combat under Stalinism. Despite the Soviet regime’s claim of being opposed to any religious heritage, this book reveals how Stalinist cinema drew on Russian religious tradition and culture in the creation of cinematic representations of Soviet women during WWII. Further, the book shows how the adoption of Russian cultural and religious heritage in Soviet war cinema served Stalinist collective identity-construction policies and state-citizen relations. In so doing, this study contributes to a range of fields within Russian and Soviet studies, including gender studies, cinema studies, Soviet modernity, and the study of identity-construction and state-nation relations. Whilst this book is aimed at researchers and academics, it provides a supplementary source for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Soviet/Russian studies.

Millions of Soviet soldiers died in the USSR's struggle for survival against Nazi Germany but millions more returned to Stalin's state after victory. Mark Edele traces the veterans' story from the early post-war years through to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. He describes in detail the problems they encountered during demobilization, the dysfunctional bureaucracy they had to deal with once back, and the way their reintegration into civilian life worked in practice in one of the most devastated countries of Europe. He pays particular attention to groups with specific problems such as the disabled, former prisoners of war, women soldiers, and youth. The study analyses the old soldiers' long struggle for recognition and the eventual emergence of an organized movement in the years after Stalin's death. The Soviet state at first refused to recognize veterans as a group worthy of special privileges or as an organization. They were not a group conceived of in Marxist-Leninist theory, there was suspicion about their political loyalty, and the leadership worried about the costs of affording a special status to such a large population group. These preconceptions were overcome only after a long, hard struggle by a popular movement that slowly emerged within the strict confines of the authoritarian Soviet regime.

The Film Factory provides a comprehensive documentary history of Russian and Soviet cinema. It provokes a major reassessment of conventional Western understanding of Soviet cinema. Based on extensive research and in original translation, the documents selected illustrate both the aesthetic and political development of Russian and Soviet cinema, from its beginnings as a fairground novelty in 1896 to its emergence as a mass medium of entertainment and propaganda on the eve of World War II.