Citation

Dobrynin S. History Compass 2009; 7(3): 862-878.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00590.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The image of the West in Soviet cinema is a subject suffused with ambivalence. On the one hand, most of the Soviet films with an international setting and/or foreign characters clearly had an ideological agenda. By claiming a high moral ground for the Soviet or a ‘progressive’ Western protagonist, they served as a weapon in the ongoing cultural Cold War. On the other, the subject matter presented an opportunity to attract the audiences (a major concern for the late-Soviet film industry) with lurid depictions of Western ‘decadence’ and ‘decay’, as well as a chance to exploit the attractiveness of Western popular genres. This seemingly uneasy combination was typical of the Soviet film industry for most of its history but became especially pronounced in its later stages, during the Détente and after, as the fast-changing political demands had to be reconciled with the growing commercialization of Soviet cinema. The resulting body of work has rarely had artistic value but remains a useful and largely untapped source for cultural historians looking for reflections of social change in the former USSR.