Globalized Socialism, Nationalized Time: Soviet Films, Albanian Subjects, and Chinese Audiences across the Sino-Soviet Split

Abstract

In the 1950s, films like Sergei Yutkevich'sVelikii voin Albanii Skanderbegsymbolized Albanian-Soviet friendship, which was said to be undying. The Soviets brought their reels and their famous actors to this corner of the Mediterranean, and they also designed the country's first film agency, baptized “New Albania.” By the early 1960s, however, the friendship was dead. Albania's communist regime sided with Mao's China during the dramatic Sino-Soviet schism. From instruments of friendship, films turned into weapons in a global battle over the soul of socialism. Unexpectedly, Albanian war films assumed revolutionary meaning—far away from the Balkans—during China's Cultural Revolution. Recapturing these zigzags, this article shows how globalized socialism interacted with national imperatives. Bringing about exchange on a cross-continental scale, socialism encouraged constant mental mapping, and it also produced competing temporal frameworks. Going beyond nationalized histories of cinema, the article draws on archival sources from three countries, including previously classified Albanian materials.