Title of the article:

THE PHENOMENON OF “NEW WOMAN” IN THE SOVIET CINEMATOGRAPHY OF THE 20S

Author(s):

Svetlana A. Smagina

Information about the author/authors

Svetlana A. Smagina — PhD in Arts, Senior Lecturer, All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography n.a. S. A. Gerasimov, Wilhelm Pick St. 3, 129226 Moscow, Russia.

Section

History of Arts

Year

2019

Volume

Vol. 51

Pages

pp. 257–266

Received

April 09, 2018

Date of publication

March 28, 2019

Index UDK

7.03 + 791.43/.45

Index BBK

85.373(2)6

Abstract

The year 1917 was a turning point in the historical development of “women's issue”. It marked a period of “experiments” by Soviet government dealing with the issue of women's emancipation, when a number of decrees legally freeing women from the clutches of the patriarchal structure were adopted. The country's leadership aimed at inculcating into public consciousness of an ideological construct “new woman”, designed to serve as a role model for Soviet women. Self-sufficiency and independence were meant to be the main qualitative characteristic of “new woman” — she is the one who is able to build her own life independently and depends on man no more. The article explores the ways of implementing “new woman” concept in the Soviet cinema of the 20s, and highlights peculiarity of its representation on screen. This image, conceived as the opposite to a pre-revolutionary woman`s image, was supposed to fully demonstrate the triumph of revolutionary ideas and social progress in the country.

Keywords

history of Soviet cinema, “new woman”, “women's question”, Revolution of 1917, Kollontai, Krupskaya, Armand, Kapler, Johanson, Ermler, Dmitriyev, Eisenstein. 

References

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