Singing on the Steppes for Stalin: Ivan Pyr'ev and the Kolkhoz Musical in Soviet Cinema

Abstract

In his celebrated "secret speech" to the delegates to the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev singled out Soviet filmmakers for their part in establishing and maintaining Stalin's personality cult. Although not specifically mentioned by Khrushchev, one film has been generally identified as a prime example of the way in which those filmmakers "varnished the reality," particularly of the Soviet countryside during the Stalin period: Ivan Pyr'ev'sKubanskie kazaki(The Kuban cossacks) made in the film-famine year of 1949 and released in February 1950. But let us look at what Khrushchev actually said.