The Evolution of the Concept of the Victory in Russian Documentary Cinema

Abstract

Each generation of the post-war decades sought to rediscover the essence of the great confrontation between our people and Nazi invaders. Russian documentary filmmakers expressed each generation’s concept of the Great Victory in movies based on archival footage and testimonies of veterans. The article offers an overview of the interpretations of this topic by national documentary cinema from the first post-war years to the present. There is an illusion that film preserves the image and meaning of the past forever. In fact, archival footage reveals the significance of the filmed event only in the context of the director’s intention and artistic message. This accounts for the eager desire of all post-war generations up to the present day to understand the essence of the key event of the 20th century — the Great Patriotic War — prompting filmmakers to return to film archives time and again to reconsider such an important page of our national history. The author examines the evolution of the concept of Victory in national documentaries both in the post-war decades and now. It is the insight into the representation of our Victory that testifies to the profundity of each generation’s historical viewpoint, the understanding of the originality of the nation’s spiritual strength, their ability to capture the vector of the country's development in the past experience.