Юбилейные» экранизации трилогии А.Н. Толстого «Хождение по мукам»

Abstract

The article considers of film re-adaptations of literary texts dedicated to anniversaries that are endowed with a special ideological significance at the state level. It is shown that for film adaptations literarу texts, recognized by the mass audience and based on ambiguous historical circumstances, are chosen. Functionally “jubilee” adaptations support the memory of an event of national importance in society, inform about the position and its changings about this event of the public authorities, allow to capture public sentiment about the event and explicitly or covertly seek to transform the collective memory. It is proved that although the A.N. Tolstoy’s trilogy meets the needs of the mass audience in the ordering of historical events and its optimistic interpretation, the trilogy’s potential ideological ambiguity gives reasons for regularly updating the interpretation of Russian wars and revolutions of 1910th, correlating it with current political requirements. The film (1957–1959), TV movie (1977) and TV series (2017) based on the trilogy are described in terms of their response to the “state order” and simultaneously manifestations of the crisis state of society during the creation of the films. “Thaw” film adaptation focuses on the productive opportunities offered by revolutionary changes to the country and the person, “stagnant” — on the complexity of the revolutionary cultural project, the implementation of which requires personal super-efforts of its participants, “post-Soviet” — on the futility of revolutionary intervention in society and its tragic consequences for each person.