Silver Dove Research Articles

«Странная мистическая деревня» в повести И. А. Бунина «Суходол»: к проблеме источников

The subject of research in the article is the image of the Dry Valley in Bunin’s short novel and its possible sources. The author believes that the main precedent texts for Bunin’s short novel and the concept of national life and national character embodied in it, are the novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov (as the researchers have already noted) and The Silver Dove by Andrey Bely. Bunin both argues with the writers and develops their ideas about the essence of the Russian character and the Russian life. The signs pointing at the ‘presence’ of Dostoevsky’s novel, as well as the facts of the writer’s biography, are the main plot collisions, special features of the psychology of the Dry Valley dwellers (their strangeness, warm-heartedness, posing etc.) and place-names. The novel by A. Bely is referred to by key antinomies in understanding the fate of the Russian person (West – East, civilization – primitive world, sacred – demonic, heaven – hell), loci (manor and village), material details and the names of the heroes. At the same time, in the Dry Valley life one can also see the manifestation of universal laws, the idea of which Bunin develops under the influence of the artistic discoveries of Edgar Alan Poe, the author of the short story The Fall of the House of Usher. This is evidenced by the idea, fundamental for the poetics of the two works, about the connection of the external world, including the inorganic one, with the soul and the fate of a person, and the form of its representation (common reference motifs and color dominants in the description of the estate, the nature, the appearance of the characters and their inner worlds, etc.), as well as the system of images.

A Spatial model of the world by Andrey Bely: transformations and metamorphoses in the novels The Silver Dove, Petersburg, and Moscow

A Spatial model of the world by Andrey Bely: transformations and metamorphoses in the novels The Silver Dove, Petersburg, and Moscow

Poetics of the Symbolist “Text-myth” by Andrey Bely

The article discusses the peculiar poetics of Andrey Bely’s symbolist “novel-myth”. The mythological-poetic structure of “The Silver Dove” as a symbolist “text-myth” implies a special type of narration oriented towards heterogeneous artistic language. Andrey Bely’s short novel is characterized by complex narrative architectonics based on stylization and orientation to the third party’s speech.

Исследование символических значений элементов звуковой организации романа А. Белого 『Серебряный голубь』

This article is devoted to the study of the symbolic meanings of the sounds that form the basis of the structure of Andrey Bely"s novel 『The Silver Dove』. The study reveals a variety of sound modifications and sound complexes, repeated throughout the narrative, they are grouped according to color and thematic characteristics. In the study reveals the mechanisms of sound-symbolic semantification and their role in creating certain associations of the reader. Based on analysis, it is proved that having a wide range of symbolic meanings and performing several semantic functions simultaneously, the sounds in the novel play a leading role in creating the primary structure of the work. It is shown that this sound symbolic basis becomes the starting point for the subsequent development, ‘spiritualization’, images and plot of the work, which fully corresponds to the theory of ‘god-creativity’ and ‘life-creation’ of A. Bely. Статья посвящена исследованию символических значений звуков, составляющих основу структуры романа Андрея Белого 『Серебряный голубь』. В исследовании выявляются различные звуковые модификации и звукокомплексы, повторяющиеся на протяжении всего повествования, осуществляется их группировка согласно цветовым и тематическим характеристикам. Выявляются механизмы звукосимвлической семантизации и их роль в создании у читателя определенных ассоциаций. На основе подробного анализа доказано, что, обладая широким спектром символических значений и выполняя несколько смысловых функций одновременно, звуки в романе играют ведущую роль в создании первичной структуры произведения. Показано, что данный звуковой символический базис становится отправной точкой для последующего развития, «одухотворения» образов и сюжета произведения, что вполне соответствует теории боготворчества и жизнетворчества А. Белого.

The forms of author's consciousness in Andrei Bely's novel "the Silver dove"

The forms of author's consciousness in Andrei Bely's novel "the Silver dove"

We E. Zamyatin, or the integrity of the mystery

AbstractThis essay attempts to analize Zamiatin's We as an aesthetic whole in which, pace Yuri Tynianov, antiutopia is organically combined with “a fantastic adventure novel.” With this aim in mind We is read not only in its literary context but also in a historical-poetologic perspective, ranging from Hellenistic love/adventure novels to Andrei Belyi's Silver Dove. Following in Belyi's footsteps, Zamiatin develops a Dionysian theme according to the interpretation proposed by Viacheslav Ivanov's interpretation (his conception of the divine unity of existence), making the myth of Dionysus the subject of an aesthetic experiment in the tradition of Mennipian satire. The author of We, to what extent the protagonist-narrator can be associated with his creator, is concerned with the fate of “the whole” not less than with the fate of individual. He is confronted with an unresolved conflict in terms of atheistic consciousness, bearing not only personal and socio-political consequences, but ontological as well.

<i>Legacy</i> Bookshelf

Legacy Bookshelf Lisa M. Thomas Below is a selected sampling of current books, articles, and dissertations relevant to the study of American women writers from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries. Prices, unless otherwise indicated, are for hardcover editions. Individual Authors Alcott, Louisa May Lee, Seungeun. "Double Narratives of Domesticity Ideology: Louisa May Alcott's Little Women." Nineteenth Century Literature in English 12.1 (2008): 55-76. Matteson, John. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. New York: Norton, 2008. 512 pp. $29.95. Williams, Susan S. "Forwarding Literary Interests: James Redpath and the Authorial Careers of Marion Harland, Louisa May Alcott, and Sherwood Bonner." Legacy 25 (2008): 262-74. Bonner, Sherwood See Williams on Alcott. Cather, Willa Porter, David. On the Divide: The Many Lives of Willa Cather. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2008. 496 pp. $50.00 cloth. See also Cather Studies. Chopin, Kate Beer, Janet, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. 208 pp. $90.00/$29.99 paper. [End Page 187] Dickinson, Emily Mitchell, Domhnall, and Maria Stuart, eds. The International Reception of Emily Dickinson. London: Continuum, 2009. 304 pp. $150.00. Perriman, Wendy. A Wounded Deer: The Effects of Incest on the Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2006. 331 pp. $79.99. Ramirez, Anne. "Emily Dickinson's Breadcrumbs of Grace." You Are What You Eat: Literary Probes into the Palate. Ed. Annette M. Magid. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2008. 440 pp. $89.99. Wineapple, Brenda. White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. New York: Knopf, 2008. 432 pp. $27.95. See also the Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin. See also the Emily Dickinson Journal. Doolittle, Hilda (H. D.) Friedman, Susan Stanford. Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, H. D.'s Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. 500 pp. $52.00 paper. Fosdick, Gertrude Christian Campbell, Donna. "A Forgotten Daughter of Bohemia: Gertrude Christian Fosdick's Out of Bohemia and the Artists' Novel of the 1890s." Legacy 25 (2008): 275-85. Fuller, Margaret Myerson, Joel, ed. Fuller in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2008. 258 pp. $27.95 paper. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins Weber, Jean Jacques. "Educating the Reader: Narrative Technique and Evaluation in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland." The Language and Literature Reader. Ed. Ronald Carter and Peter Stockwell. London: Routledge, 2008. 177-86. Glasgow, Ellen See the Ellen Glasgow Newsletter. Harland, Marion See Williams on Alcott. Hawthorne, Sophia Hall, Julie E. "Writing at the Crossroads: Sophia Hawthorne's Civil War Letters to Annie Fields." Legacy 25 (2008): 251-61. [End Page 188] Hopkins, Pauline Bergman, Jill A. "The Motherless Child in Pauline Hopkins's Of One Blood." Legacy 25 (2008): 286-98. Hurston, Zora Neale Eisen, Kurt. "Theatrical Ethnography and Modernist Primitivism in Eugene O'Neill and Zora Neale Hurston." South Central Review 25.1 (2008): 56-73. King, Lovaleria, ed. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. 160 pp. $70.00/$19.99 paper. Jewett, Sarah Orne Fogels, Audrey. "French-Born 'Jamaican' in New England: Cultural Dislocation in Sarah Orne Jewett's 'The Foreigner.'" Résonances 9 (2008): 51-67. Larsen, Nella Anisimova, Irina. "Masks of Authenticity: Failed Quests for the People in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove by Andrei Belyi." Comparatist 32.1 (2008): 175-92. Peterkin, Julia Williams, Susan Millar. A Devil and a Good Woman, Too: The Lives of Julia Peterkin. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2008. 392 pp. $18.95 paper. Stein, Gertrude Brandel, Darcy L. "The Case of Gertrude Stein and the Genius of Collaboration." Women's Studies 37 (2008): 371-92. Dean, Gabrielle. "Grid Games: Gertrude Stein's Diagrams and Detectives." Modernism/Modernity 15 (2008): 317-41. Leick, Karen. "Popular Modernism: Little Magazines and the American Daily Press." PMLA 123 (2008): 125-39. [Includes Gertrude Stein.] Nitta, Keiko. "Gertrude Stein, Q. E. D." Eigo Seinen/Rising Generation 154 (2008): 102-05. Wineapple, Brenda. Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2008. 528 pp. $21.95 paper. Sui...

Masks of Authenticity: Failed Quests for the People in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove by Andrei Belyi

Masks of AuthenticityFailed Quests for the People in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove by Andrei Belyi Irina Anisimova Quicksand (1927) by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove (1910) by Andrei Belyi focus on the failures of Helga Crane and Petr Dar’ial’skii, members respectively of African American and Russian elites, to make contact with the common people. As both of these intellectuals immerse themselves in the lower classes, they make a deliberate effort to refashion their identities in accordance with their notions of folk authenticity. After an initial period of self-delusion, however, their desire to join the people results in bitter disappointment. They try to escape their new, “authentic” lifestyles, but their failure to return to their original social milieu leads to feelings of entrapment and, ultimately, to their moral and physical destruction. In the end, the protagonists’ failed quests serve to reveal the constructedness of racial and national identities and to challenge the associated discourses of racial and national authenticity. By the beginning of the twentieth century, African American and Russian intellectuals had developed discourses of ethnic authenticity that relied on romantic notions of the rural folk. However, these discourses were challenged by social change, the relocation of rural populations, and the increased visibility of the changing folk culture. Both the migration of the rural Southern blacks after World War I to the Northern urban centers and the labor migration of Russian peasants to the industrializing cities during the last decades of the nineteenth century influenced the intelligentsia’s perception of the lower classes. In Russia as well as in the U.S., the intellectuals’ reaction to the new visibility of the poor can be characterized as a “moral panic,” defined by Stanley Cohen as an episode in which part of the population responds briefly, suddenly, and intensely to some new feature of lower-class behavior (9). New forms of the popular culture and non-conformity of the lower classes undermined traditional notions of authenticity and ethnic identity. Written at the beginning of the twentieth century, these novels can both be situated in this context. In Quicksand and The Silver Dove, authenticity turns into a form of self-delusion or masquerade, while the lower-class body is represented through the imagery of minstrels or of an inscrutable mask.1 [End Page 175] Larsen The Rural Folk as the Primitive Quicksand focuses on the instability of racial identity and presents the tension between racial essentialism and the conception of race as a social construction. Quicksand dramatizes an unresolved tension between the seductions of consumerism, associated with whiteness, and the attraction of racial authenticity, represented by the black folk. Although Helga never passes for white, her geographic and social wandering is informed by the desire for material comfort and personal acceptance. Helga’s desire for “authentic” racial identity at the end of the novel presents race as “the irresistible tie” (92) that ends her search for identity and results in her eventual death. In Quicksand, folk authenticity becomes related to essentialism, and even to primitivism. Paradoxically, Larsen both exposes the work of primitivism, especially in the Denmark section of the novel and, at the same time, subscribes to certain primitivist presentations of the folk. Chip Rhodes claims that primitivism can be seen as “the purest expression” of “ideological tension between performativity and essentialism” (17). This tension is vividly illustrated by discrepancies between the protagonist’s performances in the Danish upper-class circles and the narrator’s presentation of Helga’s life among rural Alabama folk. The text of Quicksand creates an uncanny connection between folk identity and forms of sexual expression that are often degraded. Deborah McDowell writes that Larsen’s treatment of sexuality is linked to an imagery of descent and animalism, suggesting “inner degradation” (xxii). However, the same images that, according to McDowell, are connected to sexuality—the Harlem cabaret, the storefront church, and the deep South—are also associated with the black folk.2 In addition, there are parallels between Helga’s primitivist image, constructed by her white relatives and the famous Danish painter Olsen, and Larsen’s presentation of the rural women. For example, the description of Clementine Richards as “a...

Заметка об «Адмиралтействе» Осипа Мандельштама<br>(A note on Osip Mandelstam’s “The Admiralty”)

This short article discusses the relationship between Osip Mandelstam's poem "The Admiralty" and Andrej Belyj's novel "The Silver Dove". The author points out that both works contain an unusual metaphor whereby a building is compared to a ship. It is therefore possible that Mandelstam was influenced by Belyj's work, although conclusive evidence cannot be adduced.

От симфоний к романам: проза «Серебряного Голубя» Андрея Белого<br>(From the symphonies to the novels: The prose of Andrej Belyj’s novel «The silver dove»)

The prose of Andrej Belyj shows many features typical of poetry. In this paper some of these phenomena - word order, orchestration, metaphors - are briefly discussed on the basis of material from Belyj's first novel, «The silver dove» (1909), with special regard to their place in the system of static and dynamic elements in the work of art.

?. ?. ????e?e? ? ?. M. ?????e????? - ??e??e???e????? ???e??????

Turgenev's and Dostoevsky's novels, analysed in their relation to the future modernism, are studied both from the morphological standpoint (The Smoke) and the anthropological standpoint (The Newly Cleared Land, Brothers Karamazov-Artsibashev's Saninor Solovyov's Silver Dove).The main attention is paid to the problematic heroes, most of whom had to decease. The only exception is the hedonic Sanin-the first representative of Russian pragmatism.Immediate continuation has been found in the morphological and anthropological standpoints, even if differentiated by the change of the philosophy of life (Sanin) and by growing conflicts in the social situation, ethics and style (The Silver Dove).

The Silver Dove by Andrey s> Bely John Elsworth (review)

522 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 physical transmutation'(p. Io6). A sparklinganalysis of 'The Cherry Stone' bears out that thiswas certainlythe direction of Olesha's artand, by analogy, perhaps, of much post-Symbolist modernism in Russia: 'Olesha's newly mythic art bears only the faintest imprint of the newly artisticmyths that it transforms'(p. I09). It is hard not to regret the implied emasculation of the subject of the symposium, which might have been counterbalanced by contributions on Khlebnikov, Mandel'shtam and Platonov. Nevertheless, within his chosen sphere,Hutchings'sconclusion is indisputablycorrect. Irene Masing-Delic, writing on 'Sansculotte improvisers and clouds in trousers: Poetic metamorphosis in Pushkin and Mayakovsky' (pp. II3-47) goes furtherdown the same road. This is an exquisite study of Mayakovskii's self-perception as rival and supplanter of Pushkin, of his doomed rebellion against the very romantic image he tried to incarnate. The concept of metamorphosis,however, althoughbattedaboutwith precisionand dexterity, does not reallyemerge as centralto this article. The subjectof the symposiumis broughtbackfirmlycentre stage and in all its unpredictable vitality by Anne Nesbet's concluding article, 'Savage thinking:metamorphosisin the cinema of S. M. Eisenstein'(pp. 149-79). The authoremphasizesthe director'sintense interestin and acknowledgeddebt to primitivecultures:'The relationshipbetween image and idea in Eisensteinis likethatperceivedby the Bororobetween man and redparrot:neitheridentity in thrallto the other. Instead, the identities are enmeshed in the ongoing ebb and flow of metamorphosis' (p. I53). Eisenstein likened his 'montage' technique, Nesbet reminds us, to 'copulation', 'a physical as well as an intellectualclash' and, in the same passage, she refersto 'the emphasison sex as a part of transformation(so many classical instances of metamorphosis involved either "girls running from Zeus" or "Zeus chasing after girls")' (P. 154). In the article, the balefulpriestwith his Methuselah locks glowering down upon the mutineers in Battleship Potemkin is himself transformedinto a windblown female at the beginning of the Odessa steps sequence but the slip, if slipit is, mattersnot at allto the thrustof the argument.What has frequently been identified as the Freudian subtext of Eisenstein's imagery is indeed extremely close to the primeval chaos of the earliest tales of metamorphosis and his cinema standsas near to myth as the modern world is likelyto come: a magnificent shaggy bearskin to protect the nakedness of poor Augustan Ovid fromthe ragingwinter stormsof his long exile on the edge of the GrecoRoman world. Department ofRussian AVRIL PYMAN University ofDurham Bely, Andrey. ne SilverDove.Translated by John Elsworth. Angel Books, London, 2000. 3I6 pp. Introduction.Notes. ? 10.95 (paperback). ALTHOUGH the novel Petersburg is by common consent regarded as Andrey Belyi's greatest and most influentialartisticachievement, TheSilver Doveis in some ways a more accessibletext, filledwith modernistindirection, of course, but by no means lacking traditional qualities of mystery and character REVIEWS 523 delineation which could appeal to a wider audience. While an earlierEnglish version by George Reavey has long been available in America (Grove Press, New York, I974), it has never been widely on sale in the UK, so Elsworth's new translation should fill a significant gap in the market, especially for university courses. Nor is this the only reason for welcoming the volume. Although Reavey's English rendering reads easily enough, it teems with mistranslationsand for some unaccountable reason omits a whole page of Belyi's original text. The new translation, by contrast, is as complete and authoritativein its rendering of Belyi's precise meanings as it is successfulin conveying the feel of his lush, supersaturatedprose. For an example of the latter, take Elsworth'ssuperbrenderingof the passage which evokes the hero Daryalsky's visual perception of the links binding him to the carpenter Kudeyarov, the leader of the sectarian'Dove' commune which he hasjoined: 'Daryalsky looked, and saw that an autumnal thread of gossamer was stretchingup towardsthe blue of the sky;a brightthreadranto the carpenter's cottage, and fromthere,out of the slopinghollow, a windowflasheda rainbow brilliance; and that too seemed made not of flashes, but of gossamer: everything around was covered in gossamer;in the sweet blue day gossamer settledon the grasses,stretchedtautin the air;a wisp of smokefloatedout of a hut;it too seemed to be of gossamer'(p. 242). The main literary influence on Belyi during the writing...

Topos of “Intoxication” in Andrey Bely's Novel The Silver Dove

Topos of “Intoxication” in Andrey Bely's Novel The Silver Dove

Adumbrations of the End in Andrei Belyi’s Treatment of Africa

Farly in 191 1, while vacationing in Sicily, Andrei Belyi and Asya Turgeneva decided to escape unexpectedly high prices and low temperatures by proceeding still further south, to Africa. The couple's itinerary will sound familiar to any reader of Petersburg. Like Nikolai Apollonovich in the novel's epilogue, they stayed first in the small village of Rades, not far from Tunis, and then proceeded on to Cairo.' During those months abroad, in fact, Belyi had planned to make a start on Petersburg (then conceived simply as the sequel to Tie Silver Dove). Finding the subject matter darkly out of keeping with the colorful images surrounding him at the beginning of his journey, he put off the novel for a time, though elements of it nonetheless made their way into his travel notes, particularly as the journey progressed; the role of his journey in the creation of Petersburg is stressed, as will be seen, by the writer himself.2 Over the decade which followed this trip Belyi came back to his notes on various occasions to create several works on African themes. Among these the most significant were a substantial essay, Egypt (Egipet, 1912); the first volume of his travelogue, rravelAlotes (Putevye zametki, 1921); and the continuation of this work, African Diaiy (Afrikanskii dnevnik, published only in 199 1).3

A Study of ‘Ships’ in A. Bely's novel <i>The Silver Dove</i> in Cultural Contexts

A Study of ‘Ships’ in A. Bely's novel <i>The Silver Dove</i> in Cultural Contexts

The reluctant modernist: Andrei Belyi and the development of Russian fiction, 1902-1914

Andrei Belyi (1880-1934) is generally regarded as the greatest and most influential prose-writer to emerge from the Symbolist movement in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. His early prose 'symphonies' and novels are often compared with the work of such European 'modernists' as Joyce and Proust. This is the first book to attempt a systematic analysis of the place of Belyi's fiction within the modernist prose tradition in Russia; a tradition which has been obscured by decades of ideological distortion. Paradoxically, Belyi himself, a mystic by nature who sought only transcendent certainty from the flux of experience, would have been reluctant to claim this tradition as his own. Keys demonstrates the inadequacy of the various 'isms' (Symbolism, Impressionism, etc.) which have until recently bedevilled most critical attempts to sort out the prose of the period, giving a comprehensive overview of Belyi criticism from both within and outside the Soviet Union. The book includes a detailed analysis of Belyi's prose works, paying keen attention to his philosophical and literary influences, including extensive reading of Kant and Gogol and its particular effect upon his theory and practice, and locating him firmly in his own Russian context. Sections devoted to Belyi's greatest novel, Petersburg, and other works, such as The Silver Dove and Dramatic Symphony, analyse Belyi's use of structure and plot, leitmotifs and acoustic symbolism. The book marks Belyi's attempts to reconcile the Symbolist vision of the writer as having revelatory mystical authority with the concept of 'perspectivism', implied author, narrator and character offering a number of different voices which cannot claim cognitive authority beyond the fictional context in which they occur.

Death and Repetition in Porter's Miranda Stories

ARLY in Horse, Pale Rider, in one of Miranda Gay's dreams, Katherine Anne Porter introduces the obsessive center of her final Miranda story, indeed of the whole Miranda series: death, specifically Miranda's perception of her own death. (The Grave, Mortality, Horse, Pale Rider-the major titles alone reveal as much.) the stranger [death]? Where is that lank greenish stranger I remember hanging about the place, welcomed by my grandfather, my great-aunt, my five times removed cousin, my decrepit hound and my silver kitten? Why did they take to him, I wonder? And where are they now? Yet I saw him pass the window in the evening. What else besides them did I have in the world? Nothing. Nothing is mine, I have only but it is enough, it is beautiful and it is all mine.' Should Miranda take to this stranger, as her grandfather and the others have done, or flee him? Are the others (and would she be, once dead) anywhere now? And what is this beautifully sufficient nothing allowed by death? Such questions and their possible answers center on the idea of repetition. In Grave, the climactic story in The Old Order, the first of two groups of Miranda stories, Miranda initially rejects the perceived bondage of repeated meaning (the symbolic silver dove's interpretation of death) to embrace the freedom of unconnected existence, of modernity-the freedom of the grave. Repeating that earlier day, however, the story's coda allows the adult Miranda a chance to revise her youthful choice, to reaccept repeated meaning as something other than mere bondage. Moreover, Mortality and Horse, Pale Rider, the second group of stories, together repeat The Old Order. That is, they

Andrey Bely: A Critical Study of the Novels

Preface Introduction Part I: 1. Bely's theory of symbolism 2. Bely and anthroposophy Part II: 3. The Silver Dove 4. Petersburg 5. Kotik Letayev 6. The Baptised Chinaman Notes of an eccentric Moscow Masks Conclusion Notes Select bibliography Index.

Andrej Belyj's "The Magic of Words" and The Silver Dove

Andrej Belyj's "The Magic of Words" and The Silver Dove

Culture and Society

he Soviet Union’s collapse not only had an impact on the sociopolitical situation in the former Sovietrepublics, but also on the state of affairs in science and art, including cinematography. Marked bymany common or similar traits, Soviet cinema, as the unity and synthesis of its national components,disintegrated into purely national parts, finally breaking free from Moscow’s ideological grasp. This alsoled to the cinema art (and its parts) of the newly independent states breaking its decades-long ties with thecinematography of other former union republics, primarily Russia. The difficulties experienced by all thesecountries during the transition to a market economy also took their toll on the national film industry, in-cluding in Uzbekistan, the only post-Soviet republic in which local cinematography has centralized fi-nancial support. (When a film production and rental market is just forming, it is difficult to overestimatethe state’s participation in encouraging and supporting this intricate process.)Specialists and connoisseurs of this type of art have highly praised Uzbek cinema for its profession-alism, national uniqueness, and originality. It is indicative that films began being produced here almost assoon as cinematography was invented. For example, a pioneer of Uzbek cinema, Khudoibergan Devanov,made the first documentary film in Khorezm as early as the spring of 1900. As for feature films, the firstones were made in Uzbekistan during the second half of the 1920s almost immediately after the formationof the Uzbek S.S.R., with the help of Russian masters. During the next decade, local teams of directors,cameramen, scriptwriters, and other creative specialists appeared and began their professional activity.The quality of films gradually improved and their number increased. Whereas at the beginning of the 1950s,three feature films were made every year at the Uzbekfilm studio, by the mid-1980s, during the heyday oflocal cinematography, this number had leaped to twelve. Whereby nearly every year, one of them receiveda prize at prestigious international film festivals. The documentary film industry was also highly praisedin those years, in which well-known director Malik Kaiumov, who won prizes at many festivals, worked.In the mid-1980s, a documentary film by Tashkent documentary film director S. Papazian was awardedthe Silver Dove prize at the International Film Festival in Leipzig. Vibrant masters of Uzbek Soviet cin-ema, such as Sh. Abbasov, A. Khamraev, E. Ishmukhamedov, and M. Abzalov, are well known in the