Between James Bond and Iosif StalinSeventeen Moments of Spring, a Soviet Cultural Event of the Cold War and the Post-Thaw Tarik Cyril Amar (bio) In the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, no intelligence officer, real or imagined, has been more famous than Max Otto von Stierlitz (aka Maksim Maksimovich Isaiev aka Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov), usually known simply as “Shtirlits.”1 As the fictional British superspy James Bond became a global sensation through the Bond films of the 1960s, it was a stunningly successful 1973 Soviet television miniseries under the title Seventeen Moments of Spring (hereafter, Seventeen Moments), directed and shaped by Tat́iana Lioznova at the Goŕkii Studio in Moscow, that turned the fictional Shtirlits into a Soviet and Russian popular-culture icon in the strict sense of the term, a cultural reference point that has taken on a life of its own, even outlasting the Soviet Union.2 Indeed, to some post-Soviet observers, Shtirlits seems to be [End Page 627] emblematic of the “whole epoch” of the Soviet Union’s last, post-Khrushchev decades.3 Part of my broader research project on intelligence-themed television entertainment produced by the eastern side of the Cold War, this article contributes to a growing literature on this major phenomenon of Soviet popular culture by offering fresh observations and interpretations as well as alternatives to some current ones. In particular, it will show that we have not yet sufficiently considered the international, specifically Cold War dimension of Seventeen Moments; that we should also revise its place in Soviet domestic political-cultural history by according Seventeen Moments’ post-Thaw transformation of the image of Stalin its full weight, and, finally, that these two aspects of the miniseries were linked through the détente/peaceful-coexistence moment of its making, which brings us back to what is missing from our current understanding of the relationship between this miniseries and the Cold War. Seventeen Moments was an immediate, spectacular success, going far beyond the young viewers who were an especially important audience for the Goŕkii Studio. A story about victories, real and imagined, its first screening was a triumph of popularity: as a review noted without much exaggeration, it had received “total attention,” dominating the “rhythm of our leisure time” for two weeks.4 According to surveys of viewer responses as well, the series received the “highest assessment” across age brackets and social categories.5 Almost all reactions were positive. By June 1974, after its third screening, an estimated over 200 million Soviet viewers had watched it.6 [End Page 628] Seventeen Moments, moreover, was a success foretold, a well-publicized priority project from its inception: long before its release, numerous newspaper articles signaled its importance. Thus in August 1972, a year before its first screening, Moskovskii Komsomolets pointed out that this was the first time Soviet television had tackled a film of such scale.7 Here was a Soviet plan that worked, and brilliantly. Given this great success and obvious importance, it is unsurprising that Seventeen Moments has already attracted much academic interest, resulting in sophisticated research, commentary, and interpretation by, to mention only a few (and in alphabetical order), Christine Evans, Mark Lipovetsky, Stephen Lovell, Catherine Nepomnyashchy, and Elena Prokhorova.8 In the sections that follow, I first lay out my three-part argument, in some detail for the sake of clarity. I then address several aspects of Seventeen Moments and Shtirlits that constitute important contexts before undertaking a detailed discussion of the argument outlined below. The Argument First, I argue that, even though the Cold War dimension of Seventeen Moments has received some attention, its importance has not been fully appreciated. It is well known, of course, that the miniseries was not only [End Page 629] embedded in the general domestic political and cultural developments of the Soviet post-Thaw but also reflected a special historical moment at the beginning of détente, as Stephen Lovell has pointed out.9 What has not been addressed with regard to Seventeen Moments is the peculiar nature of this moment: early détente was a part of the Cold War during which Soviet geopolitical overconfidence was mistaken enough to produce...
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Mar 28, 2021
Chijioke Onuora + 3
