First, Joshua Ukrainian Cinema: Belonging and Identity During the Soviet Thaw (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 739 two essays on Vasilii Kandinskii’s Composition II (1909–10) (Marian BurleighMotley ) and the theme of silence in Werefkin’s work (Bowlt) step further afield from the scope of Valkenier’s work (and thereby this collection), but given the rarity of publications that explore the avant-garde alongside the World of Art and Peredvizhniki, they are welcome additions. Overall, the publication provides plenty of rich information and critical analysis for academics through neglected figures, topics relatively new to scholarship such as the female nude, which Samu discusses in an informative essay on caricature, and fresh takes on more familiar artists (Brunson’s spectacular visual dissection of Repin’s work is noteworthy). The increasing number of students studying Russian art at universities will gain much from the book’s more introductory chapters (Paston, Rosenfeld). In this sense, the publication would have benefited from more illustrations, especially as it is otherwise beautifully produced, but this is a minor quibble. The combination of in-depth accounts of artists, exhibitions and artworks, as well as broader outlines of institutions and phenomena make this collection a precious resource for both students and scholars alike. Department of History of Art Nicola Kozicharow University of Cambridge First, Joshua. Ukrainian Cinema: Belonging and Identity During the Soviet Thaw. KINO: The Russian and Soviet Cinema Series. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2015. xii + 251 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.£58.00: $90.00. Most of the studios producing Soviet fiction film were located outside of Russia. Gradually, this fact is being reflected in the titles of English-language publications relating to Soviet cinema, and it is now fairly common to find material devoted to the study of Russian and Soviet film. The extent to which the content reflects the title, however, can be disappointing for those interested in non-Russian Soviet cinema. Happily, this is not the case with I. B. Tauris’s ‘KINO: The Russian and Soviet Cinema Series’; and, following the release of Joshua First’s Ukrainian Cinema: Belonging and Identity During the Soviet Thaw, the series now has its first book dedicated to the cinema of a single union republic other than the Russian Federation. Indeed, it is the first extended study of Ukrainian cinema in the English language, a feat of which the aptlynamed author should rightly be proud. First examines how filmmakers working in Ukraine responded to the task of representing national difference within the framework of the Soviet concept of multinationality (mnogonatsional´nost´). The focus of his inquiry is the 1960s, SEER, 94, 4, October 2016 740 duringwhichperiodthereemergedanewwaveoffilmmakingattheDovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv, which has come to be known as the school of Ukrainian poetic cinema. He examines how these works reimagined what it meant to be Ukrainian and identifies a shift from a Stalinist mode of representation (which he terms the ‘folkloric’) in which Ukraine is presented as familiar, assimilated and on a path towards modernization, to an ‘ethnographic’ mode of representation which emphasizes difference, authenticity and tradition. Bringing together an array of material from archival sources and the contemporary press, First presents a compelling account of the atmosphere that prevailed at the Dovzhenko Studio during this period and the sometimes competing demands placed upon filmmakers working there. The first two chapters examine how the Studio moved from being a stagnant backwater, churning out tired clichés well into the late 1950s, to a centre for innovative and experimental filmmaking by the mid-1960s. A policy of developing ‘native cadres’ was promoted as part of which recent graduates of Ukrainian descent from the All-Union Film Institute (VGIK) in Moscow were actively recruited. Eager to engage with Thaw-era aesthetics, this generation of young filmmakers were also expected to ‘remain committed to the production of a specifically Ukrainian culture’ (p. 58) at the same time as producing box office hits. The works which they produced form the focus of the next three chapters, starting with Sergei Paradzhanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, the most well-known (and readily available) film of the poetic school. This film inspired a generation of filmmakers at the Studio to seek their own means of personal expression and effectively a policy of ‘studio-supported...