Post-Stalinist cinema and the Russian intelligentsia, 1953--1960: Strategies of self-representation, de-Stalinization, and the national cultural tradition.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The aim of my dissertation is to specify some attributes of Soviet film culture during the post-Stalin reforms. Political, social and cultural changes of "the thaw" have been extensively studied; however, the period's cinema - a key provider of ideological support to the reformist project - has received less systematic attention.
My study centers on the films produced in the Russian Federation, the largest Soviet republic. It regards them as a phenomenon with a set of features representing a historical period and simultaneously articulating features of the Russian cultural tradition associated with the values of the intelligentsia, an avid champion of the post-Stalin reforms.
Cinematic representations of the intelligentsia's worldview are regarded in the framework of the temporary concord between this socio-cultural group and its political superiors - as images conditioned by the intelligentsia's reactions to fluctuations in the reformist process and by its traditional view of itself as the cultural and moral leader.
Strategic and tactical choices made by the film community are related to its compromises with the regime. Cinema is explored as an intersection of two discourses: the discourse of a political system trying both to transform itself and to preserve the status quo; and the discourse of a social group striving to restore its past prestige and to adjust its values to the new realities. While regarding the political establishment as the dominant force, my study stresses that the post-Stalin era provided the intelligentsia with rich potentialities to restore and reconsider its identity.
My methodology is based on the comparative textual analysis of specific cinematic works and their positions within thematic and stylistic clusters. The first part of my dissertation focuses on representational aspects of the stylistic changes produced by the loosening of the Soviet aesthetic doctrine and on the interaction of individual styles to the intelligentsia's mentality. The second part reviews representations of the intelligentsia's ethical vision of history, paying particular attention to films about the Second World War.