This Is Not a Pipe: Soviet Historical Reality and Spectatorial Belief in Perestroika and Post-Soviet Cinema

Abstract

The article argues that post-Soviet cinematic representations of the Soviet past are inherently contradictory. Starting from chernukha cinema of Perestroika period, the classical cinematic operation of disavowal acquires specific historical articulation and becomes instrumental in sustaining 'sutured belief' about Soviet reality – an effective mode of conceptualizing the Soviet past in the conditions of the traumatic symbolic havoc of post-Soviet Russia. The article outlines the general conditions of spectatorial belief in the truth of cinematic representation and addresses the peculiar vicissitudes of this belief in the implied spectators of the late Soviet and post-Soviet cinema. The attention to the subconscious mechanisms brought forward by the cinematic medium situates Russian thinking about its history on the level of the primary processes and helps explain its imperviousness to rational contestations.