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Copyright © 2023 by Cherkas Global University
Published in the USA
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie)
Issued since 2014.
ISSN 1994-4160
E-ISSN 1994-4195
2023. 19(2): 281-289
DOI: 10.13187/me.2023.2.281 https://me.cherkasgu.press
Western Cinematography on the Pages of the Soviet Cinema Screen Magazine: 1939-1941
Elena Kornienko a, Andrei Novikov b > *
a Taganrog Institute of Management and Economics, Russian Federation b The Kosygin State University of Russia, Russian Federation
Abstract
By 1939, the struggle for power in the "top" of the USSR was almost finished, with the "opposition" was over. The flywheel of repression began to noticeably decrease. Under these conditions, in 1939-1941, the Soviet government supported in high level of ideological control over cinema.
And although by the end of the 1930s there were no cultural and artistic "groups" in the USSR, and for many years a single "method of socialist realism" was prescribed for all cultural figures, the authorities still tried to tighten the screws on ideological pressure even more, reducing, for example, to minimize the import of foreign film production. That's why July 19, 1939 Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Regulations on the Directorate for Controlling the Film Repertoire" and the "Instructions on the Procedure for Controlling the Release, Distribution and Demonstration of Films", where everything was subject to the strictest regulations.
It is clear that in such a situation, the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine, as an organ of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, had to obey strict party requirements. The share of materials about foreign cinema in the magazine has become almost negligible. Moreover, the vast majority of the issues of the magazine Soviet Cinema Screen of 1939-1941 were, in general, devoid of articles about Western films...
Therefore, based on the content analysis of texts published in the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine from 1939 to 1941, we came to the conclusion that practically the only genre of materials about Western cinema of this period was journalistic articles about (mainly) Hollywood cinema, ingenerally very negatively evaluating it and its ideological orientation.
Keywords: magazine Soviet Cinema Screen, Western cinematography, film criticism, ideology, politics, reviews, articles.
1. Introduction
In this article, we analyze the short stage in the history of the magazine Soviet Screen (it was published then under the name Soviet Cinema Screen) - from 1939 to 1941.
From 1931 to 1938, a rather long break occurred in the history of the Soviet Screen (which had been published since 1925), but by the beginning of 1939 it was decided to resume the publication of this magazine, designed for a mass audience, now under the name Soviet Cinema Screen (justice for the sake of it, we note that at that time the magazine did not become truly mass-
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: andrew_nov1@mail.ru (A. Novikov)
281
produced, since its circulation was only from 7 to 15 thousand copies, while the circulation of the Soviet Screen in the 1920s was mainly at the level of 70-80 thousand copies).
In 1939, the scale of mass repressions in the USSR (which reached its peak - even in the highest echelons of power - in 1937-1938), significantly decreased, although it was at this time that such prominent cultural figures as I. Babel (1894-1940) and V. Meyerhold (1874-1940) were arrested and later shot. Moreover, on April 10, 1939, one of the most active figures in the repressive apparatus was sent to jail (and destroyed in February 1940): former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov (1895-1940).
Well aware of the ideological significance of cinema, the Soviet government did everything to expand the network of cinemas and film installations in general. Hence it is clear why on March 10, 1939, J. Stalin, in a report at the XVIII Congress of the Communist Party, informed the audience about the successes in this direction: if in 1933/1934 there were only 24 technical devices for showing movies in the villages of the USSR, then in 1938/1939 - 6670 (that is, 278 times more). And on March 20, the XVIII Congress of the Communist Party adopted a resolution indicating the need to develop a network of cinemas and a six fold increase in stationary and other sound installations.
On June 3, 1939, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a resolution appointing Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR I. Bolshakov (1902-1980), who eventually led Soviet cinematography until March 1953 (and further, already in the rank of First Deputy Minister of Culture of the USSR, until 1954).
And although by the end of the 1930s there were no culture and artistic "groups" in the USSR, and for many years a single "method of socialist realism" was prescribed for all cultural figures, the authorities still tried to tighten the screws on ideological pressure even more, reducing, for example, to minimize the import of foreign film production. That's why July 19, 1939 Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Regulations on the Directorate for Controlling the Film Repertoire" and the "Instructions on the Procedure for Controlling the Release, Distribution and Demonstration of Films", where everything was subject to the strictest regulations.
The general situation in the Soviet film distribution from the end of August 1939 to June 1941 was seriously affected by the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany, signed on August 23-24, 1939. As a result, the constant anti-fascist policy of the USSR, which manifested itself especially clearly during the war in Spain (July 17, 1936 - April 1, 1939), was brought to naught; negative references to fascism virtually disappeared from all Soviet media, including cinema. Anti-fascist and "defense" films (The Oppenheim Family, Professor Mamlock, If Tomorrow War, etc.) were removed from the screens along with Soviet historical films containing negative images of characters of German origin (Alexander Nevsky by S. Eisenstein and etc.). This situation in film distribution persisted throughout the initial period of the Second World War (from September 1, 1939 to June 22, 1941).
However, already on June 22, 1941 in connection with the start of the Great Patriotic War, the chairman of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR I. Bolshakov was instructed to urgently change the repertoire of Soviet cinema halls: not only once again widely release (from June 23, 1941) on the screens military-patriotic films (Chapaev, Minin and Pozharsky, Shchors, Suvorov), but also to supplement this list with anti-fascist films The Oppenheim Family, Professor Mamlok, etc. put on the shelf at the end of August 1939. At the end of June 1941, the film "Alexander Nevsky" was again released on the screens of the USSR ...
A high level of ideological control over film production was maintained throughout the prewar years. So on October 8, 1940, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a speech was made by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party A. Zhdanov with a report "On improving the production of feature films", where it was stated that "the absence of a real ideological control in cinematography itself, control over the ideological direction of the pictures" (RGASPI, 77, 3; 23: 1-5).
It is clear that in such a situation, the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine, as an organ of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, had to obey strict party requirements. The share of materials about foreign cinema in the journal has become minimal. Moreover, the vast majority of the issues of the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine of 1939-1941 were generally devoid of articles about foreign films... However, there was little
information about Western cinema at that time in the Cinema Art journal (Fedorov, 2022; Fedorov, Levitskaya, 2022; Levitskaya, 2022).
2. Materials and methods
The research methodology consists of key philosophical provisions on the connection, interdependence and integrity of the phenomena of reality, the unity of the historical and the social in cognition; scientific, film studies, sociocultural, culturological, hermeneutical, semiotic approaches proposed in the works of leading scientists (Aristarco, 1951; Aronson, 2003; Bakhtin,1996; Balazs, 1935; Bazin, 1971; Casetti, 1999; Demin, 1966; Eco, 1976; Gledhill, Williams, 2000; Hess, 1997; Hill, Gibson, 1998; Khrenov, 2006; 2011; Kuleshov, 1987; Lotman, 1973; Mast and Cohen 1985; Metz, 1974; Razlogov, 1984; Sokolov, 2010; Stam, 2000; Villarejo, 2007 and others).
The project is based on a research content approach (identifying the content of the process under study, taking into account the totality of its elements, the interaction between them, their nature, turning to facts, analyzing and synthesizing theoretical conclusions, etc.), on a historical approach-consideration of the concrete historical development of the declared theme of the project.
Research methods: complex content analysis, comparative interdisciplinary analysis, methods of theoretical research: classification, comparison, analogy, induction and deduction, abstraction and concretization, theoretical analysis and synthesis, generalization; methods of empirical research: collection of information related to the subject of the project, comparative-historical and hermeneutic methods.
This article continues previous series on the analysis of the film press (Fedorov, 2002a; Fedorov, 2002b; Fedorov, Levitskaya, 2022a; Fedorov, Levitskaya, 2022b; Fedorov, Levitskaya, 2022c; Levitskaya, 2022; Levitskaya, Fedorov, 2023).
3. Discussion and results
In this article, we will focus on the analysis of materials about foreign cinema published in Soviet Screen magazine (it was then published under the name Soviet Cinema Screen): from 1939 to 1941, when its managing editor was a journalist, writer and screenwriter Ivan Gorelov (19101970).
In Table 1 presents statistical data on the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine from 1939 to 1941 (organization of which the magazine was, circulation, periodicity, the name of the editor).
Table 1. Soviet Cinema Screen magazine (1939-1941): statistical data
Year of issue Magazine title Publisher Magazine circulation (in thousands of copies) Magazine periodicity (issues per year) Editors the magazine
1939 Soviet Cinema Screen Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR 6-7 12 Jakov Bineman
1940 Soviet Cinema Screen Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR 7 24 Editorial Board
1941 Soviet Cinema Screen Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR 15 7 Ivan Gorelov (1910-1970)
In 1925-1930 (and especially in 1925-1927) Soviet Screen wrote about Western cinema often and generously. These were not only journalistic articles sharply criticizing the policy in the field of distribution of foreign films and the harmful influence of Western cinema on Soviet viewers, but often quite neutral biographies and creative portraits of Western actors and directors; reviews of foreign films; reviews of Western national cinematographies; articles about foreign newsreel, film technology, studios and cinemas; short informational materials about events in foreign cinema.
The situation in the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine of 1939-1941 was exactly the opposite: reviews of foreign films and specific films, creative portraits of Western actors and directors practically disappeared from the pages of this edition. The number of authors writing about foreign cinema has dropped sharply.
And those few materials of the Soviet Cinema Screen, which nevertheless told readers about Western cinema, were devoted to criticism of "bourgeois ideology" and "mores alien to Soviet people".
So the film critic G. Avenarius (1903-1958) could, of course, slightly praise the performance of this or that Hollywood actor, but in general he always accused Western films of any genre of "primitive plots", "vulgarity", a superficial depiction of historical events, in the unceremonious intrusion of Hollywood scriptwriters and directors into the private lives of historical figures (Avenarius, 1940: 15; 18).
Of course, as G. Avenarius noted, sometimes the authors of [Hollywood] film comedies touch on very serious topics in their plots (presidential elections and even unemployment), but, as a rule, one or two satirical episodes of the film are drowned in the standardized vulgarity of the plot, invariably ending the triumph of petty-bourgeois virtue and the wedding (Avenarius, 1940: 18).
In his article devoted to the "harmless" for the USSR movies of director Walt Disney, Georgy Avenarius at first could afford to mention the inexhaustible inventiveness and wit of this director, the excellent quality of the drawings that worked in his studio "first-class animators" (Avenarius, 1941: 12-13).
But then everything again returned to the usual ideological tracks, since Georgy Avenarius saw the main reason for the success of Disney cartoons in the thoughtlessness, lightness, amusingness of diverse adventures ... Disney animations wonderfully perform their entertaining and distracting functions. Cleverly thought up amusing short film... distracts the foreign viewer from everyday unattractive reality (Avenarius, 1941: 12-13).
The topics chosen by the Soviet Cinema Screen in 1939-1941 to tell readers about bourgeois cinema are given in an article by the journalist V. Fefer (1901-1971), about how "friendly" Germany created a number of films about individual psychiatric and nervous diseases, depicting patients in everyday situations with all the smallest details of their behavior. ... The invention of sound cinema made it possible to transmit on the screen the speech of the mentally ill. Reproduction of utterances, delirium, voice, breathing, indistinct whisper, magnified many times - everything became accessible and visual (Fefer, 1940: 14-15).
In 1941, one of the few materials of the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine that at least somehow related to foreign events was the article "The Mannerheim Line on foreign screens" (Fradkin, 1941: 13): More than a year has passed since the heroic parts The Red Army, in the struggle for the security of the northwestern borders of the Soviet Union, defeated one of the most powerful modern fortifications equipped with the latest military technology - the Mannerheim Line. During all the days of the battles with the White Finns, the bourgeois press shamelessly slandered the Red Army. But facts are stubborn things. The fact of the defeat of the Mannerheim Line was the best way to refute the false fabrications of the enemies of the USSR. The appearance on foreign screens of the Soviet documentary film The Mannerheim Line turned out to be a mouthpiece of convincing truth. Film in person documented the heroism of the Soviet people and the combat technical power of the Red Army. Through censorship slingshots, through other "fortifications" of the capitalist states, the film broke through on the screens and made an unforgettable impression on the audience. The film was a huge success on US screens in New York and Chicago. Even the bourgeois press could not hide the great impression that this film made on the audience. The New York Post newspaper in its issue of December 19, 1940 wrote: "...The Mannerheim Line film, a Soviet military documentary about the war in Finland, which is now being shown at the Miami cinema, is an exceptional film both from a military point of view both from the point of view of photographic technique (Fradkin, 1941: 13).
This was the last article in the Soviet Cinema Screen on foreign material. The issue was signed for printing on June 9, 1941. And since July 1941, the publication of the magazine was stopped due to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War...
4. Conclusion
By 1939, the struggle for power in the "top" of the USSR was almost finished, with the "opposition" was over. The flywheel of repression began to noticeably decrease. Under these conditions, in 1939-1941, the Soviet government supported in high level of ideological control over cinema.
And although by the end of the 1930s there were no cultural and artistic "groups" in the USSR, and for many years a single "method of socialist realism" was prescribed for all cultural figures, the authorities still tried to tighten the screws on ideological pressure even more, reducing, for example, to minimize the import of foreign film production. That's why July 19, 1939 Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Regulations on the Directorate for Controlling the Film Repertoire" and the "Instructions on the Procedure for Controlling the Release, Distribution and Demonstration of Films", where everything was subject to the strictest regulations.
It is clear that in such a situation, the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine, as an organ of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, had to obey strict party requirements. The share of materials about foreign cinema in the magazine has become almost negligible. Moreover, the vast majority of the issues of the magazine Soviet Cinema Screen of 1939-1941 were, in general, devoid of articles about Western films...
Therefore, based on the content analysis of texts published in the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine from 1939 to 1941, we came to the conclusion that practically the only genre of materials about Western cinema of this period was journalistic articles about (mainly) Hollywood cinema, ingenerally very negatively evaluating it and its ideological orientation.
5. Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Russian Science Foundation grant (RSF, project No. 23-2800015, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-00015/) at the Taganrog Institute of Management and Economics. Project theme: "Western cinema on the pages of the Soviet Screen Magazine (19251991)". Head of the project is Professor A. Levitskaya.
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Appendix
The main dates and events related to the historical, political, economic, ideological, socio-cultural and cinematic context in which the publication of the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine was carried out in 1939-1941.
1939
January: After a long hiatus (1931-1938), the cinema magazine for a mass audience again began to appear. Now - under the name oviet Cinema Screen with a frequency of twice a month.
February 10: the first test television broadcast took place in Kiev.
February 26-27: A conference dedicated to the theoretical issues of Soviet film drama was held at the Moscow Cinema House.
March 10-21: XVIII Congress of the Communist Party.
March 10: J. Stalin, in his report at the 18th Congress of the Communist Party, gave statistical information on the growth of film installations: if in 1933/1934 there were only 24 technical devices for showing movies in the villages of the USSR, then in 1938/1939 - 6670 (that is, 278 times more).
March 20: the 18th Congress of the Communist Party adopted a resolution indicating the need to develop a network of cinemas and a six fold increase in stationary and other sound installations.
April 1: end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which ended with the complete defeat of the Republicans.
April 10: arrest of the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov (1895-1940).
May 15: Writer, screenwriter I. Babel (1894-1940) arrested on charges of Trotskyism and espionage.
May 24: The so-called television theater opens in Moscow.
June 3: The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a resolution appointing Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR I. Bolshakov (1902-1980), who previously worked as the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
June 20: director and actor V. Meyerhold (1874-1940) arrested on charges of Trotskyism and anti-Soviet activities.
June 24-26: visit to Moscow by Mary Pickford.
July 19: Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Regulations on the Directorate for Controlling Film Repertoire" and "Instructions on the Procedure for Controlling the Release, Distribution and Demonstration of Films".
August 19: joint meeting Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Komsomol, dedicated to the problems of children's cinema.
August 23-24: People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. Molotov and German Foreign Minister J. von Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany in Moscow. Because of this, the negative reference to fascism disappeared from all media, including cinema. All Soviet anti-fascist films were removed from the screen (The Oppenheim Family, Professor Mamlock, etc.), and historical films with a negative image of the Germans (Alexander Nevsky by S. Eisenstein, etc.).
31 August: Nazi staged attack on a German radio station in Gleiwitz, which became the pretext for the German attack on Poland.
September 1: Nazi German troops invade Poland: World War II begins.
September 17: by agreement with Germany, the Red Army occupied the eastern territories of Poland, inhabited mainly by the Ukrainian population.
September 18: joint Soviet-German communiqué, which states that the task of the Soviet and German troops "is to restore order and tranquility in Poland, disturbed by the collapse of the Polish state".
September 20: Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR formed a brigade of film workers sent to the regions of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which had gone to the USSR under an agreement with Germany.
September 21: a Soviet-German protocol is signed on the procedure for the withdrawal of troops to the final demarcation line in Poland.
September 28: Treaty of Friendship and Border signed between the USSR and Germany.
October 7: by order Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR all film studios are prohibited from showing to unauthorized persons and holding public screenings of films accepted by the Committee but not yet released to the screen. In addition, it is forbidden to give press reports about films completed but not accepted by the Committee.
November 21-25: II All-Union Congress of Trade Unions of Film and Photo Workers.
November 26: the USSR announced a provocation by the Finnish border guards.
November 29: rupture of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Finland.
November 30: beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War.
December 16: the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the liquidation of the All-Union Film Distribution Office (Soyuzkinoprokat)". Its functions are entrusted to the Main Directorate of Mass Printing and Film Distribution of Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Glavkinoprokat). Glavkinoprokat received full self-supporting rights and the monopoly right to distribute films throughout the USSR.
December 21: J. Stalin's 60th birthday is solemnly celebrated in the USSR.
1940
January 1-2: meeting of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the reorganization of Glavkinoprokat.
January 27: the execution of the writer and screenwriter I. Babel (1887-1940), the author of the scripts for the films Benya Krik, Wandering Stars, Odessa, etc.
February 2: the execution of the theater and film director, actor, screenwriter V. Meyerhold (1874-1940), the director of the films The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strong Man (where he also acted as an actor), the performer of one of the roles in the film The White Eagle.
February 4 or 6: execution of the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov (1895-1940).
February 8: creative meeting on historical and historical-revolutionary film.
February 16: Soyuzdetfilm hosted an experimental demonstration of a new Soviet invention: "glassless stereo cinema".
March 12: conclusion of a peace treaty between the USSR and Finland.
March 19-23: plenum of the Central Committee of the Union of Film and Photo Workers of the USSR.
April 21-23: meeting of the active workers of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
June 14: Paris is occupied by German troops.
June 22: the French government signs an armistice with Germany.
August 3: the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted Lithuania into the USSR.
August 5: the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted Latvia into the USSR.
August 6: the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted Estonia into the USSR.
September 27: the Tripartite Pact on the military-economic alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan is signed.
October 8: A. Zhdanov's speech at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party with a report "On improving the production of feature films", where it was stated that "the absence of real ideological control in cinematography itself, control over the ideological direction of paintings" (RGASPI, 77, 3, 23: 1-5).
November 18-21: All-Russian meeting of heads of regional, regional and republican departments of cinematography.
1941 (first semester)
February 4: the first stereo cinema in the USSR was opened in Moscow.
March 3: the Organizing Bureau of the Communist Party discussed the results of the work of the Film Commission of the Central Committee.
March 5: All-Union conference on film distribution.
March 25: a meeting of film workers was held at the Main Directorate of Political Propaganda of the Red Army on the question of the defense theme in cinema.
April 8-9: a meeting of the activists of art cinematographers was held at the Moscow Cinema House.
April 12: the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution on the further development of stereo cinema.
May 14-15: an extended conference on cinema, convened on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, at which A. Zhdanov sharply criticized the leadership of cinematography.
May 15: the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a resolution on the inadmissibility of publishing reviews of films prohibited for release (RGASPI, 17, 1 16, 88: 1).
May 23: meeting of the commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to develop proposals for the further development of the industry.
June 22: Nazi German troops invaded the USSR. Beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
June 22: in connection with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, I. Bolshakov, chairman of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, was instructed to urgently change the repertoire of cinemas by releasing films on screens: Alexander Nevsky, Chapaev, Minin and Pozharsky, Shchors, Suvorov, as well as all anti-fascist films The Oppenheim Family, Professor Mamlok and others, as well as urgently organize filming of military operations.
June 23: the above films have been reopened.
July: temporary cessation (due to the outbreak of war) of the publication of the Soviet Cinema Screen magazine.
