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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTONFACULTY OF HUMANITIESFilm Studies

Elizaveta Svilova and Soviet Documentary Filmby
Christopher Penfold

Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

May 2013

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

ABSTRACTFACULTY OF HUMANITIESFilm Studies
Doctor of Philosophy
ELIZAVETA SVILOVA AND SOVIET DOCUMENTARY FILM
By Christopher Penfold
The focus of my research is Soviet documentary filmmaker, Elizaveta Svilova (190075), most commonly remembered, if at all, as the wife and collaborator of acclaimed
Soviet film pioneer, Dziga Vertov (1896-1954). Having worked with her husband formany years, Svilova continued her career as an independent director-editor after
Vertov fell out of favour with the Central Committee. Employed at the Central
Studio for Documentary Film, a state-initiated studio, Svilova’s films were vehicles ofrhetoric, mobilised to inform, educate and persuade the masses. She draws on visual
symbols familiar to audiences and organises them according to the semiotic theories– namely techniques of dialecticism and linkage – attributed to the Soviet montage
school of the 1920s.
On-screen credits indicate that, during the period 1939 to 1956, Svilova was the
director-editor of over 100 documentaries and newsreel episodes, yet this corpus offilms has received very little critical attention. As my thesis aims to demonstrate, thereasons for the lack of attention to Svilova’s films are partly due to her husband’seminent status – the rules whereby we construct film history have resulted in
Svilova’s contribution being absorbed into Vertov’s – and this is related to the longstanding tendency within film criticism to marginalise the female artist. My thesis also
touches on issues regarding curatorial and archival policies, and provides anopportunity to rethink early film history and the modes through which
historiographic and filmographic knowledge are transmitted.

List of Contents
Declaration of Authorship1

Acknowledgements

3

Notes on Transliteration and Sources

5

Introduction

7

Chapter 1
The Context of Svilova’s Career

13

Chapter 2
Evidence of Aggression: Oświęcim (1945) and Cinema
Documents of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders (1945)

81

Chapter 3
Female Spectators and the Feminine Ideal

135

Chapter 4
Foreign Lands and Depictions of Otherness

181

Chapter 5Conclusion

241

Notes

253

Appendix 1
Elizaveta Svilova and Foreign Stories

281

Appendix 2
Filmography of Elizaveta Svilova

287

Bibliography

321

Web Sources and Archive Sources

335

Filmography337

Declaration of Authorship

I, Christopher Penfold, declare that this thesis, Elizaveta Svilova and Soviet
Documentary Film, and the work presented in it are my own and have been
generated by me as the result of my own original research.
I confirm that:
1. This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree
at this University;
2. Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any
other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearlystated;3. Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly
attributed;
4. Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With
the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work;
5. I have acknowledged all main sources of help;
6. Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I havemade clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself;
7. Parts of this work have been published as:
Testimony of an Absent Witness, Holocaust Studies 18.3 (2012)
Signed:Date: 10 May, 20131

2

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents for their kind hearts, Tim Bergfelder and David
Dunn for their inspired minds, and Christen Ericsson-Penfold for her caring
shoulder. I am thankful to the University of Southampton for additional researchfunds and to the various scholars who have offered invaluable advice on aspects ofmy thesis at conferences and through peer review. I also wish to express my gratitude
to the archivists at the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive in
Krasnogorsk, the Russian Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow, and the OpenSociety Archive in Budapest.

3

4

Notes on Transliteration and Sources

Transliteration of Russian is according to the Library of Congress system. Titles inthe text are given in English and Russian at first mention (unless no transliteration isnecessary), and thereafter in English only. Titles in the notes section and in thefilmography are given in English, and titles in Appendix 2 are given in English andRussian.
Beyond Svilova’s films and archival documents, I refer mainly to English-language
sources. I am aware that there might exist additional non-English language sources,
particularly in Russian, that would provide further scope to this thesis, and I
encourage future researchers with access to these materials to supplement orchallenge my analysis.

56Introduction

The focus of my research is Soviet documentary filmmaker, Elizaveta Svilova (190075), most commonly remembered, if at all, as the wife and collaborator of acclaimed
Soviet film pioneer, Dziga Vertov (1896-1954). Having worked with her husband formany years, Svilova continued her career as an independent director-editor after
Vertov fell out of favour with the Soviet authorities. According to on-screen credits,
between 1939 and 1956 Svilova was the director-editor of over 100 documentaries
and newsreel episodes, yet this corpus of films has received hardly any criticalattention. As my thesis aims to demonstrate, the reasons for the lack of attention to
Svilova and her films are partly due to her husband’s eminent status – the rules
whereby we construct film history have resulted in Svilova’s contribution to Soviet
documentary being absorbed into Vertov’s – and this is related to the long-standing
tendency within film criticism to marginalise the female director. Julia Wright hasargued that Svilova’s contributions to Vertov’s canon have not been fully
acknowledged because she was a woman.1 The third factor that has led to amisunderstanding of Svilova’s contribution is the ambiguity surrounding the role ofthe director in the Soviet film industry during the period of her career. Directors of
documentaries, particularly newsreels, are understood to have made a limited impact
on the shaping of their films as they were often absent from the shooting locations
7and instead ‘directed’ the film at the editing table. I will argue that, for Svilova at least,
having control of the editing process compensated for her absence from theshooting location and provided her with opportunities to make a substantial artistic
contribution to her films. The last potential cause of Svilova’s marginalisation is of alogistical nature. Archived in the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo
Archive in Krasnogorsk (approximately twelve miles west of central Moscow),
Svilova’s independent films are not easily accessible in the public domain and require
a concerted effort to view. In this respect, my thesis also touches on issues regarding
curatorial and archival policies, and how the latter shape our conception of afilmmaker’s contribution to the industry.

Beyond issues of access, engaging with Svilova’s body of work is by no means astraightforward task. Throughout the process of identifying her contribution –researching filmographies, archive catalogues and biographical accounts of her life –it is evident that sources do not always correspond with on-screen credits, the latterof which I consider to be the most reliable system of allocating film roles. Oftenfilms Svilova co-directed with Vertov, or filmmakers such as Yuli Raizman or Roman
Karmen, are listed exclusively as the work of her collaborator. On other occasions,films for which she is credited as director-editor are either attributed to the name of astudio executive or attributed to no name at all. Also, sources that do attempt toacknowledge Svilova’s contribution, particularly to her collaborative films with
Vertov, frequently contradict one another. These inconsistencies have resulted in adisjointed and ambiguous picture of Svilova. Characterised by numerous
collaborations, various production roles (most notably alongside a film pioneer) and,
importantly, by her gender, her contribution to Soviet documentary film has notbeen fully appreciated.
8

The project of the thesis
Chapter One outlines my methodology for identifying Svilova’s contribution toSoviet documentary film through her role as an editor, first as Vertov’s collaborator
and then as an independent director-editor. I also outline the context in which
Svilova produced her films and the framework in which I am analysing them. Byhighlighting the contradiction between Marxist ideology and the reality inherited by
the Central Committee, and in turn illustrating the policies of defence andlegitimisation that emerged as a result of the deficit, I make clear the purpose of
Svilova’s films – what she as a state documentary filmmaker was employed to do.
Cinema was mobilised to persuade the masses of the righteousness of the regime andtheir duty to participate in the realisation of Marx’s communist utopia. I describe
thematic planning and the structure of ideological control that provided Svilova withthe subjects for documentation and the underlying rhetoric that was to drive eachstory. The subject matters of Svilova’s films are not overtly political. For this reason,
Svilova put to use her artistic prowess to prompt the viewer to make the cognitive
leap between the images on-screen – of sporting events, cultural ceremonies anddistant lands – and Central Committee policy. The analysis in the next three chapters
substantiates my claim that Svilova’s use of editing to create meaning and shape theemotions of the audience is reminiscent of theories associated with the Soviet
montage school of the 1920s.

The following chapters analyse Svilova’s independent films under a number of
specific thematic headings. Chapter Two is centred on two of Svilova’s films,
Oświęcim (Osventsime) and Cinema Documents of the Atrocities of the German-Fascist Invaders(Kino-dokumenty o zverstvakh nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov, from here abbreviated9to Atrocities), both produced in 1945. These films provide the opportunity to explore
in detail the techniques of montage that constitute Svilova’s approach as a directoreditor. I deconstruct Oświęcim according to its dialectical and continuity-based editing
structure and carry out a synchronic analysis to compare Svilova’s atrocity sequences
to other Allied film footage of Nazi concentration camps that emerged in theimmediate post-war period. Beyond offering an analysis of Svilova’s editorial
decision-making, I interrogate the reasons for the films’ omission of Jewish suffering.
The rationale behind the absence is complex, particularly in the case of Atrocities,
which was used as visual evidence at the main Nuremberg Trial. The effectiveness of
Atrocities as evidence in a courtroom lies in the visceral power of the images. Here, I
move away from analysing the structure of the film and consider instead Svilova’s
selection of shots. I introduce ontological questions, drawing on a range of theorists
including Judith Butler, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and André Bazin to measurethe ‘grievability’ (to adopt Butler’s term) of the images.

The third chapter, Female Spectators and the Feminine Ideal, focuses on therecurring use of the honourable female subject in Svilova’s work and, more generally,
her role in representing and promoting particular notions of gender. My analysis
explores how Svilova establishes a relationship between her female audiences and thewomen featured in her documentaries and newsreels, with the latter intended as‘celluloid role models on whom the audience could pattern their lives’.2 The chapter
also places Svilova within the context of the Soviet Union’s gender ideology,
discussing in more detail notions pertaining to the social and political role of womenin Soviet society in the Stalin era.

10

Chapter Four, Foreign Lands and Depictions of Otherness, focuses on Svilova’s
career between 1953 and her semi-retirement in 1956, exploring the role she playedin educating the Soviet masses on the reimaging of the Soviet Union in the post-war
era. This period witnessed an increase in documentaries and newsreel stories about
foreign affairs. I study films with stories from, for example, China, Cambodia, theEastern Bloc, the United States and Great Britain to read a shift towardcosmopolitanism as part of a campaign to refresh the global image of the country. As
Tom Gunning has noted, ‘Foreign news portrays not only a distant land but aparticular point of view.’3 I aim to explore how Svilova, first, took what was
unfamiliar to audiences and made it familiar, representing it in a way that reflected
the Soviet Union’s evolving foreign policy, and, second, took the already familiar andmade it more familiar, a process that challenges our understanding of ‘foreignness’and encourages a thorough investigation of its semantic scope.

Chapter Five readdresses my main findings in the previous three chapters. It
provides an opportunity to collate the observations I have made concerning Svilova’s
techniques and suggests how, and to what extent, she contributed to her artistic field.
I also re-engage with the limitations placed on Svilova’s status and the reasons why
her career has been misunderstood. I conclude with some comments on what I
believe a study of Svilova can teach us about the relationship between cinema andhistory, and the means of identifying a creative voice within broader socio-politicalprocesses. This line of enquiry opens up a discussion on the potential for further
research within the field of documentary film.

11

12

Chapter 1:
The Context of Svilova’s Career

Svilova’s life and career – an overview
The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow holds a number of
documents pertaining to Svilova’s life and films. Some of the material was written by
Svilova herself, comprising shot lists, scenarios and what she titles ‘Autobiographies’
in which she maps her professional life.1 Svilova drafted a number of theseautobiographies throughout her career, with each version adding recent projects andexpanding on earlier ones. The intended purpose of these texts is unclear, though
they might have been written to secure employment, similar to a CV. Svilova’s lastand most complete autobiography was written at a time very close to her death in
1975, which suggests that her intention for this one at least was to serve as an
obituary. In addition to her autobiographies, there are a number of other sources thatprovide additional information about her life. Annette Michelson includes a footnote
in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov,2 Masha Enzenberger wrote an entry on
Svilova in The Women’s Companion to International Film,3 Gwendolyn Foster contributed
a piece on her in Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary,4 and Peter13

Rollberg has written a sketch in Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema.5 The
following biography is drawn mainly from these sources.

Very little is known about Svilova’s ancestry and early life. Existing accounts agree
that she was born on 5 September, 1900, into what she describes as the family of arailwayman who later died in the Russian Civil War. The obscurity of Svilova’sbackground is not helped by the confusion that surrounds her first steps into theindustry. In her final autobiography, Svilova states that she started working in a film
laboratory in 1912, cleaning the film and aiding the selection of positives andnegatives. However, the exact date fluctuates between 1911 and 1913 in previous
drafts. Also, in her 1923 letter to LEF (abbreviated from Left Front of the Arts, ajournal for the Soviet avant-garde community) Svilova claims that her career began in
1910.6 Enzensberger proposes 1914, asserting that Svilova starts work for the Pathé
brothers in Moscow.7 Rollberg concurs, though he is able to elaborate and defines
her role as a cutter and photo printer.8 In this context, it is useful to remember that
Svilova was born in 1900 so, whether she commenced her role in 1910 or 1914, sheis extraordinarily young to begin a career in the film industry. The information does
not confirm if Svilova carried out these early roles on a full-time or part-time basis,but it is logical to assume that her school education suffered to some extent.
Nevertheless, she states that she graduated from an all-girls secondary, and her letter
to LEF indicates that she was literate, perhaps unexpectedly, considering her workcommitments and that in the 1910s less than half of all female pupils who completed
full-time education at aged sixteen were able to read and write.9 Svilova claims that,by 1914, she was already an established editor, working regularly with Vladimir
Gardin (1877-1965), a pioneering pre-revolutionary director and actor, and once with
Vsevolod Meyerhold on The Picture of Dorian Gray (Portret Doryana Greya, 1915).
14

In 1918 Svilova moved to Narkompros, in her words to ‘nationalise the film industry’.
She remained there until 1922, managing a film warehouse where the negatives,
positives and reels were stored. During Svilova’s employment at Narkompros, theSoviet film industry entered a formative phase, its rapid growth attracting theattention of studio authorities to the potential of the moving image as a powerful
ideological tool. VFKO (the All-Russian Photo-Cine Department) took control of
the newly-nationalised film industry in 1919.10 As a result of its recommendations,
Sovnarkom, the Council of People’s Commissars, established the first centralised
state cinema organisation, Goskino.11 Although Goskino was a state initiative, it was
still expected to be self-financing – Vladimir Lenin had ‘an inner conviction of thegreat profitability of cinema if only it could be put on the right footing’.12 The
profitability to which Lenin referred was not limited to finance but encompassed thepotential winning of minds. By 1922 Svilova was managing the editing workshop at
Goskino. It is during this period that she began to collate all existing film material of
Lenin in preparation for a filmic tribute.13 Under the instruction of Grigori
Boltyanksy, a Lenin film enthusiast, Svilova not only collected the footage but in thepresence of Lenin selected the negatives for inclusion.14 The film reached audiencesin 1923 in the guise of a special edition of the newsreel, Goskino Calendar(Goskinokalendar´), directed by Vertov.15

This film was not the first on which Svilova and Vertov collaborate. They had firstmet in 1919 when Svilova agreed to edit The Battle for Tsaritsyn (Boi pod Tsaritsynom,
1919), a film Vertov had shot on the frontline of the Civil War. Svilova describes thisexperience in Dziga Vertov in the Memories of his Contemporaries, in which she implies
that none of the other editors would work with Vertov due to his eccentricity andrevolutionary ideas.16 In her 1923 letter to LEF, Svilova notes that she wrote to15

Vertov with a request to involve her in his work. Her letter, titled ‘To the Council ofThree: An Application’, was a formal appeal to be acknowledged as a permanent
member of Vertov’s filmmaking crew, then made up of Vertov, Mikhail Kaufman
and Ivan Beliakov, otherwise known as the Council of Three. It is difficult to believethat a public request was necessary, given Svilova’s acquaintance with Vertov; in fact,
they had married sometime in 1923 and thus were very well acquainted when theletter was published. Therefore, the letter was likely a publicity stunt orchestrated by
Svilova and Vertov to provide exposure of their work and to raise awareness of theircommitment to documentary cinema. The letter first outlines the general lack ofconcern studio filmmakers were showing to the potential of editing. Svilova implies
that creativity played such a minor role during the post-production stage that she
could edit direct from the script, aware that no artistic decisions would be made once
the film was shot.17 She continues the letter by criticising the industry’s preference forfiction production, demanding that more attention be paid to newsreels and ‘aspectsof realism’. The final section of her article lauds the Council of Three for its CinePravda (Kinopravda) series, celebrating its comprehension and editing structures.
Svilova’s interest in this particular series of newsreels is not surprising, considering
her passion for documentary realism and the commitment to authenticity the films
symbolise. They represent the embryonic stage of Vertov’s Kino-eye aesthetic, onethat he believed captured on celluloid the true essence of art and life.

In 1924, shortly after Lenin’s death, Svilova recommenced gathering all documentary
footage of his life. She assembled the footage with Vertov and together they madeCine-Pravda no.21 (1925) and Cine-Pravda no.22 (1925). Her autobiography states thatthese films served to ‘chronicle the current and historical production of film’, which
was perhaps a way for her to articulate or acknowledge the ability of cinema to16

preserve history. It is important to note that in the same year, 1924, Goskino wasreborn as Sovkino.18 The change came with the incentive to strengthen ideologicalcontrol by introducing censorship of screenplays and instituting rules for film
reviews in central media. Sovkino was also given a monopoly on importing foreign
films to the Soviet Union.19 Despite the Central Committee’s efforts to force
filmmakers into a Bolshevik, proletarian mould, it was unwilling to finance all film
production and distribution.20 State film organisations were forced to manoeuvre
between ideology and the market. It is appropriate, then, that Svilova’s film
assignments during this time of oscillation were inherently pro-party. She assisted
Vertov in the production of Kino-Eye (Kinoglaz, 1924), The First October without Il´ich(Pervyi Oktiabr´ bez Il´icha, 1925) and A Sixth Part of the World (Shestaia chast´ mira,1926), which all emphasise industrial and social progress, and Forward, Soviet! (Shagai,
Sovet, 1926), a film that simultaneously alludes to the misery of the pre-revolutionary
era while casting an eye of optimism on the country’s socialist future.

In 1928 the Soviet Union moved away from the liberalism of the New Economic
Policy toward a system of social relations that radically changed the film industry;
consequently, a number of directives were passed to reduce altogether the making ofentertainment films and instead expand the production of propaganda.21 In 1929
Soyuzkino took responsibility from Sovkino, overseeing all state studios, distribution
centres and the cinema circuit.22 Cinema, therefore, became the most controlled of all
the arts. By this time, Vertov and Svilova are working in Kiev. Vertov’s repeatedattacks on conventional Soviet newsreels and other non-fiction films for their lack ofrealism provoked controversies with his colleagues, which eventually led to his
dismissal from Sovkino in 1927 and to his acceptance of an invitation to work for the
All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration (VUFKU).23 Svilova, as his partner and17

collaborator, went with him. It was there, with relative freedom to express
themselves creatively, that Vertov and Svilova produced a number of significant films.
The Eleventh Year (Odinnadtsatyi, 1928) and Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s
kinoapparatom, 1929) exemplify the level to which Vertov, as director, and Svilova, asassistant director and editor, had developed their artistry. From the exploration ofmontage to the design of live-recorded soundscapes, Vertov and Svilova’s years at
the VUFKU were arguably the most critically acclaimed of their collaboration.
Svilova states that, from 1930, she began teaching editing techniques, particularly theediting of sound, at the Lenin Institute and assisted Vertov in the production of
Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbas (Entuziazm: Simfoniia Donbassa, 1930), the first
Soviet documentary sound film. In 1932 she started preparations for their next film,
Three Songs of Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine, 1934), carrying out research by night while
teaching during the day.

Three Songs of Lenin was produced by Mezhrabpom.24 Mezhrabpom was a successfulstudio, consistently making profits that were wisely reinvested in the company’s
expanding production schedule; particular emphasis was given to lavishentertainment films in genres such as comedy and science fiction.25 To advance thecommercial performance of its films, Mezhrabpom became the first Soviet film
organisation to establish a publicity department that vigorously promoted its
productions. The envy of the other studios, by 1929 Mezhrabpom had raised its
annual production levels from four features and eight documentaries to sixteen
features and twenty-three documentaries.26 Its rise in documentary production led tothe studio’s employment of Vertov and Svilova at some point between 1930 and
1931, by which time it was in a far healthier condition than the state-initiated studios;in fact, as early as 1926, Soviet film journalist, Alexander Dubrovsky, observed that18

the state studios were suffering immensely due to their frivolous spending and failure
to understand the preferences of their audiences. Dubrovsky stated that ‘the greatest
attention needs to be given to themes that reflect our everyday life, the reality thatsurrounds us, and that give us the opportunity to make broad use of exteriors.’27 He
cited Vertov and Svilova’s A Sixth of the World as a benchmark for future productions.
Excerpts from Vertov’s diary indicate that the shooting, editing and promotion ofThree Songs of Lenin lasts all of 1933 and 1934.28 Vertov spent 1935 struggling against
illness before the couple commenced the production of Lullaby (Kolybel´naia, 1937),
their first film for Soiuzkinokhronika.29

Soiuzkinokhronika marked an important transition for Svilova. Here, her roledeveloped from Vertov’s assistant director to his co-director, jointly producing Glory
to the Soviet Heroines (Slava sovetskim geroiniam, 1938) and Three Heroines (Tri geroinia,
1938), and from 1939 she began to direct independently. It is not known whether
Svilova actively sought autonomy from Vertov to follow her ambitions of becoming
a director in her own right or whether it was a mutual decision to help distance herfrom the prejudice aimed at Vertov and save her career. Entries in Vertov’s diary,
which signpost his gradual alienation from the industry, suggest the latter. Whilereferences such as ‘a creative project remains a project if we’re denied the conditions
for its realisation … I’m making every effort to begin work but so far I’ve been met
with extreme caution … The most terrible enemy of progress is prejudice – it
impedes and blocks the path of development’30 all point to his frustration, he also
notes as early as 1934 that Svilova was at the time being denied recognition for her
work because of the Central Committee’s vendetta against him.31 It is clear that
Vertov believed his notoriety was damaging Svilova’s reputation and hindering her
future prospects.
19

The vendetta was related to the stringent policies of the Central Committee that
aimed to reduce all tendencies in art to a single one and mobilise its entire
bureaucratic apparatus to institutionalise its own truth; documentary filmmakers wereencouraged to replace avant-garde aestheticism with commemorations to Stalin,
serving to cement his personality cult in the minds of the audience members. While
not the only factor in the demise of the avant-garde, the cinematic forms ofdynamism that challenged audiences increasingly elicited close attention from theauthorities. Man with a Movie Camera was subject to particularly harsh criticism,
condemned for ‘propagandising opinions that had nothing in common with theviews of the Soviet people’.32 It can be argued that the Central Committee’s
mounting suspicion of the avant-garde, repudiating the formalism and futurist
aesthetic that underscored the 1920s montage era, was encapsulated in its wariness of
Vertov. Behind its criticism lay a strengthening conviction that he represented adangerous and unacceptable challenge to the Central Committee’s imperatives forcinema. The official criticism of his work and suppression of his numerous creativeplans led to the alienation that most likely prompted Svilova’s departure. Offers ofwork diminished and he faced depression and physical illness. The prohibition on
avant-garde film confirmed that socialist realism was accepted as the only ‘correct’
way of disseminating art and culture.

As an independent director-editor, Svilova’s output rapidly increased; between 1939
and 1940 she directed films including In Transport (O transporte), for an American trade
exhibition, Greater Force (Bol´shaia sila), Roof of the World (Krysha mira), River Chusovaya(Reka Chusovaia) and Learn about Collective Farms (V kolxoze vse uchatsia). These films
focus on the growth of domestic industries such as agriculture and trade, what
Svilova describes in one of her autobiographies as ‘the good and excellent aspects of20

Soviet life’. In 1941 she relocates to Kazakhstan. At the Alma-Ata studio she directs
Soviet Kazakhstan (Sovetskie Kazakhstan, 1942) and Banner of Victory (Znamia pobedy,1943); the latter, co-directed with Vertov, indicates that their professional separation
is not clear-cut – they take this opportunity to direct together one last time. In 1944
Soiuzkinokhronika became the Central Studio for Documentary Film.33 By then it
had more than twenty divisions collecting newsreel material from across the Soviet
Union and its output amounted to seventeen per cent of all film production.34At theCentral Studio for Documentary Film, Svilova cemented her status as a directoreditor. She began directing episodes of News of the Day (Novosti dnia) in 1944, directing
sixty-nine episodes until 1956 on an intermittent basis to coincide with her otherprojects for the studio, such as Oświęcim, Atrocities and Born by a Storm (Rozhdennye
burei), all produced in 1945. That year, Svilova also directed Berlin with Yuli Raizman,
for which they received the highest award, a State Prize of the first degree. In 1946
Svilova directed Parade of Youth (Parad molodosti) and Judgement of the Nations (Sudnarodov), the latter in collaboration with Roman Karmen. Svilova continued to focus
on News of the Day in the post-war years, directing only a handful of documentaries
such as International Democratic Federation of Women (Mezhdunarodnaia demokraticheskaia
federatsia zhenshchin, 1947), International Democratic Federation of Women in Paris(Mezhdunarodnaia demokraticheskaia federatsia zhenshchin v Parizhe, 1948), Yangtze River (Poreke Iantszy, 1950) and two Pioneer (Pioneriia) newsreel episodes in 1952. In 1954
Vertov died of stomach cancer and Svilova’s output drastically diminished after his
death. She directed three episodes of Foreign Newsreel (Inostrannaia kinoхronika) in 1956
before retiring from full-time work later that year.

While in Alma-Ata, Svilova met filmmaker, Serafima Pumpyanskaya. In 2002
Pumpyanskaya shared some memories of Svilova in an interview with Yevgeni
21

Tsymbal.35 She recalls that Svilova would often assist uncredited with the editing of
Vertov’s films as a past-time, even though she was always in demand from otherdirectors. She also reveals that Svilova and Vertov lived without money, despite theirrelative prominence, and in the later years stretched Svilova’s humble income to buy
what they needed on a day-to-day basis. Regarding their relationship, Pumpyanskayaclaims that, in Svilova, Vertov had a partner who fully understood him, relieved hisanxieties in times of stress, and displayed genuine love and respect for his work. It
comes as little surprise, then, that Svilova reacted poorly to the public denunciationof Vertov in March 1949 at an open party meeting held at the Central Studio forDocumentary Film. Orchestrated by the Central Committee, and led by the Deputy
Minister of Cinema, Visili Shcherbina – who incidentally had just published an attackon ‘aestheticising cosmopolitans’ in the official film journal, Art of Cinema – themeeting aimed to ostracise Vertov once and for all by collating the various
accusations and suspicions directed at him since the mid-1930s.36 Filmmakers
including Roman Karmen; director and cameraman, Vladimir Eshurin; director andscreenwriter, Nicholas Sadkovich; cameraman, Solomon Cohen; and director, Leonid
Kristi, were prompted to pass judgement on his formalist methods. Fearing thecurtailment of their own careers, they largely spoke negatively of him. Vertov was left
with no choice but to apologise and, until his death in February 1954, accept
gratefully any film assignment he was offered.

After Svilova had cared for Vertov during the three-month fight with cancer that led
to his death, she dedicated the rest of her life to building his legacy, taking his andtheir films on exhibitions to countries such as the German Democratic Republic andFrance. In the final years of her life, she toured Europe with the re-edited version ofThree Songs of Lenin (1969), which by then included the ten original negatives of Lenin
22

that she found in 1932, and published the book, Three Songs of Lenin (1970), on thecentenary of Lenin’s birth. Pumpyanskaya reiterates the efforts that Svilova madeafter her husband’s death to preserve his legacy. She claims that Svilova took the fateof Vertov’s status in her hands and worked tirelessly to ensure that his impact on
Soviet cinema would not be forgotten. Svilova died on 11 November, 1975, and wasburied alongside Vertov at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

Cinema as a tool of state legitimisation
My biographical sketch of Svilova’s life and career alludes to the ideological forcesthat shaped the Soviet cinema industry between the 1920s and 1950s, and Svilova’splace within it. However, given that after Svilova’s collaboration with Vertov she
worked until her retirement at the Central Studio for Documentary Film, a stateinitiated studio, it is necessary to construct a more detailed picture of the relationshipbetween the Soviet state and its cinema industry. The Central Studio forDocumentary Film produced films on behalf of the Central Committee, the highest
body of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party. The Central Committee was set up
initially by Lenin in 1912 and comprised an elite group of Bolsheviks.37 The
revolution of 1917 represented the accumulation of many years of unrest under the
Tsarist regime. Oppressed and disillusioned, the population needed change. However,while social conditions set in motion the first step of Lenin’s Marxist vision – Russia
was a country still in the early stages of capitalism, dominated by a peasantry
workforce – they severely hindered all further steps. As soon as Lenin promised themasses ‘peace, land and bread’, which signified ceasing Russia’s involvement inWorld War I, the abolition of private property and an end to widespread foodshortages, difficulties emerged, grounded largely in the incompatibility of Marxism

23

with the Tsarist structure. Lenin was aware of the deficit, declaring that, ‘Our state
apparatus is so deplorable, not to say wretched, that we must think very carefully
how to combat its defects.’38 Thus, as soon as he seized power, Lenin was faced witha problem of political legitimacy; he needed to reconcile the gap between the absenceof material production and his claim that the new state had entered a transitional
phase – euphemistically described as ‘social construction’. Jamie Miller observes that,‘In truth, the Soviet Union became a dictatorship of elite communists that would
have to endure years of gradual industrialisation before it could claim to have reached
the transition described by Marx.’39

In response to the irreconcilable gap between Lenin’s vision and the reality in which
he hoped to reify it, by the early 1920s, he and the other members of the Central
Committee had developed a defensive mentality. The Committee was unable toexplain to the educated masses why its regime did not correspond with Marxism, andthe working class was arguably indifferent to such discrepancies – all that mattered topeople was their quality of life. As Miller implies, the very existence of theCommittee, comprising elite individuals, challenged the democracy Lenin had
outlined prior to seizing power.40 There is evidence to suggest that Lenin wanted toprovide a democracy, such as the points raised in his doctrine, ‘State and Revolution’(1917); however, when he was defeated in the constituent assembly elections heclosed the assembly, banned rival parties and implemented police control. Rather
than provide the masses with the opportunity to contribute ideologically to the future
direction of the country, the Central Committee worked to legitimise itself and what
it perceived as its indispensable role. Internal structural constraints werecompounded by the uneasy relationship between the Central Committee and the rest24

of the world. Marx’s vision of a revolution was universal but the Soviet Union soon
became isolated.

The Bolsheviks chose cinema as their principal weapon in the campaign to win theminds of the masses,41 a key constituent in the Central Committee’s quest for validity:
what could be described as the frontline of political legitimacy, to train society into
new patterns of political, economic and social thought. Art was not to offer an
objective depiction of reality, but instead articulate the revolutionary ideal and serve
as a didactic tool of revolutionary rhetoric. The truthfulness of the artistic portrayal
was to be combined with the ideological remoulding and education of the labouringclasses in the spirit of socialism, designed to disseminate policies, settle unrest andeducate the masses on political issues, all while circumventing illiteracy. Lenin needed
a medium that was primarily visual in its appeal, one that could overcome differencesof language and cultural development. The fact that it was also mechanicalsymbolised progress, and it was in turn augmented as the art form of the revolution.
It conquered time and space (unlike the theatre) and offered unprecedented realism,
as one critic at the time described: ‘The actor Polonsky or the actress Kholdnaya
have died but their living smiles, every wrinkle and every breath can be seen withyour own eyes.’42 Cinema also offered the power of real movement, an allusion
encapsulated by montage that, Boris Eichenbaum argued, made more of animpression, with ‘each frame attaining its full significance only in the context of its
surrounding frames’.43

Cinema allowed audiences to develop a conscious and visual understanding of therevolution, the socialist dream and the traits of the new Soviet man and woman. It
promoted communist ideology and the reality to which it had given rise, reconciling25

the rhetoric of emancipation with the grim reality of Soviet life in the postrevolutionary era, serving to justify breakneck industrialisation, the hardships of lowliving standards and unrelenting poverty. The justification was the communist utopia
that lay ahead, reassuring the masses that their feats and sacrifices were in their own
best interests. Ultimately, then, it paid a type of ‘lip service’ while the Central
Committee worked on – or pretended to work on – closing the gap between social
reality and the utopia outlined by Marx, what Jamie Miller aptly describes as a type of‘interim legitimacy’.44 In this respect, we can argue that Soviet cinema at the time
when Svilova began her career sought to protect the communist ideal from being
exposed as, at best, unviable and, at worse, fraudulent.

Stalin and thematic planning
While Lenin respected the value of cinema in his need to legitimise the regime andmobilise the new Soviet society – he famously remarked that ‘cinema is for us themost important of all the arts’45 – it was Stalin who fully exploited its didactic
function. After he was elected the Chairman of the Central Committee in 1922, Stalin
immediately surrounded himself with personnel he could trust. In 1924, after Lenin’s
death, Stalin ruthlessly continued his rise to power, eliminating his opponents by anymeans necessary. Yet, he too recognised the inability of the Central Committee toreconcile a grandiose ideological outlook with structural constraints and solved the
problem, like Lenin, by promoting a policy of defence. The deliberate propagation of
Stalin’s personality linked all the successes of the country with his name and all the
failures with ‘enemy intrigues’, and this shaped the cult’s stereotypes in public
consciousness. The figure of Lenin was slowly marginalised into a secondary positionin the cinema mythology of the late 1920s, so much so that Three Songs of Lenin

26

‘sounded almost non-conformist’.46 The late 1920s also witnessed the collapse of the
New Economic Policy, and the change to orthodox Stalinism came in two stages: thefirst, called the Cultural Revolution, was a time when society saw a brief return of theutopian spirit of early Bolshevism, and the second was a vast change to the country’ssocial and economic structure, cruel repression and the establishment of aconservative artistic order. Filmmakers were coerced to work with principles andmethods that were best suited to Stalin’s regime. Socialist realism was imposed on all
artists, a genre that aimed to replace genuine realism with an appearance of realism,
preventing free thought and social criticism. Stalin intended to convince audiencesthat he alone could depict the world as it truly was. He argued that cinema was thegreatest means of mass agitation, stating: ‘If I can control the medium of motion
pictures, I would need nothing else in order to convert the entire world tocommunism.’47

The Central Committee held the First All-Union Party Conference in Moscow inMarch 1928 to discuss the building of a film industry that made commerciallysuccessful and politically correct films. Aleksandr Krinitsky, head of the Agitprop
Department, demanded expansion of the cinema network and an increase on thenumber of copies of each film, arguing that a healthy economic and ideologicalindustry was dependent upon films ‘comprehensible to millions’.48 His closing speechoutlined what needed to change: a more distinguished talent base, greater
comprehension among the film-going public and closer supervision of the studios.49
Other reports, by Party members such as Konstantin Shvedchikov, Ivan Smirnov
and Vladimir Meshcheryakov followed suit; for example, proposing initiatives toreach audiences in the countryside. Rural populations were forced to join collective
farms and buy projectors. Consequently, from 1928 to 1940 the number of27

installations quadrupled and the number of sold tickets tripled.50 R. Pikel wrote in
April 1928 that the conference had not only been a turning point in outlining
logistical policies, which had let to a degree of self-sufficiency by producing its own
film stock and other screening equipment, but had cemented the importance oftightening ideological control, as Krinitsky’s had hoped: ‘It [the conference] gave
clear directives to cinema organisations on the strengthening of the political andideological heights … cinema will become a powerful weapon of education andorganisation of the masses.’51

As a result of the conference, in 1928 the industry became subject to thematicplanning. The plans were a vital process by which Stalin sought to mobilise cinema
through the integration of Central Committee directives and harness it toward thegoals of the regime.52 To a great extent, they coincided with government campaigns
and concerns at a given time, allowing the Central Committee to determine fully thethematic coverage of every Soviet film. The two main priorities were to produce
films that would deal with the long-term origins and existence of the regime andfilms that would legitimise current government policies or campaigns in a given
area.53

By engaging with the films, each viewer would not only be able to keep up-to-datewith the ongoing fluctuations to the Soviet Union’s domestic policies andinternational relations; more importantly, each viewer understood how he or she was
expected to respond emotionally to the developments. The Central Committee
believed that planning production, distribution and exchange would ensure a fair
distribution of resources. However, the application of planning was not only
confined to economic matters but applied also to controlling the content of cultural
28

production. For cinema to follow the path outlined at the party conference in 1928, it
too would be subject to planning. Planning methodology was based on the so-called‘direct order’ system, whereby a combination of political figures and cinema
administration bureaucrats would compile a list of priority thematic areas relating to
the pertinent and topical political issues and distribute them to media agencies.54 In
the case of cinema, the thematic plan was drawn up by the Central Committee andsent to the cinema administration. Acting as the first measure of quality control in
the production process, the plan designated a particular quantity of films that needed
to be produced each year and the themes that were to be covered in each one. The
precise detail of the plan would usually be discussed by the cinema administration’s
artistic council, which consisted of artistic and bureaucratic members of cinemaorganisations and studios, as well as representatives of the film industry and the press.
These themes would be elaborated upon, before the studios received an order tomake a certain quantity of films on, for example, developments in the transportindustry, international relations or the new Soviet woman. The studio would then be
given the responsibility of assigning the most reliable scriptwriter and director tofulfil each project. After 1931, thematic planning became subject to increasing
control from the Central Committee and the cinema administration,55 indicating that
opportunities for filmmakers to reify their own visions were largely non-existent.
Instead, the plans intended to narrow down thematic possibilities, preventing
filmmakers from skirting less popular themes.

The process was developed in 1932 when scriptwriters and directors were introduced
to the formulation of planning. As it was recognised that artists were not necessarily
familiar with the intricate demands of state policy, filmmakers received rigoroustraining, though the ideological aspects of the plans were still determined by the29

Central Committee.56 This means that, throughout the 1930s and beyond, filmmakers
were aware that they had to submit proposals and ideas which would at least appear
to legitimise the regime and meet its political demands, and any attempts to work
beyond the narrow confines of the thematic plan were severely punished. Jamie
Miller outlines the eventual planning process as follows: first, the draft plan was sent
for discussion to union meetings and literary organisations; second, studio personnel
made any required changes and considered whether the plan could be implemented;
third, the cinema administration would give its confirmation of the plan; and fourth,the official censorship body of cinema, the GRK,57 approved each plan.58 The
agitprop department of the Central Committee offered recommendations at any
given time during this process. From 1933 the Central Committee’s Department ofOrganisation (Orgburo) began to get more involved in the debates and criticisms of
the plans. It established a new centralised cinema commission that controlled all film
projects from the script stage through to distribution. On 7 July, 1933, the Orgburo
issued its own decree that stated: ‘Not one theme can be put into production without
being viewed by this commission.’59 In December 1934 the commission was
dissolved and its responsibilities were handed to the Central Committee’s
Department of Cultural Enlightenment.60

The ideological and organisational influence of the plans was discussed at annual
thematic planning conferences, which began in 1931 and were attended by seniorCentral Committee members. Every year the conference would examine issues suchas genre, the effectiveness of the script work and the efficiency of the production
process. It was crucial that studios did not attempt to take scripts into production
before a complete version had been authorised by the Central Committee. This was30achieved by the strict control of film stock, which would only be issued once acomplete and final draft of the script had been approved.

From the late 1930s the Central Committee started to issue decrees authorising thefinal version of each annual plan.61 These steps ensured that the Committee could
supervise the thematic coverage of every film produced in the Soviet Union. They
coincided in 1937 with the placing of special commissions within scenario
department to oversee the writing process.62 Thematic planning, then, represented
the principal means by which Stalin engaged cinema in the building of the Soviet
socialist empire; it safeguarded the creation of films that would defend and legitimise
current government policies. Several films were included in thematic plans thatsought to show ordinary people they had become empowered through the revolution;that the Soviet system was based on mass participation, the sharing of power andresources, and the establishment of a fair human existence.63 The films were evidence
that the members of the Central Committee had the same concerns, ambitions andfears as any Soviet citizen. As Jamie Miller describes, ‘The rulers and the ruled
supposedly merged into a mythical and glorious single entity.’64 By the 1940s, stricter
procedures were in place as a means of making the plans more effective. It wassuggested that the plans should include precise characteristics of ideological thematic
material. A clear correlation of genres was established, as were ‘indicators of anartistic-ideological quality’ such as ‘class steadfastness’.65 The price paid for suchideological investment was a slowing down of production during the last years of
Stalin’s life, almost to the point of standstill and paralysis in the cinema profession.
Ivan Bolshakov, who had served as the head of Soviet cinema since 1939, wrote in1951 that ‘the advancement of young directors has been at a standstill for the pastten to fifteen years.’66
31

As a result of the plans and the increasingly stringent requirements on filmmakers,
the industry stopped growing throughout the 1930s and 1940s; only a handful offoreign films were exhibited and the number of domestically produced films
declined.67 The plans effectively censored certain subjects, and filmmakers – with theCentral Committee as co-author – were expected to produce films that were essential
for maintaining Stalin’s regime in its given form. As socialist realism became the only
approved aesthetic, more and more precise stipulations as to what constituted an
acceptable story were put in place, resulting in a severe shortage of usable scripts andscenarios. If directors were given a measure of freedom, the Committee feared thatthey would experiment and regress back to the formalist montage of the 1920s.
Instead, the director was supervised to ensure that he or she followed the script. On
the occasions when the director was found to have digressed from the script, the film
was shelved. With film stock and other production costs wasted, Soviet filmmaking
during the Stalin era was largely an economically unviable practice.

The decline of film production was also a result of the purging of cinema officials,
which led to the constant reorganisation of the industry. Although Stalin had nounderstanding of the filmmaking process, he treated cinema as a significant facet of
his regime, certain that it possessed great power, and was swift in ousting any
members of staff who he perceived to have failed in their role. He was also the chief
censor: ‘From the mid-1930s … he personally viewed and approved every film
exhibited in the Soviet Union.’68 Yet, it was not only the writing and production
stages under strict supervision; film distribution was also subject to stringent policy.
Every year the GUKF published a catalogue of all the films and newsreels that wereallowed to be screened and those that were banned. The ownership of projectors was
also controlled – each one had to be registered with the film distributions service,32

Soyuzkinoprokat.69 The plans, together with their expensive and time-consuming
processes, suggest that the Central Committee spared no effort to prevent the
production, distribution and exhibition of works that it considered ideologicallyquestionable.

In the early 1950s, as Stalin withdrew from the real world, his view of the Soviet
Union and beyond became influenced by the films he viewed and censored. Peter
Kenez argues that, in doing so, he was deceived by his own lies.70 Stalin did notfeature in many films himself, preferring instead to be depicted ‘by a tall andhandsome actor’,71 and his presence was instead felt in tributes to the themes of his
regime. However, Stalin’s shaping of Soviet cinema toward the overarching theme oflegitimacy and totemic power meant that films which could not plausibly
accommodate him in their subjects were made to echo his chosen motifs. News of the
Day no.53 (Svilova, 1953), for example, features a story that exhibits the State
Museum of Oriental Culture in Moscow, which was documented as part of the SinoSoviet rhetoric. The museum was seized after the revolution and was used toencourage the spread of socialist power in the Far East.72 Instead of legitimising theneed for constant surveillance, the story reinforces to the audience that suchmethods of control were a fabric of its society. Svilova’s coverage of the museum
focuses on the images of Stalin and Mao that pervade the walls and architecture.
Portraits and tapestries of the leaders hang in between the display cabinets of exotic
vases and urns. Their collective cult of personality enjoys a new level of intensity inwhich the leaders, Stalin in particular, are hailed as artwork themselves; extreme
close-up shots of their facial features suggest that they are worthy of the same
reverence and critical examination as the ornaments surrounding them. Yet, thenature of these shots does not only evoke adoration in the viewer – the film’s
33

audience is invited alongside the museum goers to perceive Stalin’s image as art – but
also fear. One shot holds on an extreme close-up of Stalin’s unblinking eyes,reminiscent of George Orwell’s Big Brother scrutinising the population of Oceania
through its telescreens. Svilova has carefully chosen which artworks to feature,
selecting those that most lucidly refer to the Sino-Soviet pact; the narratives
contained within each painting prompts in the viewer’s mind a vision of unity.
Eliminating the need to declare outright the countries’ budding comradeship, Svilova
assembles a montage of portraits depicting scenes of Sino-Soviet fraternity. The final
portrait illustrates a factory production line on which both Chinese and Soviet
workers toil. Behind the production line portraits of Stalin and Mao hang on pillars.
The portrait implies that industrialisation is dependent on socialist harmony but,
more importantly, it reminds audiences that they are under permanent supervision,an autocratic scare tactic designed to preserve absolute control.

The presence of Stalin in the story is so formidable one might find it difficult tobelieve that he had died approximately six months prior to the newsreel’s release.
From the Central Committee’s perspective, the story served two functions: to inform
Soviet audiences of burgeoning relations in the Far East and to safeguard social
stability by drawing on the fear incited by Stalin’s image while members of theCentral Committee jostled to become his replacement. The ramifications of Stalin’s
death are evident in Svilova’s newsreels throughout the remainder of 1953 and those
produced in 1954. News of the Day no.60 (1954), for example, contains a story about
the Soviet youth ice hockey team, reporting that the team had beaten Poland byseven goals to one. The victory itself was not necessarily deemed a newsworthy event.
The Soviet Union’s senior team had won the World Championships earlier that year,
which was a huge achievement considering it was the country’s debut in the34

tournament; yet, this story was not to my knowledge documented in any newsreel.
The youth match becomes significant once it is placed in the appropriate politicalcontext. Kathleen Cioffi, in her analysis of the effect of socialism on Polish theatre in
the 1950s, explains that the aftermath of Stalin’s death witnessed Polish independent
movements repudiating plans for the systematic Sovietisation of their state andinstead called for de-Stalinisation.73 In response, it was crucial for the reorganised
Central Committee to reassure the masses that the Soviet Union’s dominance oversubordinate communist countries was to continue despite resistance. It was not until
1957, a year after Svilova’s retirement, when steps were taken by Khrushchev toapprove a filmmakers’ union, advised in part by Mikhail Romm, a director andproponent of artistic freedom.74

In the past section I have provided one of the major contexts for Svilova’s career,
namely the Central Committee’s ideological objective to bestow legitimacy to thestate and disseminate its policies through the medium of cinema. During the time ofher career, cinema was understood as a tool to mobilise and persuade the masses of
the righteousness of the regime and to instruct them of their duty to participate in
the realisation of Marx’s communist utopia. In other words, by the time Svilova
commenced her independent career in 1939, there was an established structure ofideological control in place that provided her with the subjects for documentationand the themes she was to emphasise in each story. The following section on film
aesthetics and semiotics explains how Svilova adhered to this format of production.
First, however, it is necessary to engage in more detail with Svilova’s role as adirector-editor.

35

Identifying Svilova’s artistic contribution
As the role of a director-editor is complex, it is important to outline the methodology
behind identifying Svilova’s contribution to her films. Alison McMahan saw thepredicament of attribution as the major challenge to her research into the films of
Alice Guy Blaché, a filmmaker who was widely considered the first female director of
the Hollywood studio system: ‘Given the length and breadth of Guy’s career and thevariety of roles she played within the industry, how is one to approach the body offilms labelled as “hers”? Indeed, which films do we say are hers – the films she wrote,
the films she directed, the films she produced, or all of the above?’75 McMahan raises
an interesting point: the vocabulary we employ to assign work is not always
sufficiently explicit.

Although capitalist forces require film studios to place certain restraints or demands
on a director, it is still universally understood that the director has controlled thefunctions of expression and communication of a film, and, in Paisley Livingston’s
words, exercised control over any collaborators.76 This account of film authorship,
however, cannot be readily applied to a director-editor such as Svilova. While she too
was employed by a film studio, and answerable to its hierarchy of management, what
separates Svilova from traditional notions of authorship is in the collection of the
footage: even the films for which she is credited as the director-editor, as far as weknow, Svilova did not travel to shooting locations, allowing her no control over what
was shot or how it was shot. Instead, camera operators documented events
unsupervised and sent the material to the studio. It was at this point, when thematerial arrived at the studio, that Svilova became involved in the process. She would
have viewed the rushes and then, having chosen the shots that were to be included in36the film, cut them together to narrate a story that legitimised the regime. It can beargued that this process of film production was not exclusive to the Soviet Union.
Studios outside the country would have operated using similar methods, particularly
during the war years, but these methods are now archaic. A contemporary
documentary filmmaker will have far more control over his or her film, by personallyshooting the material or by supervising camera operators on location.

Although Svilova did not direct camera operators, she used her experience andprowess to select the appropriate shots and create meaning through theirarrangement. Therefore, my identification of Svilova’s contribution is dependent on
the principle of editorial power – the belief that an editor can guide an audience andits emotions. Editors perform with different hues of expression, meaning, camera
angle, shading, camera movement, emphasis and perspective. Eventually all are
blended into the final impression. Joe Hutshing argues that, ‘Editing is like painting
but there is a limited palette ... Editors work with the shots they have, yet there is an
infinite variety within that palette.’77 Carol Littleton concurs, theorising that thesuccess of editing depends upon finding the right combination within the palette: ‘An
editor must understand all the tools that they have at their disposal – image size;
quickness of the cut; using camera moves; juggling the sequence of events; staying
with the linear sequence without interrupting the action; and cross cutting.’78 Svilova
performs a unifying function of sorts; responsible for the overall aesthetic, pace andform of her films. My analysis of Svilova’s contribution, to her films and to Soviet
documentary cinema, takes place within these parameters.

While Soviet documentary cinema was not unique in its processes, it can be argued
that the tendency of Soviet filmmakers to theorise editing in the formative years of37

the genre – ideas that are still today very much at the root of film form – sets apart
the Soviet experience from other national cinemas. An understanding of this historyis vital in order to appreciate the role Svilova played and identify her contribution. I
have already outlined how Vertov and Svilova’s collaboration began and ended, but it
is necessary here to analyse Svilova’s contribution as the editor of their films. This
contribution is in some respects relatively simple to understand: many of Vertov’s
films are hailed as masterpieces for the ingenuity of their montage sequences, andthis does not refer only to their ideological intelligence (for which Vertov should
largely be credited) but the physical skill involved in their construction. Graham
Roberts describes Man with a Movie Camera as ‘an essential example of montage’79 andBirgit Beumers regards it as ‘probably the best documentary of the 1920s’, owing to
how it ‘joins images of the life in a Soviet city in a fast-paced montage, whilst also
cutting to other sites that offer an extension of time and space’.80 Man with a Movie
Camera utilises every resource of editorial and cinematographic manipulation available
to create a portrait of ‘life caught unawares’ on a typical day across four cities of theSoviet Union. For Vertov and Svilova, it represented a departure from being
documentarians to becoming cine-poets, creating a type of self-reflexive or metacinema where the very analysis of movement becoming an act of montage, as did theentire filmmaking process.

The basis of Beumers’s passion for the film appears as much to do with its technicalqualities as it does Vertov’s development of film as an art form. She suggests that‘the sequence where he splices frames to collapse the Bolshoi Theatre, the fortress of
tradition, demonstrates powerfully the potential of the cinematic image.’81 This
statement is an example of how Svilova’s contribution to the partnership is, albeit I
expect inadvertently, undermined. While Vertov may have instructed Svilova of his
38aim for this particular sequence, it was undoubtedly Svilova’s skills as an editor thatmade it the success it became, likewise countless other sequences in Man with a Movie
Camera and elsewhere. Yuri Tsivian argues that ‘Svilova made Vertov’s montage
madness a reality,’ a clear indication of her role in reifying Vertov’s abstract
theorisations.82

Editing was a key component of Vertov’s Kino-eye manifesto. He stated that: ‘We
attribute a completely different significance to editing and regard it as theorganisation of the visible world.’83 He later stated that ‘Kino-eye uses every possiblemeans in montage, comparing and linking all points of the universe in any temporalorder, breaking, when necessary, all the laws and conventions of film construction. Itmeans organising film fragments into a film object, writing something cinematic withthe recorded shots,’84 what he later summarised in one word, Kinochestvo: the art oforganising the necessary movements of objects in space as a rhythmical artistic whole,in harmony with the properties of the material and the internal rhythm of eachobject.85 Vertov separates editing into distinctive categories: during observation; after
observation; during filming; after filming; by sight; and final editing.86 At the very
least Svilova was responsible for the final edit. At this stage, she reveals minor
themes and reconciles them with the major ones; reorganises the footage into thebest sequence to bring out the core of the film-object; coordinates similar elements
and calculates the montage groupings.87 According to Vertov:

The continuous shifting of the pieces until all are placed in arhythmical order such that all links of meaning coincide withvisual linkage. As the final result of these mixings, shifts,
cancellations, we obtain a visual equation, a visual formula, as itwere. This formula, this equation, obtained as a result of thegeneral montage of the recorded film documents is a 100 per
cent film-object.’88

39

Man with a Movie Camera was the culmination of a decade’s experimentation. By thetime Svilova began her collaboration with Vertov in 1921, he was already established
as a prolific documentary filmmaker, producing agitational films (‘agitki’) to exhibit
across the Soviet Union on agit-trains, a means of exporting the news of therevolution to the Eastern regions. His film experiments were actively encouraged by
the Central Committee and he began to gather around him a group of filmmakers
who came to call themselves ‘kinocs’ (cine-eyes), of which we know Svilova became
an integral member. Vertov believed in the absolute ability of the cinema apparatus
to reproduce the facts of life and in the necessity of editing to arrange this reality into
an expressive whole. Between 1922 and 1925 the kinocs produced twenty-threeissues of Cine-Pravda to experiment with Kino-eye. The newsreels comprise a numberof progressive montage techniques, such as trick photography, multiple exposure,candid camera and animation.

In 1926 Svilova edited two feature-length documentaries for Vertov, Forward, Soviet!
and A Sixth Part of the World, for which she was also credited as the assistant director.
While this credit is fairly unhelpful in terms of specifying Svilova’s contribution to
the directorial responsibilities, it represents at the very least a concrete symbol of her
progression in the partnership. Forward, Soviet! was constructed from newsreel
footages and aimed to show how the Soviet Union had been transformed by
Bolshevism. Svilova constructs ‘a highly coherent narrative that uses a number offlashbacks from the normality of the present to the chaos of the civil war’,89
organising the ‘seemingly random footage into a strict system’.90 Aleksandr Fevralsky
wrote at the time of the film’s release that ‘the film shows high technical expertise ...
the intertitles increase its emotional effect, which is due in the main to theremarkably rhythmical quality of the montage.’91 In addition to her perception of40

time in the film, she finds inventive ways of introducing and structuring factual
material through rhetoric. She uses what Jeremy Hicks describes as a ‘from … to’
structure, in which ruined houses or factories are contrasted with newly built homes
and full-tilt production.92 Images become not solely an illustration but evidence in anargument. Svilova allows Vertov to assert rather than illustrate, to demonstrate theincredible power of documentary film to persuade and exhort. The capacity of thefilm’s montage sequences to influence audience emotion was noted in acontemporary review,93 as was the seamlessness with which Svilova moves from one
event to another: ‘the most amazing montage, magnificently linking all the sequences
into a single monolithic film in which you have absolutely no sense of interruption.’94

We know that Svilova was closely supervised by Vertov in her assembling of this film.
Vladimir Korolevich, who interviewed Svilova about her contribution to Forward,
Soviet!, recalls that she started to laugh and said, ‘We all work ... the cameramen shootwhat they see, life ... I connect it up according to instructions ... we are all together,
united by a single thought.’95 Using rhetoric to create lists, for example, is evident infilms Svilova did not edit – an allusion to Vertov’s influence – as is the combinationof archive and new footage, but it can be argued that Svilova’s talent enables her todevelop these techniques. The final sequence of the film, in which an orator in aworking man’s club celebrates the installation of light bulbs, Svilova cuts to the word
‘Lenin’ in electric lights, followed by a shot of the dead leader as the orator
encourages people not to forget him. Vertov used this technique in The History of the
Civil War (Istoriia grazhdanskoi voiny, 1921), in which he juxtaposes a speech by Trotsky
with action sequences. Svilova’s development of the technique in Forward, Soviet!
augments both words and images with much greater force. While she was aproficient editor by the mid-1920s, she was evidently still learning her craft. A further,41

and again considerably more polished, use of this technique in her independent film,
International Democratic Federation of Women, made in 1947 and analysed in Chapter Four,suggests that Svilova took inspiration from Vertov and aspired to perfect what hetaught her. Vertov himself described her career as progressing ‘from splicing toediting’, acknowledging a key distinction between two words that are often usedinterchangeably.96 This can be understood to mean that, in Vertov’s opinion, Svilova
went from simply following instructions to engaging fully with the craft, a decisionmaker who became ‘so familiar with the footage, with all of its nuances andpossibilities’.97

A Sixth Part of the World encompasses the vast expense of Soviet Russia, revisiting for
Vertov a sub-genre he developed in issues 18 and 19 of Cine-Pravda. The film takes afirst-person narrative, suggesting influences in modernist poetry, particularly Walt
Whitman for whom ‘A Song of Myself’ was a reflection not of himself but ofAmerica. For Vertov, A Sixth Part of the World is ‘a symbolic creation of nation
through film enunciation’.98 The claim that the film is poetic is made primarily on
account of its structure, the way in which the shots are linked, and the effect that thishas upon the audience. The film ‘owes its enormous power to affect the viewer tothe exceptional skill with which it has been constructed’. Svilova’s dominantorganisational principle is that of the list or catalogue, a re-emergence from Forward,
Soviet!. Sequences are broken down into the various elements they seek to contrast.
The second part of the film, for example, evokes a sense of the geographicalcontrasts of the USSR. It starts by comparing shepherds in different places, before
listing distant locations and different people. Svilova then juxtaposes the various
ways in which they eat before moving onto a comparison of young and old.

42

Svilova’s listing of the nationalities creates a sense of the diversity of the Soviet
Union. The end result is not a dry listing or cataloguing but, rather, ‘the evocation ofa seething panoply of ethnic difference united in common ideological aim’.99 The
argument is strengthened by the sheer scope of the material. Cataloguing structures
the film through dynamic tension, yet from the middle of the catalogue it may seemthat we are being asked to see only analogical rather than logical connections. In fact,
we must focus on the rhetorical purpose of the film. Svilova’s ability to edit
predominantly ethnographic images contributes greatly to the film’s visual beauty,
and for this Vertov and his expeditionary method of shooting must be credited.
Nikolai Assev saw the film as an indication of the potential for a collaborative modeof filmmaking:

The work of Vertov, his cameramen, his scouts, his editors, ina word the work of the entire collective of the kinocs, without
any equivocation of course deserves approval of every kind,
not only for the technical side but, in the main, for the very factthat it has been realised.100

Then, despite Svilova’s modesty in her calculation of her contribution to Vertov’s
oeuvre, it was acknowledged at the time, though perhaps not by many, that there
were other creative voices shaping the aesthetic of his films.

Fired from Sovkino after A Sixth Part of the World, Vertov, Svilova and Boris
Kaufman (who was still working as the kinoc’s primary cameraman), were hired by
the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration to produce a visual celebration of
the October Revolution. The Eleventh Year represents further degrees ofexperimentation in post-production. Careful to use fewer intertitles than theirprevious films, it ‘demonstrates silent cinema’s incredible versatility in the articulationof ideas’.101 In what could be described as more of a lab experiment than a film for43

broad use, Svilova constructs sequences that are designed to be perceived visually;for example, themes of construction at the Dniepr hydroelectric dam are rendered bydynamic lines of marching workers, together with trucks and tractors moving in thesame direction and then in juxtaposition. Despite Svilova’s desire to make thesequence dynamic, she nevertheless sets the scene as a clearly defined space. Yet, any
initial geographical logic is soon replaced by thematic sweeps that incorporatematerial from Kharkov, Sipov and the Volkhov hydroelectric dam, articulating anarrative of social transformation from traditional to modern. In doing so, the film
portrays the First Five Year Plan as ‘an epochal moment setting the country freefrom the misery of the Tsarist regime’.102

It is through Vertov’s desire to map his narrative with sharply discontinuous
temporal associations that Svilova becomes more reliant on metaphor.
Superimpositions within shots ‘create rich palimpsestic imbrications of images ofrippling water upon shots of traditional village life, in the double exposure of thedam itself combined with a detail of its construction, or the multiple exposure of six
images of pumping pistons’.103 Svilova’s techniques are not only aesthetic but highly
politicised. I will elaborate on the rhetoric of montage shortly, but for now it can beargued that the movement, dynamism and associations in The Eleventh Year point
most of all to the glory of the socialist future, asserting that electricity andindustrialisation are both key building blocks in the building of a utopian society.
Contemporary reviews of the film are largely negative, owing to, for example, its
over-complication,104 fractured structure,105 and omission of workers,106 but Svilova
staunchly defended it, to the point of writing to Kino and chastising themarginalisation of non-fiction film. She also used the article to remind readers of thefilm’s box-office success in Ukraine, despite the attempts of exhibitors to exclude the44

film from their programmes.107 It is important to note that Vertov and only
occasionally Kaufman are named in the negative reviews; Svilova’s skills or motives
are never called into question. This suggests that, while Vertov continues to be
praised for the films that were and are deemed successes – often in such a way that
his assistants and collaborators are overlooked – he was held accountable for thefilms that were not. Svilova was protected from criticism by Vertov’s name andreputation. We could argue that this protection has now contributed to her
marginalisation, but in the late 1930s, when Vertov fell under further scrutiny, itenabled her to continue her career relatively unscathed.

To return now to Man with a Movie Camera, there is little that has not been said about
its self-reflexive structure and the complexity of its form.108 However, it has not to
my knowledge been discussed purely from the view of Svilova’s exceptional editorial
talent, and for that reason it is worth to celebrate once again what it offers as aninnovative spectacle of documentary cinema. Man with a Movie Camera contains themost explicit form of disruptive-associative montage in Vertov and Svilova’s
collaboration, always encouraging the spectator to search for metaphoric meaning
within the context of the respective sequence. Despite its name, Svilova employs
disruptive-associative montage in such a way that the film flows seamlessly, devoid of
any sense of interruption. It is ‘thematically organised and coordinated with the helpof montage devices, and the transitions between them so unnoticeable that they aretaken in easily and harmoniously, without a sensation of jolts and disruption’.109 The
selected ‘life-facts’ are related to each other not through narrative continuity but
through an ideological juxtaposition of presented events. For example, shots ofmachines and gears are inserted in sequences completely unrelated to industrial
production; in this associative context, they symbolise the movement and progress of45

a new society. Svilova inserts disruptive images among sporting events to disturb themontage flow of the games; for example, the shot of a somersaulting athlete isinserted at the beginning of a motorcycle and carousel sequence, between a shot of aball in flight and the shot of cyclists on the motorcycle track.

Due to the metaphorical function of disruptive-associative montage, the full
ideological meaning of the inter-cut images emerges only reactively; for example, ashot of a bottle dominating the park landscape preceding a shot of a derelict asleep
on a park bench surrounded by rubbish. By virtues of instant association, the shot of
the bottle implies that it contains alcohol. Simultaneously, the composition of theshot with the decorative bottle in the centre of a park connotes abundance andpleasure; as such, it is in ideological conflict with the derelict’s living conditions. The
audience is expected to ask questions pertinent to the social circumstances that
represent these two environments: As Vlada Petrić observes, ‘different social strata –the working class and the bourgeoisie, the poor and the well-to-do – are juxtaposed,
alluding to the contradictions in their coexistence within the new socialist regime.’110
A similar ideological implication is conveyed by juxtaposing images of a display ofvarious consumer products in city store windows with images of working-classwomen undertaking physically debilitating labour. In the film’s traffic shots, thecamera, often with reduced cranking speed, catches glimpses of life. Machines areshown mostly in close-ups, interrelated with workers’ enthusiastic expressions andfervent movements. The images of citizens enjoying sports are photographed inclose-ups or medium shots and are rhythmically linked to shots depicting the sports
competitions. Svilova’s integration of these images creates an overarching metaphor
about a society free of any capitalist exploitation of workers. At the same time,46

however, this cinematic trope ‘discloses all the contradictions of an undeveloped andbadly managed socialist state’. 111

The power of the film, then, lies in its montage; as Kazimir Malevich writes in his
review of the film, ‘the man who edited it has marvellously grasped the idea or taskof the new montage, which gives expression to a new, unprecedented shift.’112 As weknow, it was not a man who edited the film but a woman, and we know this just by
watching it: Svilova appears intermittently throughout the film cutting it together.
Judith Mayne’s analysis of the shots of Svilova at work, where the act of editing is set
up in direct relationship to the act of filming, argues that Svilova’s presence subverts
the theory of the male gaze.113 During a sequence in which Kaufman films train
carriages in motion, the movement of the carriages is suspended in a series of frozen
shots, later resuming after other frozen images, drawn from different points ofreference in the film, become illustrations for the stages of film editing. The editing
sequence itself comprises five segments, each of which demonstrates a specificfunction of montage. The first segment consists of nine stills, the first four of which
are repetitions from the preceding carriage sequence. Shot five is a frozen long shotof a city full of people, previously unseen in the film. The four following images
repeat the familiar pattern of alternating montage: two shots of peasant women, theirheads in scarves and facing right, alternate with two shots of young girls facing left.
Beyond being simply frozen, the images of the girls are filmstrips, with sprocket
holes running vertically along the edges of each frame. Mayne interprets this to meanthat ‘cinematic time is the function of cinematic space, itself broken down into two
separate components, the space of the screen and the space of the filmstrip.’114
The second segment of the sequence comprises two images of rolls of film on
shelves. From images in motion, to images on a filmstrip, to rolls of film, the47

ordering of these shots alludes to ‘the kind of voyeuristic fascination that has been
central to the cinema since its earliest years of development’.115 That the cameraman
is male and the images on screen are of females is not a coincidence: technology andthe female body function as subject and object respectively. However, distanced anddemystified, the structure presented does not maintain the traditional contours of theman who controls the image and the woman who is the image. Instead, Svilova
controls the image, even bringing it to life, and the next sequence demonstrates how
this process happens. A series of shots depicts the basic materials with which Svilova
works: a motionless take-up reel, photograms of a peasant woman and the filmstrip
being wound onto a reel. Svilova operates the take-up reel and begins to cut the film.
She juxtaposes shots of her own eyes with the eyes of the peasant woman on thefilmstrip, before the strip suddenly comes to life. The illustration of Svilova’smaterials allows us to understand the tools of her art, and the illustration of cutting,through the eye-line match, is an indication of the final product. Svilova’s presence in
Man with a Movie Camera does not only clarify her contribution as the film’s editor but
provides scope for a more nuanced reading of its gender discourse.

The film’s ultimate aim, however, is to coalesce the dialectic worlds of the organicand the synthetic – a means of hybridising the human eye with the ‘I’ of machine –and it is largely through Svilova’s employment of the full repertoire of Kino-eye
techniques that allows these elements to appear harmonious rather than oppositional.
Strategies of visual analogy and rhyme, rhythmic patterning and superimposition
serve to rearrange Vertov’s ‘reality’. This is most evident in the ‘Cameraman andMachines’ sequence that appears forty-two minutes into the film and lasts
approximately thirty seconds. Vlada Petrić acknowledges the necessary physical skill toedit the sequence, reminding us that ‘the technology of editing at the time was48

undeveloped … however, Svilova managed to splice numerous one- or two-frameshots in order to achieve a subliminal propulsion on the screen.’116 Svilova firstjuxtaposes the movement of a horizontal machine with a vertical one. As thecomponents move in their respective directions, the pace builds to an electrifying
speed. A bellow of smoke emitting from a factory violently cuts into the montage.
The cameraman, equipped with his tripod on shoulder, emerges from the smoke andomnisciently observes his world. While images of machinery, still rotating at
incredible speed, are cut equally rapidly into his image, the cameraman removes the
tripod from his shoulder and ‘floats’ out of the sequence. A close examination of thepictorial composition and rhythmic progression of the shots in the sequence reveals
the particular attention Svilova pays to the formal elements of the shots. The
photographic execution is equally sophisticated: the vertical position of Kaufman’s
body within the frame consistently matches the diagonal position of his camera, sothat the tripod appears as an extension of the cameraman’s body – a mechanical tool
inseparable from the worker who uses it.

Unlike the shots of the machines, wheels, and gears photographed in an abstract
fashion, the spliced shots of the cameraman never lose their representational features.
The accelerated movement of gears and wheels produces yet another blurring effectthat enhances the graphic pattern of white lines within circular and diagonal
movements. The graphic design created by the forms and movements in individual
shots is extremely compact, although it consists of numerous elements:

The fact that the ‘floating’ human being is identifiable as thecameraman – a worker armed with his own set of tools –supplies this sequence with poetic reverberations. Integrating
all basic graphic patterns, the sequence becomes a metaphor

49

for communication, industry, and creativity; its constructivist
elements functioning on both formal and thematic levels.117

The kinaesthetic choreography of the sequence builds a metaphor of the cameraman
as a worker and an indispensable part of the industrial world. Overtaken by theprodigious power of machines, the cameraman appears free from the pressures ofgravity as he floats in the factory milieu, dancing and hovering with his camera as abalancing pole. The dreamlike setting within which Kaufman is presented in thesequence can be interpreted as a futuristic poetic vision of the ultimate unification of
the workers and their productive means. Therefore, one can deduce from thesequence a sense of celebration, in that the hybridisation of man and machine is notto eradicate him but to improve him, to free him of his unwieldiness and the‘psychology’ that skews his interpretation of reality, and ultimately to make him thegratifying subject of cinema. Svilova’s contribution to the film, then, enabled Vertov
to document a period of transition in the history of the Soviet Union, of modernism
and Constructivism, and of cinema itself.

After Enthusiasm, in which Svilova experimented with editing live sound recordings in
the Donbas region, allowing Vertov’s films ‘to be heard as well as seen’,118 Vertov
and Svilova left the Ukrainian film industry to work at Mezhrabpomfilm. Aiming tobuild on the national acclaim of Enthusiasm, Vertov designed a scenario linking Lenin
to internationalism, documenting his legacy in the Soviet Far East. Three Songs of Lenin
is a crucial text in understanding Svilova’s contribution to the collaboration. Not only
does the film contain examples of progressive editorial talent and research skills – shededicated herself to sourcing fresh archive footage of Lenin for the film – itcontinues the themes of womanhood evident in Man with a Movie Camera, hailing therevolution for liberating women from traditional Asiatic society. The film traces their50

emancipation through a series of songs, beginning with a slow rhythm of editing torepresent the oppression of the veil and concluding with an editing pace reminiscentof Man with a Movie Camera as Svilova brings the freed women to life. Vertov states
that, ‘The achievement of sincerity noted by critics in Three Songs of Lenin required
exceptionally complex editing. In this respect, the experience of Man with a Movie
Camera … was of great help to our production group. These were, so to speak, films
that beget films.’119 By this I understand that, in Vertov’s opinion, Svilova’s editing
potential paved the way for his burgeoning aesthetical preferences, themes andmotifs, and could be described as a common denominator in connecting one film tothe next. An enduring strength and key component, her talent allowed for, and was afundamental part of, what we regard as the Vertov oeuvre.

The unveiling of a Muslim woman in Three Songs of Lenin can be interpreted as a
gesture of Orientalism, ‘whereby the exotic beauty of the East is uncovered to theWestern male gaze and opened to sexual or economic agency’.120 While, for Vertov,the act was not only a means of loosening the shackles of religion but represented
the spectator’s filmic awakening, for Svilova, the emancipation of the Eastern woman
resonated deeply owing to her penchant for female solidarity across the varying
regions and ethnicities of the Soviet Union. This theme continues throughout
Svilova’s career as a director-editor, most prevalent in the films she made shortly
after Stalin’s death. Editing remains central to the communication of this theme andthe audience’s interpretation of it. The sequence in which Svilova intercuts shots of
Far Eastern women with scenes of Lenin’s funeral – in that she suggests the womenare looking over his body – aims successfully to collapse the distance between
Moscow and the East, signifying that the pain of her loss was shared by women
thousands of miles away. Three Songs of Lenin is the first film in the Vertov and Svilova
51collaboration that strongly indicates Svilova’s input was growing. It is important toremember that she was again credited as the assistant director, continuing to develop
as an artist and widening the scope of her contribution beyond editing. Female
subjects were also the cornerstones of their following two films, Lullaby and Three
Heroines (the later for which Svilova received a co-director credit), where themes ofmotherhood and heroism respectively can be traced back as the roots of ideas andmotivations that were to feature continually in Svilova’s independent career.

Vertov described Svilova as ‘the best editor in the Soviet Union’,121 and from myanalysis of her major contributions to their films it is not difficult to understand whyhe held her in such high regard, nor was he the only one who shared this opinion. I
have already mentioned that Serafima Pumpyanskaya, for example, indicates in her
memories of the couple that Svilova was always in demand from other directors.
Referring back to the way in which she helped Vertov complete The Battle of Tsaritsyn,
we can assume that Svilova had a reputation in the industry as an editor who wasavailable in times of need, regarded as a reliable and trustworthy professional. Her
most noteworthy editorial assignment outside of her collaboration with Vertov wasalongside Roman Karmen on Judgement of the Nations (1946), a documentary capturing
the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trial. Karmen had spent much time filming the
Red Army during World War II and Svilova, while we assume from her filmographythat she was unfamiliar with editing events in a courtroom, had spent most of 1945
collating footage of Nazi atrocities that was screened at the trial as part of the Soviet
prosecution’s evidence of war crimes (discussed in Chapter Two). As soon as we see
the defendants enter the courtroom in Judgement of the Nations, Svilova begins to use
their behaviour, as well as the people and objects surrounding them, to bring implicit
meaning to the scenes; not just observing but attempting to educate and inform. For
52

example, after Rudolf Hess enters the courtroom, Svilova inserts a close-up image ofa guard’s baton held tightly in his fist behind his back. This alludes to the violence of
the Nazis’ transgressions, the force with which they will be retained in the courtroom,and the fierce and just nature of the impending punishments. Likewise, shejuxtaposes the nervous mannerisms of the defendants with images of crimes
committed under their supervision. As Jeremy Hicks notes, the motivation behind
this structure recalls Lev Kuleshov’s building block analogy: rather than focus on the
shot as a montage cell, Svilova places special emphasis on the construction of
meaning out of montage fragments.122 Her contribution, which achieved thenecessary depiction of the defendants, as did, for example, the fast and persuasive
editing of shots detailing Soviet Prosecutor Roman Rudenko’s indictment, resulted
in Svilova receiving a worthy co-director credit for the film.

By the time Svilova came to co-direct Judgement of the Nations, she had already beenworking for seven years independently of Vertov. Her main method ofcommunicating the policies of the Central Committee relied on a specific rhetoric,
itself dependent upon a repertoire of techniques centred on the processes of shot
selection and juxtaposition. To examine film as rhetoric is to examine the effect it
had on its intended audience and the way in which it achieved that effect – Svilova’s
artistic decisions are guided by how images affect emotionally those who view them.
Therefore, my analysis of Svilova’s films foregrounds the relationship between thefilmic text and the audience. Her films respected the audience, at least to the extent
of understanding the need for a two-way interactive process. Audiences were
expected to react, not to receive the images inertly but to make changes to their lives
and outlook. As Judith Mayne argues, passivity was the enemy.123

53

Meaning and montage
The acknowledgement of Kuleshovian techniques in Judgement of the Nations alludes
not only to the rhetorical function of cinema but also to theoretical models of editing.
The methods by which Svilova generates meaning for audiences were foregroundedin the ideas of the Soviet montage school of the 1920s, namely those attributed to
Vertov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov. Svilova’s
incorporation and development of these theories to guide the emotions of her
audience allows for a clearer understanding of her contribution to Soviet cinema. The
school did not encompass a collective, harmonious aesthetic but comprised a diverse
group of unique theorists who were often in polemical dispute with one another.
They were, however, united in their Marxist interpretation of reality and in theirdetermination to create a consciously political and agitational cinema. David
Bordwell states that ‘a historically complete account of Soviet film montage must
include both strands of development: that of Kuleshov and Pudovkin and that of
Vertov and Eisenstein.’124 This division might be a rather simplistic way of separating
the four theorists, in that Vertov and Eisenstein constitute two very different strands,
and Kuleshov and Pudovkin also hold between them a number of importantdistinctions. Nevertheless, Bordwell is right in that a study of editorial practices muston some level give room to each of these filmmakers. I do not wish to incorporate
them merely due to their prestige, but because Svilova was associated with the school,
both in her professional life as a Soviet editor in the 1920s and through her marriage
to Vertov.125 As such, the filmmakers provide an appropriate framework for a
discussion on Svilova and film semiotics.

54More often than not, the subject matters of Svilova’s films are not overtly political.
For this reason, we must question how Svilova prompts audiences to make thecognitive leap between the images on-screen – of sporting events, cultural
ceremonies and distant lands – and Central Committee policy. The notion of
stimulating a reaction, or bestowing art with the power to organise emotional
responses, draws immediate comparisons with Eisenstein and his ‘montage ofattractions’. After returning from the Russian Civil War, Eisenstein worked at theProletkult Theatre alongside acclaimed stage director and theorist, Vsevolod
Meyerhold, where they experimented with agitational drama. Eisenstein grasped fully
the link between the Central Committee’s policy of legitimisation and the role of art
in justifying the revolution to the masses, conceiving the form of the artwork as the
crucial tool in constituting a total engagement of the spectator: not only thought but
also perception and affect. Drawing from the field of physiology, particularly the
research of Ivan Pavlov, Eisenstein constructed the montage of attractions as amethod of agitation, a means of assaulting the viewer’s senses by assembling
independent and arbitrary units of stimulation. Conditioning the response by training
pre-existing reflexes through a consciously designed combination of stimuli could, hebelieved, produce an overall emotional response different to, and more powerfulthan, the sum of its parts. It is on this note that Eisenstein’s approach to agitationalart dovetailed with his introduction of a dialectic system; in the early to mid-1920s hemoved away from theatre and began to frame questions of film form in conflictual
terms, while developing his concept of attractions to comprise semiology and theanalysis of shots as signs. Shocking the emotional senses of the viewer was not theend but merely the beginning, a ‘trick’ to hold the audience’s attention and increase
its receptivity to political rhetoric.

55

Turning to the discourse of pictorial language for his methodology, Eisensteinfamously compared the film image to a character in Japanese writing, the ideogram.
This character refers to an abstract idea by means of combining and modifying
pictographic characters that depict, in a stylised way, non-abstract objects associatedwith the idea. The combination of two hieroglyphs of the simplest series is to be
regarded not as their sum but as their product, i.e. as a value of another dimension,another degree; each separately corresponds to an object, to a fact, but their
combination corresponds to a concept. A concrete word (a denotation) set beside asecond concrete word yields an abstract, transcendental result; for example, ‘heart’combined with ‘knife’ alludes to the concept of sorrow. It is crucial that both words
are read not chronologically but simultaneously in order for them to collide in thereader’s/viewer’s conscience. Thus, in every case the combination of two distinct
signs for concrete objects produces a single sign for abstraction. The process isfigurative because the meaning is not denoted in either sign: it emerges throughjuxtaposition. For Eisenstein, this proved that film, whose signs are moving
photographic images and therefore entirely tangible, can communicate conceptual
abstraction on a par with other language forms.

Eisenstein’s highly sophisticated cinematic metaphors were constructed on the
Marxist dialectical model that understands human experience as perpetual conflict
between two forces – the thesis and the antithesis – to produce the synthesis, awholly new and abstract phenomenon. Building on Lenin’s perception of thebiological cell as the model of dialectical change (since its splitting produces a newunity), Eisenstein described the shot as a montage cell. David Bordwell explains theresemblance between these two cells as follows:

56

The shot accumulates quantitative tension, such as that offigure and background or light and dark, it cannot resolve theminternally and thus divides into another shot. The juxtapositionof conflicting shots is a leap into a new quality: an impression
or concept not present in the individual images.126

Eisenstein held the constructivist belief that factors composing the individual image
can be considered as dynamic elements flung together in juxtaposition. He forced theconflict of visual opposition through the linear direction, plane, volume and lightingof shots, and these oppositions were not always extended to the dramatic content of
the shot: conflict within the shot is only potential montage, dialectical montage
operates fully when one image is put into interaction with another. While Kuleshov
and Pudovkin conceived editing as a linkage of shots, a brick by brick process driven
by narrative demands, Eisenstein asserted that linkage is only a weak version of themore basic process of conflict. It is clear, though, that these two elements are notmutually exclusive. As Bordwell argues, a dialectic structure is only theoretical, someshots – or even most – will be positioned in a sequence according to their temporalor spatial qualities.127

In Svilova’s case, linkage and conflict do not give way to one another but act
simultaneously. Certain sequences in her films reveal her tendency to absorb
techniques into an ever-grander synthesis, bringing to light an affinity for Hegelianconceptions of artistic and philosophical progress. For Svilova, the conceptual resultof conflict is metaphorical and relates to the purpose of her films as vehicles ofrhetoric and legitimisation. She constructs her newsreel stories and documentaries insuch a way that the rhetoric becomes, as in Eisenstein’s films, embedded within thesequences, the images collectively expressing the political message behind the story.
Lenin argued that the Soviet system would enable workers to use the techniques of57

Taylorism to free themselves from exploitation; likewise, Svilova extracts formal
methods from classic works and uses them for progressive purposes. As an example,
Foreign Newsreel no.4 (1956) documents boar hunting in Bulgaria. Employing
techniques reminiscent of both the Hollywood chase genre and film noir, the male
hunters are captured in a montage of shots as they track and kill their prey. Svilova
focuses on the methods the hunters use to locate the beast, such as identifying its
footprints in the snow and hiding amongst the foliage; the hunters’ intelligence andprowess are juxtaposed with the boar’s ignorance and naivety. In the context of theCold War, this story could be seen to have had wider resonances beyond the subjectof boar hunting. As a result of the editing, an abstract concept is created in the mindof the spectator that, at the time, formed part of the Central Committee’s rhetoricreinforcing man’s superiority over nature. In 1937, Otto Shmidt, a Soviet scientist
and explorer who came to prominence in the Stalin era, proclaimed: ‘Naturesubordinates herself to man when he knows how to arm himself for the fight andwhen he does not come out alone but in a large group supported by the warm loveof millions of citizens.’128 According to the party line, Soviet men had the power totame nature and bring it under state control. Svilova uses the footage of the hunt tocommunicate to the audience the Central Committee’s expectation that members ofSoviet society must be willing and able to demonstrate courage, spirit and vigour.

The boar-hunting sequence is exciting and suspenseful, owing to Svilova’s
employment of narrative techniques reminiscent of Classical Hollywood cinema. The
story opens with a close-up shot of a footprint in the snow. A shadow enters theshot from below, casting the print in darkness. A man dressed in traditional hunting
attire kneels down to inspect the print. The other hunters are tracked in a wide-angle
pan walking through the trees of a forest, leaving their own footprints in the snow. A
58high-angle mid-shot shows a boar – captured from a camera in a tree – roaming theforest. The hunter depicted examining the footprint stands with his back against atree in medium close-up, peering around the trunk at his target. Orchestral music
fades into the scene, creating an air of suspense. A close-up shot captures the hunter
pointing his shotgun at the screen. He waits. The music intensifies. The moment hepulls the trigger Svilova cuts to a mid-shot of the boar rolling down a steep hill
through the forest, initiating a montage: various shots of the boar’s descent from anarray of angles are assembled. This montage succeeds in dramatising the boar’s death
and, more importantly, underscoring the victory of man over beast. The purpose of
the montage is somewhat nullified by its opening mid-shot which, upon repeat
viewing, subtly depicts the boar’s stopping against a tree only a few feet from where
it was killed. The boar did not roll the distance Svilova’s montage implies; yet, herattempt to give that impression with limited footage reflects the work of a confident
and able director-editor. A mid-shot of the hunters walking in single file along a path,leaving the canopy of the forest in the distance, closes the story. They carry the boar
between them on a spit over their shoulders.

Building on the ideological context of my thesis, the boar-hunting story fitted into amajor theme of the socialist realist era – the documenting of heroic feats. Yet, thedanger that helped to make citizens into heroes presented an element of
uncertainty.129 Adventures were predicated on risk but, as I have described, theutopian nature of Soviet socialist realist discourses, which conflated the future andthe present, made it difficult for the stories to accommodate failure. Any failure wastroublesome because it revealed to the masses that the perfect future did not yet exist.
Instead, the stories emphasised man’s achievements, one of the most important of
which was the superiority over, and conquest of, nature’s less-evolved beasts.
59

According to Stalinist rhetoric, with the support of the Soviet community, malecitizens gained the power to tame the female aspects of nature and bring them under
Soviet control.130 Given the widespread indifference to the value of human life in the
Stalin era, the apparent concern the Central Committee displayed toward heroes wasparadoxical. As Karen Petrone argues, assertions that upheld the conquest of natureand thought for human life conflicted with reality and with each other.131

If some aspects of Svilova’s aesthetics betray the influence of Eisenstein’s
conceptions of montage, other elements demonstrate her indebtedness to the ideasof Kuleshov and Pudovkin. As I have already described, Kuleshov’s understandingof the function of montage adopted a building block analogy: rather than focus on
the shot as a montage cell, he placed special emphasis on the construction of
meaning out of montage fragments. Pudovkin initially shared this premise, working
alongside Kuleshov at the Workshop between 1922 and 1924.132 According to
Pudovkin, film is not shot but built, constructed from the separate strips of raw
material. Thus, his model could be described as an architectural counterpart toEisenstein’s dialectical system. The ultimate goal of Kuleshov and Pudovkin’s
experiments was to discover the general laws by which film communicates meaning
to an audience – to discover the rules of signification. Kuleshov’s most famous
experiment, what has come to be known as the ‘Kuleshov effect’,133 concluded thatthe shot, or cinematic sign, has two distinct values: first, that which it possesses in
itself as a photographic image of reality and, second, that which it acquires whenplaced in relationship to other shots. The second value is infinitely more important
than the first because it demonstrates that cinematic meaning is a function of the film
strip, not of the photographic reality, arising from the sequential arrangement of its
parts.
60

The subordination of real time and space to the process of editing is evidenced
throughout Man with a Movie Camera – the selection and interaction of ‘life-facts’
results in complex association and ideological implications – but also in the structureof Svilova’s Metro (1940), a film that documents the predominantly female workforceof Moscow’s subway system. Toward the end of the film, Svilova portrays a series ofwomen working through the night to clean the inside and outside of stationary
carriages, each shot depicting a separate woman undertaking her role. A camera
positioned on the platform captures one of the women polishing the inside of acarriage window; she smiles through the glass, seemingly at the camera and her
audience. The shot appears to uphold a popular convention of social-realist Soviet
documentary in which men and women were observed enjoying their work, upliftedby the feelings of purpose and belonging it provided. The following side-angle shotendorses the sense of belonging but not in the way the audience expects. It capturesa second woman stood on the platform polishing the exterior surface of the same
window and smiling into it. We now realise that the first woman was not smiling to
the audience but to her colleague stood next to the camera. The juxtaposition
augments the meaning of the initial shot with a new value, corroborating Kuleshov’s
thesis. Svilova simultaneously plays on and contravenes established documentary
conventions to depict a female workforce defined primarily by the solidarity between
its members.

By studying a film such as Metro, one can argue that Svilova internalises andcontinues to confirm Kuleshov’s contention that meaning is not inherent in the film
strip but is the result of the viewer’s perception of the edited film strip, which makes
the montage process an act of consciousness for both filmmaker and viewer. For
Kuleshov, and this also applies to Svilova, montage was a means of revealing truth,61

of presenting a particular ideological position openly and without concealment,
thereby illuminating the situation as it is in reality. The revealing of truth alludes tothe visual qualities of Svilova’s films, the continued reconstruction of reality fromfragments of life-facts. While she evidently embraced the industry’s move to sound in
the late 1920s, what will become clear in my textual analyses of Svilova’s films is thatsound made a relatively inconsequential contribution to their meaning. The
voiceovers, particularly in the News of the Day episodes, rarely add a new layer ofconnotation to the images, instead merely being used descriptively. Instead, Svilova
creates meaning through the visual. Referring to Three Songs of Lenin, she wrote: ‘The
film was constructed with no voiceover … the images were set out so that theauthor’s ideas could be discerned clearly and distinctly. We experienced incredible
delight when this or that episode could be understood without voiceover.’134 Meaningis generated through the visual and the juxtaposition of the visual, a system adopted
by Svilova throughout her independent career. Her two atrocity films, Oświęcim andAtrocities, are the only two whose voiceovers consistently reinforce their film’s
rhetoric. I discuss the reasons for this in Chapter Two.

Prioritising the visual was not unusual in the sound cinema of the Stalin era. As theexpressive montage movement of the 1920s was substituted for socialist realism,
more credence was given to the deployment of explicit signs, the careful ordering of
which – in Svilova’s case, a combination of linkage and conflictual editing systems –triggered a cognitive process whereby the viewer could connect the signs to thepolicies of the Central Committee and react accordingly to the message being
communicated. The most explicit visual indicator we can detect in Svilova’s films isthe establishment in the minds of the audience a clearly defined tension between the
opposing poles of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Audiences are encouraged to identify with certain62

forces against the forces to which they are opposed. Sarah Davies refers to Polishsociologist, Stanislaw Ossowski, to argue that this narrative strategy was in fact not
only a part of pre-revolutionary Russian culture but that the spatial metaphor ofvertical stratification of people into two main groups – those above and those below– has an ancient lineage stretching back to biblical times.135 In Russia, this image ofsocial polarisation was acute in the pre-revolutionary period, partly because of the
sharp division between state and society. The sense of polarisation did not vanish in
1917; it continued in modified form throughout Lenin’s leadership and Stalin’s, thelatter once the social divide became pronounced and egalitarianism was officiallydenounced.

The fundamental dichotomy between the elite and the people, us and them, wasrepresented and explained in different ways, and these rarely involved Marxist criteria.
One common interpretation of the conflict was that it lay in an unequal distributionof political power. This was articulated through the use of analogies or ethical criteria,such as ‘good versus evil’. It seems likely that this overarching dichotomy did muchto legitimise certain aspects of Stalin’s terror – the regime promoted the ‘us versus
them’ mentality in such a way as to imply that his measures were necessary as ameans of national protection against international threat. This mentality became adefining feature of Svilova’s films in the 1950s when, even after Stalin’s death, theCold War resulted in the prioritisation of defence strategies. Official Stalinist
discourse portrayed a battle between the people and the enemies of the people, andthis opposition shared many similarities with the ‘us versus them’ dichotomy. For
example, The Last Stage (Ostatni etap, Jakubowska, 1948) takes place in Auschwitz andfeatures three characters: a Polish Jew, a German communist and a Russian, each
representing an enemy of fascism. Svilova’s Oświęcim (1945), discussed in the63following chapter, epitomises this approach: Soviet soldiers, doctors and nurses arepresented as heroes through their defeat of the Nazi hierarchy responsible for thehorror at the camp, which is in turn vilified and denigrated. In the post-war years the‘us versus them’ dichotomy extended beyond fascism to encompass positions ofresponsibility, emphasising the political, economic and moral corruption of those inpower. Pioneer 11 (1952), one of Svilova’s two Pioneer episodes, documents theactivities at a camp for teenage Communists and uses a scene depicting a group of
Pioneers carving wooden aeroplanes to reiterate the Soviet response to what wasperceived as the invasion of ‘them’. The boys customise their aeroplanes with antiAmerican slogans, such as ‘U.S. Go Home’. This particular slogan could havereferenced any number of occupations the Central Committee was vocal indenouncing, such as the presence of American soldiers in West Germany, Taiwan
and South Korea. ‘U.S. Go Home’ served as a motto for socialist countries in the
post-war period and there are numerous other examples of Soviet labourers andcapitalist icons who fulfilled the roles of hero and villain respectively.

The establishment of simple, if not simplistic, stereotypes had already been dictated,on the one hand, by the technical limitations of the silent cinema as a medium and,on the other, by the particular agitational needs of the Civil War and early Soviet
period.136 Until the late 1940s, asserts Richard Taylor, ‘Soviet sound film was still
indulging in the same technique of propaganda through stereotype that had
characterised its silent predecessor.’137 As the governing ideology was class-based
rather than nationalist or racist, many of the enemies of the people depicted in Soviet
film propaganda were internal to the country (excluding the war films of 1941-45),
and it was necessary to alienate them from their usual surroundings. The conflict64

between good and evil, or hero and villain, was often highlighted by a contrast
between the community and the individual:

The most important single hero figure in Soviet propaganda
cinema is the worker, for it was after all the worker who was
proclaimed as being in the vanguard of the successful
revolutionary movement. The worker is portrayed in what hascome to be known as the traditional heroic mould: upright,
even when downtrodden, calm and courageous in adversity,
compassionate and self-sacrificing.138

This principle is emphasised in a number of Svilova’s films, though no moreunequivocally than during the interrogation of Nazi perpetrator, General FriedrichFranek, in the opening scene of News of the Day no.10 (1944). Franek sits at a wooden
desk in the clearing of a forest; a number of Soviet army personnel stand over him
demanding answers to their questions. Timed for maximum impact – long enough toestablish Franek as the lone enemy but not long enough for one to begin tosympathise with his desperate situation – Svilova cuts to a shot of the soldiers
responsible for his capture. They stand proudly and upright as the medals are placedaround their necks. Communal responsibility is underscored; there is little room forindividual acts of heroism.

Svilova’s visualisation of the social divide between ‘the people’ and ‘enemies of thepeople’ often resorted to moral metaphors. The importance of the moral andreligious dimension as a source of legitimacy in popular struggles against authority
has been widely observed. Svilova’s use of a moral vocabulary was not new but wellestablished, having always been a part of the idealist populist language. It appealed
both to the literate and to the non-literate, and to those with only an elementary
understanding of good and evil. Sarah Davies pinpoints the language’s emergence inSoviet discourse ‘in the practice of attributing positive moral characteristics to the65people and negative ones to their oppressors’.139 Underlying many of these
representations of a moral dichotomy were often questions of political and economic
difference, particularly when ‘them’ referred to those of a higher class; nevertheless,moral difference between us and them, between good and evil, was for Soviet
audiences as valid as the more explicit references to political and material inequality.

Svilova’s independent career served Stalin’s regime and the bureaucratic intricacies of
the Cold War. Her films were mobilised to inform, educate and above all persuade
the masses, celebrating the victory of the proletariat while disparaging the enemies ofcommunism. If they were to fulfil their purpose, they could not be coldly didactic;
they had to arouse emotion, inspiring audiences to dedicate themselves to, and put
their trust in, the regime. This section has aimed to outline how this was achieved by
Svilova. She draws on established yet relatively simple visual symbols familiar to theSoviet masses and organises them according to the cerebral modes of shotjuxtaposition – namely techniques of dialecticism, linkage and realism – attributed to
the Soviet montage school of the 1920s. Svilova’s letter to LEF tells us that she hadstrong opinions about the value of editorial practices; however, beyond this letter,
there is no evidence to suggest that she sought actively to disseminate her thoughts.
Instead, she remained attentive and – regardless of their apparent incompatibility –absorbed the dominant theories and techniques of the montage school into herrepertoire. In the 1930s, when montage was gradually ostracised in favour of socialist
realism, Svilova develops her directorial practice to accommodate the shift, an ability
to adapt that many established filmmakers, including her own husband, appeared tolack. The shift ensured that the agitational dynamism, which had defined the 1920s,
gave way to a slower pace of editing congruent with Stalin’s vision for documentary
film.
66

This section has also aimed to begin building Svilova’s status as an important figure
in Soviet documentary film – her career lays claim to a number of significant
collaborative projects and individual assignments. Despite being an integral part of
the Soviet Union’s formative cinema industry, Svilova is not a well-known filmmaker.
This might be due to the fact that she found prominence as an independent directoreditor after the montage era, and this is a viable point; yet, however one chooses toview Svilova’s marginalisation from film history, the issue of gender (her identity as awoman filmmaker) cannot be overlooked. Therefore, the following section explores
the male-centricism that has contributed to the relocation of female artists such as
Svilova to the fringes of film history.

Svilova and female filmmaking
As with a multitude of other women directors who have been ignored and forgotten
in film historical accounts, feminist observers will look to Svilova’s gender as themain factor in her marginalisation. While I agree that her gender is an importantfactor to consider, it is, however, not the only factor. In the first instance, it isessential to grasp the complexities of collaborative authorship. Awareness as to how
and why women working in the film industry are excluded is imperative to an
analysis of Svilova’s contribution to her field because the first half of her career
comprises roles in which she operates as a co-director, assistant director and editor.
It is important, then, to take a step back from thinking about Svilova as anindependent director-editor and revisit the early stages of her career as a collaborator,
particularly the time she spent working alongside Vertov. Julia Wright suggests that,
although film scholars are now bringing to our attention the careers of women inearly cinema, the study of editors has received little investigation.140 According to67

Wright, cinema history does not acknowledge editors but instead celebrates directors
who have advanced editing, namely D. W. Griffith, Eisenstein and, importantly,
Vertov.141 Wright argues that crediting an editor with a discernible style restricts ourunderstanding of their abilities rather than emphasises their versatility, and also risks
undermining the creative importance of the director.142 Researchers are cautious not
to challenge – or emasculate – the legacies of filmmakers such as Vertov byapproaching their films as collaborative projects and analysing them in such a way as
to include the contributions of other workers in the system. Wright views thisreluctance as a political issue, suggesting that, even though editors are finallyreceiving recognition as the director’s main collaborator, only male editors are
benefiting from the exposure.143 Patricia Zimmerman concurs, claiming in her
analysis of pioneer Robert Flaherty that women collaborators in documentary cinema
suffer similar marginalisation:

Conventional documentary history’s overemphasis on the film
text and its director as opposed to the institutional structuresthat sustain and nurture documentary erases the contributions
women have made to documentary film culture: ascinematographers, editors, sound persons, fund-raisers,
organisers of festivals, and writers and lecturers. .144

Analysing the documentary, The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (Apple, 2004),
Wright states that:

This selective recollection of the general film history situates
the editor as the director’s chief collaborator, and their
historical presence is then afforded by way of collaborative
authorship as a theoretical approach. Yet this same approach,while giving historical credit to male editors, diminishes thework of female editors that facilitated many of these celebrated
men and moments: Agnes Guillemot edited the majority ofGodard’s films in the 1960s … James Smith is credited as
Griffith’s editor but the documentary gives only brief mention
to Rose Smith … Similarly Svilova is credited as Vertov’s wife68and editor but receives none of the long-overdue star treatment
given to male editors.145

It is true that, in general, the passing attention paid to Svilova, even as Vertov’s editor,
does not acknowledge the crucial artistic contribution she made to the films,
particularly those produced in the late 1930s where, as Jeremy Hicks asserts, Svilova
was not just an editor but a co-director, and their contributions wereindistinguishable.146 While she is nearly always credited for each contribution, either
on-screen or in archive catalogues, she is not discussed as part of film discourse, andI argue that the failure to acknowledge her contributions in this venue has hadrepercussions. Film history’s perception of Svilova as Vertov’s accessory, the wife
who obediently edited his films, has resulted in a misunderstanding, or undermining,of her abilities, ambitions and legacy. The devaluing of Svilova’s contribution to theircollaborative films might explain why her directorial films have passed under theradar: were she recognised as a competent filmmaker in her own right, rather than
attached to Vertov as his accessory, it is probable that more effort would have been
made to locate and analyse her directorial films.

The restrictive, tentative way in which researchers have handled Svilova’scontribution to Soviet film has been instrumental in limiting her legacy. For example,
the sources to which I referred in my biographical section largely neglect her
substantial directorial output, while the collaboration with Vertov is duly
acknowledged. Annette Michelson comes closest to acknowledging Svilova’s
independent achievements, stating that ‘her filmography lists a great many directorial
assignments’, but there are no references to specific films.147 Masha Enzensberger
briefly references Svilova’s independent career, writing that, ‘With her skills indemand, Svilova managed to earn a living for the two of them, directing her own
69films and editing other people’s films,’148 but this does not provide a true account of
the extent to which Svilova out-produced Vertov in the years following theircollaboration. The reason as to why no biographical account of her life has yet fully
acknowledged the scope of Svilova’s independent career is difficult to pinpoint,
though one important factor is the paucity of information at the time of their writing.
Annette Michelson’s assessment, published in 1984, was written, first, prior to thefall of communism, before Soviet archives were fully open to international
researchers, and, second, before the rise of the internet. Locating Svilova’s films wasa far more complicated process before archive catalogues became available online.
Thus, Michelson, and Enzensberger for that matter (who initially published her
account as early as 1972), would have had little credible data to build an accurate
picture of Svilova’s authorship. However, more recent accounts, such as Peter
Rollberg’s and the passing references made by Kay Armatage,149 were not restrictedby the same conditions and one cannot easily explain the reasons behind their vague
descriptions of Svilova’s career. It might be that they relied on earlier biographies anddid not consider the possibility that more information is now available.

Julia Wright suggests that Svilova’s erasure from cinema history is the result of‘professional ambiguity’ – her role as devoted partner is somehow inseparable fromher professional partnership with Vertov.150Vertov’s legacy, that Svilova helped tobuild incidentally, has encompassed Svilova. The fact that Esfir Shub, a directoreditor I discuss shortly, has enjoyed wider exposure, even though they worked at thesame studio and had similar career trajectories, is further evidence that Svilova’s
legacy has been restricted owing to her connection to Vertov. However, it is vital tounderstand how Svilova’s actions played a part in the assimilation of their legacies.
She has not necessarily been absorbed into Vertov’s authorship because researchers70have been unwilling to provide her a platform; Svilova’s failure to emphasise her own
contribution to many of the defining films in Vertov’s canon has proven equally
decisive. Her autobiography indicates that she had the opportunity after Vertov’s
death to publicise her contribution to their films but, instead, she chose to cement
his artistry by exhibiting his films and publishing his theoretical writings. The writings
have provided the framework that researchers use to engage with the films
pigeonholed under his name. The history of cinema is signposted by the [male]directors who boldly aggrandised their own authority, most famously by trumpetingthemselves to be, in D.W. Griffith’s words, ‘revolutionising the Motion Picture
Drama and founding the modern technique of the art’.151 John Ford and Alfred
Hitchcock consciously augmented their own status in cinema by offering anecdotal
timepieces of their career or encouraging critical acknowledgement. They are still
hailed as great auteurs, defined by their directing techniques, thought processes and,perhaps most importantly, their ability to maintain artistic control in large
collaborative productions. These qualities have been widely discussed, with thesources of information often the personal recollections of the auteurs or theircollaborators.152

Vertov’s Kino-eye writings have allowed for a sustained discussion on his editing
techniques; though, as Vertov himself admitted, Svilova was the one with the talentat the cutting table. Kay Armatage reminds us that the gradual inclusion of early
women filmmakers into cinema history has too been driven by the filmmakers wholeft a tangible legacy of their work, largely in the form of written documentation or
an engagement with critical practices of the time. Armatage has carried out researchon Nell Shipman, one of Hollywood’s earliest and most prolific filmmakers, who left
behind a catalogue of written anecdotes but only four surviving films.153 Written
71

documentation cannot guarantee a permanent status in film history for its subject but
it does provide the necessary footprint to make omission less likely. Svilova’s case is
testament to this trend: not even an archive containing, to my knowledge, hercomplete body of films can compensate for a lack of reliable, insightful supporting
evidence. Svilova’s autobiographies and production notes are incomplete, random
and often illegible, far short of the substance Armatage identifies as the requisite
foundations for a legacy. While we do not know Svilova’s motivation behind
downplaying her own contribution – though Vertov did describe her modesty as her
only imperfection154 – we do know of her admiration for Vertov and of her responseto the injustice of his blacklisting. That said, it can be argued that, though she
genuinely felt he was the innovative, driving force of their collaboration, beyond that
sentiment, attributing the films to Vertov’s name and proclaiming his genius was agrieving mechanism for Svilova, a way of keeping him close and allowing her toovercome the pain of his absence.

A number of other early Soviet women filmmakers offer useful contextualisation for
Svilova and provide a venue to review current research on early Soviet women
filmmakers.155 Olga Preobrazhenskaya (1881-1971) is widely considered the first
Soviet female director.156 She co-directed her debut film, The Peasant Woman(Baryshnuya-krestyanka), in 1916 with Vladimir Gardin, before taking a sabbatical fromfilm production to teach in a film school.157 In 1926 she returned to filmmaking withan adaptation of the Chekhov play, Kashtanka. The remainder of her directorial
assignments between 1926 and her last film in 1941 were as a collaborative
partnership with her husband, Ivan Pravov.158 More often than not, she made films
for and about children; for example, Fedka’s Truth (Fed´kina pravda, 1925) and Anya
(1927). In 1927 Preobrazhenskaya also made a film for adults, Peasant Women of72

Ryazan (Baby ryazanskie). As well as being her first notable success, it can beconsidered the first Soviet ‘women’s film’ in that it was directed by a woman and it
addresses women’s issues; in this instance, through an allusion to ‘dolya’. This word
has no direct translation in English but its definition is similar to fate with a shade ofsadness or sorrow. The fate of Soviet women was at all times harder than that ofmen, especially in village life. There are two distinct female types portrayed in thefilm: one is the poor bride, Anna, and Vasilia, the ‘new woman’, who indulges in loveoutside marriage and has set up an orphanage for homeless children. Despite her
depiction of the new woman, Preobrazhenskaya still belonged to the old cinema,
incorporating the traditional melodramatic narrative devices employed in the early
1910s by Russian film pioneer, Yevgeni Bauer.

Yulia Solntseva (1901-89) began in the film industry as an actress, making her debut
as the eponymous heroine in Aelita (Protaznov, 1924), then starring in The CigaretteGirl (Papirosnitsa ot Mosselproma, Zheliabuzhsky, 1924) later the same year. She madethe transition to film production after marrying established director, Aleksandr
Dovzhenko, in 1929.159 Solntseva was his assistant on Earth (Zemlya, 1930) and later
progressed to his co-director. Coinciding with her collaborative projects, Solntseva
directed independent assignments, beginning in the early 1940s with films such as
Bukovina (1940) and Liberation (Osvobozhdeniye, 1940). In 1956, after Dovzhenko’s
sudden death, Solntseva vowed to continue his legacy and, throughout the 1950s and1960s, adapted a collection of Dovzhenko’s unused scripts, such as Poem of the Sea(Poema o more, 1958). In this respect, Solntseva’s career mirrors Svilova’s, which also
concluded with the promotion of her late husband’s work. Both women wereadamant that their husbands should be the ones acknowledged for their collaborative
films, in the process renouncing their own contributions. Solntseva went as far as to73

refuse the Lenin Prize for Poem of the Sea, suggesting instead that it should be
posthumously awarded to Dovzhenko. She said of the film, ‘I completed it inaccordance with Dovzhenko’s artistic conception, putting aside every trace of myown individual vision.’160 Efim Levin suggests that Solntseva continued Dovzhenko’s
romantic tradition, in that her films ‘eschew naturalistic causality and create epic
panoramas, poetic metaphors and larger-than-life characters’.161

Yet, ‘while clearly influenced by her husband, Solntseva became an accomplisheddirector in her own right.’162 Once again, one cannot help but draw comparisons
between Solntseva and Svilova, and it can be argued that, in the building of Vertov’s
legacy, Svilova too marginalised her contribution because she felt that she had merely
helped to realise his vision rather than her own. In her mind, those films are Vertov’s,
constructed according to specific theories that, while she helped put them into
practice, are the results of his ingenuity. I sense from Svilova’s autobiographies that
she was more protective of her independent films, the ones that are designed
according to her own direction and principles of editing, over which she could claim
sole ownership. For example, she writes in her final autobiography that, for the films
made in the post-war period (the atrocity films and those produced in Alma-Ata) she
received recognition for her contributions to the industry. This juncture is wherecomparisons between Solntseva and Svilova draw to a close. Although they bothcollaborated with their husbands and then dedicated their lives to the building of
their late husbands’ legacies, Solntseva retained and developed key characteristics ofher collaboration – ‘imaginatively transposing Dovzhenko’s style’163 – whereas
Svilova largely moved away from the virtuoso editing of Kino-eye, a cutting rate thatwas incongruent with the social-realist aesthetic she later adopted. Some sequences
are reminiscent, such as the phantom ride in Yangtze River (1950, discussed in Chapter
74

Four), but the dynamism that symbolises Vertov and Svilova’s collaborative films ison the most part left behind.

Aleksandra Khokhlova (1897-1985) also began her career as an actress. She firstworked with montage theorist, Lev Kuleshov, the man who later became herhusband and collaborator, at his Workshop for Failed Actors and he cast her in The
Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Neobychainye
priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov, 1924). She plays a countess, a woman incontrol of her sexuality and, like Svilova, taking advantage of a childfree life. As
Lynne Attwood observes, ‘In an ideological climate that stressed women’s maternal
duties as well as their equal rights, the countess was a rare occurrence.’164 Khokhlova
was unpopular with critics and audiences, owing to her unusual looks: ‘Cinema was’,according to Kuleshov, ‘still in pursuit of beauties’.165 He provided a means for her tocontinue in the industry, teaching her the fundamentals of directing. Khokhlova
made Sasha (1930) before working as a drama teacher throughout the 1930s.166 She
resumed her production role in the early 1940s with two films, Descent into a Volcano(Sluchay v vulkane, 1941) and We, the Urals (My s Urala, 1943), both co-directed withKuleshov.167 Svilova spoke very highly of Khokhlova, describing her as ‘such an
original and interesting woman, and a remarkable actress’.168 Beyond this isolated
remark, I have not been able to locate any other references to women filmmakers of
the period.

Esfir Shub (1894-1959) was a graduate of the Higher Women’s Institute in Moscow.
In 1918 she undertook her first job, employed in the theatre department of thePeople’s Commissariat for Education. Having worked as the secretary to Vsevolod
Meyerhold, the inspiration behind Eisenstein’s agitational theatre, Shub opted for a75

career in cinema and was hired to re-edit foreign films for Soviet audiences. Reediting was both a means of compensating for the extreme lack of film stock in theearly 1920s and a way of adapting the original material to align with the policies oflegitimisation. Shub moved to Goskino and began what is now referred to as thecompilation genre: the creative recycling of archive material to represent topicalnews.169 She used old film material to create new films; for example, she cut fromarchive footage of the Russian Royal Family her first and most famous film, The Fallof the Romanov Dynasty (Padenie dinastii Romanovykh, 1927). Incidentally, 1927 was adecisive year for Soviet cinema. It was the year that filmmakers had to come to termswith the challenge of celebrating two anniversaries: of the revolution and of thecollapse of the tsarist regime. While Preobrazhenskaya’s Peasant Women of Ryazan
fitted well with the pre-revolutionary melodramatic structure, The Fall of the Romanov
Dynasty became ‘a manifesto for the new, revolutionary cinema’.170 This film was thefirst of a trilogy, followed by The Great Way (Velikiy put, 1927) and concluding with
Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicolai II (Rossiya Nikolaya II i Lev Tolstoy, 1928). Vertov
and Svilova’s experiences re-editing Civil War footage to meet the needs of theregime were said to have had a profound effect on Shub’s experimentation with thefootage for The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty; the way in which she created coherent,
creative and ideological sequences from the available material reflected Svilova’s
editing in films such as The Trial of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries (Protess oravykh eserov,
1922) and the later Cine-Pravda episodes (1922-25).171 Throughout the 1940s and until
her death in 1959, Shub was a director-editor at the Central Studio for DocumentaryFilm, producing episodes of News of the Day in the same capacity as Svilova.

There are three notable patterns in this study of Svilova’s contemporaries: first, thetransition from actress to a film production role of some sort was a common route76

into the industry. It could be suggested that directors such as Gardin and Kuleshov
offered their partners opportunities to direct as a result of their personal relationships.
Second, it was not unusual for the women to work in collaboration and, perhaps dueto the influences that had introduced them to the production side of the industry,
they tended to work with a male director. Also, it is worth noting that all the women
had successful independent careers in between or after the collaborative element(s);not one was reliant on a male collaborator for the full duration of her working life.
Third, from the four case studies it can be deduced that the role of the female
director in a male-dominated industry was relatively unstable. Judith Mayne suggeststhat women’s reliance on a male associate to break into the filmmaking industry
typified the Soviet stance toward the female population as a whole during theinterwar period.172 Although the Bolshevik government was committed on paper toequality for women, in practice, policies were decided pragmatically. The steps
deemed necessary to build socialism – the protection of the family as an economic
unit, particularly in rural areas, and the free market established by the New Economic
Policy – conflicted with measures that immediately would have improved the statusof women.

Consequently, while Svilova and her contemporaries were granted the freedom towork in the industry, there was a discernible tension between the emancipation of
women and the subsequent marginalisation they suffered. As Lynne Attwood
describes, the post-revolutionary transformation in sexual relations encouraged astatus quo of gender disillusionment.173 Within a year of the revolution, theConstitution of 1918 affirmed equal rights for men and women. The problem,
though, according to Renee and Matthew Baigell in the introduction to their analysisof post-Soviet women artists, was that Russian men appeared not to be aware of this77

affirmation.174 While both men and women worked full time, men were entitled torest but women were expected to carry on working and fulfil their domestic duties.
The situation was compounded after Stalin’s gaining of power: economic priorities
resulted in the underdevelopment of the service sector and consumer industries, aswell as the failure to socialise fully childcare and household functions.175 The
marriage laws of 1917, for example, which allowed women to instigate divorce, wererevised in 1925 with the aim of providing more protection for women. This waspartly successful, but it was precisely women’s legal status as ‘victim’ that, in
retrospect, highlights the extreme ambivalence Soviet culture had toward female
equality.176 It is important to observe that, as a woman without children, Svilova
would not have suffered from the ‘double burden’. To my knowledge, she cared for
Vertov during his bouts of illness but she was not responsible for any otherdependents. The social position of Soviet women is important to consider, though,as gender rhetoric was frequently weaved into Svilova’s newsreels and documentaries,
to the extent that her representation of the new Soviet woman can be considered adefining trait of her films.

The most telling observation one can make about my study of early Soviet women
filmmakers is the scant number of sources from which the information is located.177
Very little attention has been paid to their lives and work because, as Angela Martin
argues, ‘the theory that informs the discipline is still largely only concerned with malefilmmakers.’178 This explains why Svilova and other early Soviet women filmmakers
are not the subject of consistent academic research while early male Soviet
filmmakers, particularly those from the 1920s who shared a collective desire toengage with the field and publicise their theories, are habitually revisited. Yet,although discussions about early Soviet women filmmakers are rare, the steady78

increase in publications dealing with early Hollywood filmmakers and women
filmmakers from other national cinemas suggests that paradigms are now being
constructed which can accommodate films made by women, and my interest in
Svilova’s contribution to Soviet film hopefully indicates that it is only a matter oftime before early Soviet women filmmakers begin to receive wider attention.179

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Chapter 2:
Evidence of Aggression: Oświęcim (1945)
and Atrocities (1945)

Introduction
This chapter explores Oświęcim (1945) and Atrocities (1945), two films Svilova edited at
the end of World War II. Oświęcim is a twenty minute documentary shot at theliberation of Auschwitz by Red Army cameramen. What transgressions the film isdeemed to have witnessed is uncertain, for the most immediate and striking aspect of
the footage, aside from its macabre imagery, is that it appears to misinterpret theevents it recounts: it does not recognise itself as observing the aftermath of Jewish
genocide. Instead, for the victims of the Holocaust, ethnic specificity is disregardedin the interests of universality. I commence my analysis of Oświęcim with an insight
into the film’s history, before exploring Svilova’s editing strategies.1 This section
focuses on the generation of meaning through conflictual montage and employs thetheories of André Bazin, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag to probe Svilova’s
juxtaposition of still and moving imagery. I introduce Oświęcim’s outtake reel and The
Liberation of Auschwitz (von zur Mühlen, 1985) to begin acknowledging the questionsof representation the film raises. Although Svilova’s attempt to universalise the81victims of the Nazis was not a strictly Soviet initiative, as I discuss below, Oświęcim
nevertheless upheld Stalin’s defensive mentality and emphasis on legitimisation. In
detailing the horror committed by the enemies of communism, the film served toreinforce to the masses the virtuousness and integrity of socialism, while also moregenerally justifying Stalin’s suspicion of foreign countries and the extreme measures
he took to protect – or control – the Soviet population. Rather than a sign of antiSemitism, Genadii Kostyrchenko argues that the marginalisation of Jewish
victimhood reflected the Stalin regime’s abandonment of internationalism in favourof a growing Russian nationalism.2

Jewish victims were omitted throughout Allied accounts of the Holocaust. I support
this point with a synchronic analysis of atrocity films from Great Britain, France andthe United States, which affords a platform for my study of Atrocities, a sixty minutemontage of footage previously included in wartime newsreels and liberation films –including Oświęcim – that provided testimony for the Soviet prosecution at the main
Nuremberg trial, thus acting as one thread of an established line of allegation
adopted by all four Allied prosecutions. Against which specific crimes Atrocities
testified was determined by a complex legal rhetoric that once again resulted in Jews
remaining unmentioned. However, beyond arguing that its venue of exhibition, thecourtroom at Nuremberg, influenced the film’s representation of Jewish suffering, I
also hold its role as evidence, its function in the witness box, an equally crucial partof my analysis. I reintroduce the ontological theories – including Judith Butler thistime – to map the relationship between the film’s visceral power and its ability tovalidate the crimes it documents. I suggest that this relationship largely originates in
the authority bestowed on the film camera to capture unequivocal truth. Moving
away from an analysis of Svilova’s editorial decisions, I concentrate solely on her
82

selection of shots, arguing that she sought to include the images with the greatest
capacity to engage the viewer in pathos. She selects footage that not only testifies tothe crimes discussed in the courtroom but appeals to the emotions of the audience.
She frequently emphasises individual victims and presents them as connected withthe viewer by showing their faces. ‘The camera pays particular attention to powerfulexpressions of grief, rendering the pain in close-up shots and representing the deadas related to the spectator.’3Oświęcim (1945)Oświęcim is a short but powerful film. As Hicks observes, its value as a document andact of testimony can be enhanced immensely by analysing the film in light of thetechnical, personal, and political decisions that influenced its making.4 On 7 February,1945, the Central Studio for Documentary Film received a telegram from camera
operator Mikhail Oshurkov that stated he and his camera division were filming thecamp. The first five hundred metres of film were sent the following day, eleven days
after the camp’s liberation. The crew requested additional lighting equipment andfilm stock, which was received in early March. On 19 March, Oshurkov sent more
footage and requested for it to be edited with the previous footage.

The film commences with mid-shots of ex-inmates walking in single file through thesnow. Each person looks into the camera as they pass it. Other inmates remain
behind a barbed wire fence; the camera tracks across their lifeless eyes. The fact thatthey remain imprisoned after the liberation suggests that this shot was dramatised by
the cameramen, a fact confirmed by the anecdotes of Alexander Vorontsov, a Red
Army cinematographer who acknowledged that many shots were staged for the
benefit of the camera.5 Svilova takes a step back from this intimate portrayal and cuts
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together shots of the camp captured from a low-flying aeroplane. The snow-covered
barracks provide an indication of the camp’s scale and symmetry. These shots arejuxtaposed with close-up shots of an elderly woman leaning out of a barrack window
gasping for air. Svilova interrupts the high-angle montage with further close-up shots,
this time of the camp’s drawing plans. The final close-up of the sequence depicts
plans of the camp’s crematoria. Back inside the barrack, the camera tracks an elderly
woman hobbling along the rows of wooden bunks. Women sit and talk to each other;
their relaxed demeanour implies that the scene was again dramatised after theliberation. Svilova attempts to draw the audience away from the possibility of staging
by intercutting the scene with a shot of an electric fence. A sign next to the fence
indicates that it is powered by 6000 volts. The juxtaposition intimates that, despite
the liberation, the fence continues to imprison the women. The women in thebarracks are captured in detail, standing in medium close-up facing the camera andintroduced by the voiceover as Elena Iablunkskaia, seventy three; Stanislava
Kshechkol’skaia, fifty-four; and Olimpia Prusinov’skaia, sixty-five. They were sent tothe camp after the Warsaw uprising in September 1944. It is important to note that
their names are Russified and distorted to downplay their ethnic difference from
Russian-speaking viewers.6 I will return to this point shortly.

After the barrack scene, a photo album is opened and the pages turned by a handthat enters the shot from the right. Leaving behind the images of smiling people in
the photographs, Svilova reselects a section from the tracking shot of the inmates
standing behind the barbed wire. The camera focuses on their physical ailments:
close-ups reveal damaged legs and bloody eyes. In similar fashion to the women in
the barrack, a young girl and infant are introduced in a medium close-up shot –heaps of naked bodies surround the ground where they stand.
84

The next sequence captures inmates continuing their exit from the camp. Some of
the inmates are able to walk freely but most are assisted on crutches. Many lie deadon stretchers, their faces covered by rags and stained sheets. Children also make theirexit from the camp; escorted by nuns and nurses, they walk in single file along a path
between rows of barbed wire. Framed in mid-shot, a number of the children roll
their sleeves and reveal their tattooed numbers to the camera. The montage isconcluded with a shot of the vacant path, the absence of children suggesting that theliberation is complete. The shot’s extreme emptiness is also used to provide one halfof a conflictual juxtaposition. Svilova cuts from the uninhabited shot of the path to ashot containing a number of items scattered on the muddy ground – a doll’s head lies
among other unidentifiable objects. Svilova introduces the gas chambers gradually,first selecting a shot captured through a chamber’s peep hole before selecting shotsfrom a camera positioned inside the chamber, the latter capturing four Zyklon B
canisters standing against the back wall. A Soviet soldier opens up a small wooden
box to reveal syringes and a bottle of poison. Outside, the destruction caused by thechambers is depicted in explicit detail: a wide-angle shot captures scores of naked
bodies in a ditch; some of the bodies have deteriorated, others belong to lives only
recently passed. At the brow of the ditch, a female inmate gives her testimony to agroup of Soviet soldiers, while four male inmates explain to the camera how thegallows operated. When each man is introduced (it transpires that they are all
esteemed scientists), he displays his tattooed number to the audience.

The fourth to last sequence depicts a Soviet delegation’s tour of the camp’s
storerooms. Shot handheld, the camera follows the delegation as it inspects piles of
hair, spectacles, clothes, shoes, toothbrushes, hairbrushes and suitcases. A tracking
shot along a table of dentures suspends on the pair of pliers that lie ominously at the85

end. Svilova returns the viewer to the ditch, where the number of bodies lying within
it has increased. Two women stand at the brow crying into their handkerchiefs at thehorrific sight below them. A marching band approaches the ditch, followed first bynuns and altar boys and then by an enormous crowd of mourners. Hundreds ofwhite coffins are placed around the brow of the ditch. Close-up shots of themourners’ distraught faces provide time in the film’s narration for the coffins to belowered into the ditch. Men shovel earth over the coffins, burying them alongside theexposed bodies. The film’s penultimate sequence depicts scenes of medical
examinations. A montage of medium close-ups capture Soviet doctors assessing thehealth of an undernourished man and two children whose feet are severely
frostbitten. Svilova interrupts the scene with shots of photographs from a family
album before returning to a mid-shot of a crying baby. The final examinations depict
three men who have been sterilised, an undernourished woman, a man who has apiece of plastic protruding from under the skin of his calf and a young boy, Wenkel,
who was shot in the head ‘as a warning for sharing his bread’.7 The final shot of thefilm is a medium close-up of eleven photographs of the faces of Nazi guards who
worked at Auschwitz, presumably found during the camp’s liberation.

Oświęcim has been the subject of only minimal discussion in film studies. Academic
interest in filmic depictions of the Holocaust tends to be more focused on fictionalpresentations than the analysis of documentary material. The reason for thistendency is most likely due to the wealth of fiction material available for analysis –the presence of Holocaust films has been perpetual in Western cinema since the1960s.8 Such a presence has led to the establishment of the Holocaust genre as
filmmakers continually excavate new stories of survival and pain from documents
and anecdotes of World War II. Not only is there an abundance of Holocaust films
86but they tend to be popular with critics and audiences,9 which itself is perhaps owed
to the relative ease with which fictional accounts of events at concentration camps
such as Auschwitz introduce mainstream audiences to the unimaginable horror they
aim to portray. Although certain scenes in films such as Schindler’s List (Spielberg,1993) and The Pianist (Polanski, 2002) are unnerving, they pale in comparison to theexplicit grief and suffering evident in the grainy, black and white liberation footage.
The earliest recorded exhibition of Oświęcim was in the Soviet Union at the end of
May 1945, shown in Moscow in three cinemas for three weeks. The film’s release was
likely delayed until the war had officially ended and the Soviet war commission had
released its report on Auschwitz.10 A. Krol’s review of the film for Pravda Ukrainy
was extremely positive, suggesting that ‘everyone must see this film: not even themost powerful description can take the place of that which the camera has registereddispassionately.’11 Although the film was intended for an international audience, it
was most widely exhibited in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany: sixty-nine
German-language prints were produced between June and October 1945.12 Oświęcim
was exhibited in Austria in the autumn of 1945. A notice in the New Austriannewspaper on 4 November, 1945, indicates that the film was screened in the Kärtner
Theatre on Kärtner Street, a main shopping precinct in Vienna, as part of the bill fora re-release of Harry Piel’s Men, Animals and Sensations (1938), a German circus
drama.13 The next recorded exhibition in Austria was approximately two weeks later.
Oświęcim was screened as part of Camps of Terror on 16 November, described below:

A movie poster advertises a presentation of stylized barbed
wire: ‘The authentic concentration camp films – the camps ofterror that everyone must see!’ Haydn VI was the cinema inquestion. The programme consisted of three films: The Death
Camps (France, 1945) by Les Actualitiés Françaises, Majdanek:
Burial Sites in Europe (Soviet Union/Poland, 1944) byAleksander Ford and Irina Setkina, and Auschwitz (Soviet
Union, 1945) by Elizaveta Svilova.14

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Current discussions on Oświęcim are mostly limited to festival screenings of the film.
Febiofest 2005, a Czech film festival, included the film in its programme,15 as did a
one-day Austrian festival the same year titled Kinokis Presents, which coincided withthe publication of the book, Learn to Discuss! Re-Education Through Film: Strategies ofWestern Allies after 1945.16 Oświęcim was screened alongside five other films at
Febiofest: Concentration Camp Ebensee Austria (US Army Signal Corps, 1945), Death
Mills (Burger, 1945), The Death Camps (Les Actualités Françaises, 1945), A DefeatedPeople (Jennings, 1945) and Fresh Wind in All Lanes (Buch, 1951).17 Outside the festival
domain, John MacKay mentions Svilova and the film in his 2009 biography of Dziga
Vertov,18 and Jeremy Hicks briefly references the film in his article, ‘Confronting the
Holocaust: Mark Donskoi’s The Unvanquished’, cited below:

Soviet films recorded the aftermath of Nazi racial violence
throughout the war, culminating in a two-reel film, Majdanek,
edited by Irina Setkina and released in January 1945; and inJune the same year, a two-reel film of Auschwitz, which uses
the town’s Polish name, Oświęcim, edited by Elizaveta Svilova,
Dziga Vertov’s wife.19

Hicks provides a more thorough analysis of the film in his latest book, First Films of
the Holocaust (2012).

Oświęcim is readily accessible in archives. For example, the Russian State
Documentary Film and Photo Archive in Krasnogorsk holds a 35mm print with a
Russian voiceover and a number of rolls of film containing outtakes; theBundesarchiv in Berlin holds a print on 35mm with a German voiceover; the OpenSociety Archive in Budapest holds the same film on DVD with an English voiceover(the voiceover is translated into English from Russian as faithfully as the differences
between the two languages will allow); the Imperial War Museum in London has a88print on 35mm but without sound; the Yad Vashem archive in Jerusalem has a print
on 35mm with a Russian voiceover; and the National Center for Jewish Film, based
at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, loans out its English-speaking 16mm print
for educational purposes. My analysis is based on the print and outtakes archived in
Krasnogorsk.

Oświęcim and editorial strategies
In order to locate Svilova’s directorial approach in Oświęcim, it is useful torecontextualise it among classical theories of Soviet montage. The creation ofmontage is a result of the juxtaposition of differences within one frame or withinsequences, in choreography or arranged chaos, and in linear or circular movements.
Conflict within the shot is merely potential montage; dialectical montage operates
fully when one image is put into interaction with another. If one accepts the premiseof conflict then montage is not a process that can be restricted to a film’s postproduction stage; on the contrary, it must be considered from the very beginning,long before any shooting has taken place. David Bordwell reminds us that, although
it was an established practice in Soviet cinema during this period to use foundfootage – that is, using images shot for other films to cut costs – the pre-production
stage was vital in determining which images would be required to narrate the story.20
From Bordwell’s description it can be argued that Svilova does not use montage inthe typical way. Her role was to elicit conflict from material over which she had nocontrol until it was available for editing. Svilova’s application of conflictual montage,
therefore, is both unique and symptomatic of her association with the 1920s schoolof Soviet filmmakers.

89

Within the opening two minutes of the film, high-angle aerial shots sweep overAuschwitz – the snow-covered landscape is dotted with the black roofs of thebarracks. From this viewpoint, the camera captures the symmetry of the camp’s
architecture. As the aeroplane slows down, and the shot develops from a tracking
shot into a high-angle stationary shot, Svilova cuts to drawing plans of Auschwitz
spread out on a desk. White snow turns into the white paper on which the plans are
drawn. Juxtaposing the plans with the sweeping high-angle shots of the camp itself
allows for the introduction of a new, abstract meaning: the camp, as a representationof the Nazis’ vision of a totalitarian fascist state, was realised and executed with an
exceptional level of efficiency. Conflictual editing resurfaces in the medical
examination scene toward the end of the film. Three men sit on a bed shirtless,framed in the centre of the shot. Although the men appear well-nourished andhealthy, the voiceover informs the audience that the men have been subjected tosterilisation experiments. Svilova juxtaposes this shot with one featuring a woman
who, also centrally framed, is suffering from malnutrition. The conflict between the‘unified mass’ and ‘lonely individual’, as Eisenstein described it,21 is palpable in both
its literacy (preceding the woman with the three well-nourished men makes her
appear even more skeletal) and also in its ideological detachment from the real world– the image of the seemingly healthy men is more unsettling for the audience which,
up to this point in the film, has become accustomed to the protruding bones, shaved
heads and overall dishevelled appearance of the inmates. The malnourished woman,
then, within the boundaries of Oświęcim’s idiosyncratic narrative ironically provides
the viewer with a familiar image, one it can understand. Furthermore, the conflict ofmass and individual in this transition is neutralised by our knowledge of the inmates’
illnesses. Once the voiceover divulges this information, it becomes clear that boththe men and the woman have suffered unimaginable pain.
90

In addition to the conflict between mass and individual, Svilova implements a
conflict of movement. Eight minutes into the film, injured and dead inmates are
shepherded out the camp on stretchers and horse carts. They enter the frame fromthe right and exit to the left through the camp’s main gate, which becomes a wellestablished pattern of movement. The voiceover identifies one of the bodies as ayoung woman who was murdered two hours before the liberation for trying toescape. As the body is removed from the camp, Svilova cuts to a shot from a camera
setup on the opposite side of the pathway. The movement in the frame switches toleft to right, in immediate conflict with the previously established pattern. The
second camera setup does not provide a clearer view of the subject; there is no
explicit reason for Svilova to induce conflict here other than the requirement for
direct shot interaction. Although the body is being removed from the camp, theresult of the conflict implies that it is now being carried back into the camp. The
abstract result of the juxtaposition implies, at least in my reading, that Auschwitz has
claimed the life and soul of the woman, who is destined to remain there indefinitely.
Svilova interrupts a second established pattern of movement later in the film, again
to encourage an emotional response from the viewer. After the Soviet generals haveexamined the piles of hair, dentures and spectacles hoarded in the storerooms,
Svilova cuts to a different storeroom containing the clothes of the inmates. Up tothis point, the editing pattern has consisted of an external shot to establish thelocation, followed by an internal shot of the action. Svilova deliberately disrupts thispattern; instead, the internal shot comes first in the form of a tight, low-angle
medium close-up of the pile of clothes inside the storeroom. In comparison to thesize of the previous piles, this one appears relatively smaller and, therefore, comes assomething of a relief for the viewer who likely assumes that the size reflects thenumber of inmates who perished. Once the size of the pile is established in the91minds of the audience members, Svilova cuts to a wide-angle exterior shot of thesame storeroom. This shot depicts a huge pile of clothes bursting out the storeroom
door, almost the size of the storeroom itself. As the audience now realises, the small
and rather insignificant pile of clothing inside the storeroom was merely the start ofthe pile. The initial withholding of visual evidence thus fuels and heightens a
response of anger and incredulity.

Svilova’s use of montage, then, pivots on a concept of manipulation: she elicits theaudience’s emotional response by contravening her own established patterns ofediting. A scene five minutes into Oświęcim depicts a young woman and infant
holding hands outside a barrack; dead bodies lie all around them. Once the voiceover
has introduced the pair, they walk toward the camera and past it, carefully stepping
over the bodies as they go. As the woman and infant leave the frame, Svilova cuts toa shot depicting a number of wounded inmates walking toward the camera. Although
the wounded inmates do not step over dead bodies as the infant and the young
woman have done – instead, they step over bricks and other debris – the second
shot’s exact replication of the movement in the first shot encourages an intellectual
reading. Svilova uses continuity in movement to draw a comparison between thebodies and the bricks, in doing so articulating a myriad of interpretations, though thepremise of desensitisation is perhaps the most immediate response. Stepping overthe bodies, the infant appears indifferent to a scene that in any other real-world
scenario would be met with horror by adult and child alike. The infant steps over thebodies as if they are pieces of rubble.

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The development of motifs
The establishment of motifs are central to Svilova’s montage strategy and it is crucial
to explore the development of certain structures and literary devices within the film’s
narrative. As I have discussed, the theme of desensitisation – in particular, theseemingly detached attitude of the inmates toward death – reoccurs throughoutOświęcim, implying a loss of innocence. A montage of the camp’s debris features ashot of a doll’s head, and this shot is held for a number of seconds longer than the
shots that come before and after it. Furthermore, during the storeroom sequence inwhich the Soviet generals inspect the hair, dentures and other personal possessionsof the inmates, Svilova suspends the sequence on a shot of a blonde, plaited ponytail,presumably cut from a young girl’s head. Both of these shots underpin the point thatchildren were treated in Auschwitz without compassion. A young girl’s ponytail
removed from the scalp not only symbolises a loss of innocence but also a loss of
femininity, reflecting the androgynous appearance assumed reluctantly by the camp’s
inmates. There are reoccurring images of women who have no feminine qualities;
their skeletal faces and malnourished bodies render them genderless. Even the deadbodies, framed in close-up and naked, are not easily distinguishable as a male orfemale. The pain inflicted on the female inmates of Auschwitz might be read as apersonal affliction for Svilova who recycles shots of women crying, particularly
during the burial sequence, and also emphasises the pain and disillusionment of theelderly woman in the barrack by revisiting her through various close-up shots. The
motivation for the placing of this image – juxtaposed with the aerial shots in the
opening sequence of the film – is not clear but its ambiguity encourages a visceralresponse.

93

Humiliation and dehumanisation are sustained in Svilova’s third motif. On threeoccasions inmates expose the tattooed numbers with which they were branded uponadmission to Auschwitz: first, a number of children roll their sleeves on their exitfrom the camp;22 second, the four scientists in the courtyard each reveal their number
in turn; and last, the malnourished woman who is juxtaposed with the three sterilised
men during the medical experimentation sequence exhibits her number upon request.
The focus on the tattoos suggests that, while physical pain eventually fades, thenumbers will remain as tangible manifestations of the psychological scars the inmatesbear. Some survivors reveal their numbers proudly, in the knowledge they overcame
the torment it represents, but others expose them half-heartedly, as if ashamed. This
motif, working in conjunction with the loss of femininity and innocence, is acalculated attempt to support the central message of Svilova’s narrative: the inmatesof Auschwitz suffered heinous torture, humiliation and death at the hands of abarbaric fascist ideology.

The last motif introduces ontological theories to my discussion. On three occasions
family photographs are incorporated to develop and inform the film’s dominantthemes. The first use of photographs occurs within the opening five minutes of thefilm, during the barrack scene. Women sit on the benches and lie in their beds, allstaring into the camera. Svilova interrupts this scene with a close-up shot of a photo
album; the pages are turned by a hand that enters the shot from the right. Inside thealbum, a series of photographs depicts people in various states of happiness andenjoyment: children laughing, families picnicking and playing games. Then Svilova
returns to Auschwitz with a panning shot of inmates standing behind an electricfence. The pan pauses for a moment on a number of inmates who are displaying
symptoms of physical abuse. The second use of photographs occurs eighteen
94minutes into the film during the medical examinations sequence. Two children, a boy
and a girl, are having their feet inspected by a doctor. A close-up shot of the girl’sfeet reveals that they are severely frostbitten, with the toes compacted together.
Again, Svilova interrupts this shot with a pan across a photo album – eachphotograph portrays a joyful child. The shot suspends on the photograph of asmiling baby before Svilova cuts back to the examination room with unremitting
candidness: a distressed baby cries in a cot and a malnourished infant stands naked
on the bed. The doctor turns the infant around in order for the camera to record thefull extent of his injuries.

Pre-war family photographs, previously considered private mementos without
documentary value, have become central to the Holocaust narrative.23 Besides being
intensely personal, family photos are universal; they are unique and at the same time
relatively mundane. Anyone can read a family photo, projecting onto the image theirown memories, longings or desires. Svilova’s juxtaposition of the photographs,
alongside images of the inmates after their incarceration at Auschwitz, serves toincrease the poignancy of both the before and after snapshot of these people’s lives;
the ordinariness of the photographs is accentuated by the horrifying footage. Such a
use of montage taps into the viewer’s complex and contradictory associations offamily, nostalgia and mortality. We must remember the familiar as well as theterrifying and often incomprehensible images. Although still alive, the inmates
juxtaposed with the photographs are on the brink of death. Even the young men,
only a few years older than the children depicted in the photographs, appear aged
and fatigued. Svilova does not only create conflict between emancipation andcaptivity, or good health and poor health; she questions the grey area that exists as a95

result of pushing one to a state of near-death, at which point the thought of death isno longer abhorred.

While the inmates are still breathing and standing upright – although in the cases ofmany, only just – the resonance of death that pervades the scene broaches the
ontological theories of André Bazin. Bazin argues that the reproduction of the image
in a realist format is no longer a question of survival after death (referring to Man’s
desire to overcome the finality of death using visual art) but of a larger concept, thecreation of an ideal world in the likeness of the real, with its own temporal destiny.24
Bazin makes reference to family albums, suggesting that they offer the presence of
lives halted at a set moment in their duration, freed from their destiny.25 Svilova’s
placing of the photographs in between scenes of explicit suffering provides eachphotograph with what Roland Barthes describes as its ‘punctum’: the image’s ability
to wound or prick the spectator.26 Svilova’s granting of life to these photographs,
liberating them from the interpretive agency of subjective perception, is central tothis montage. What appears at first to be a collision between the life of motion
picture and the death of photography remains dialectical, only the life emanates fromthe shadows of the photographic image. The death of the moving image is confirmed
when the voiceover reveals that two of the children juxtaposed with the photographs
did not survive. For these children, their recollections of a happy childhood, like theones portrayed in the photographs, will remain as memories not to be relived.

The third use of photographs in Oświęcim occurs during the film’s final sequence.
After the medical examinations have taken place, a shot of eleven photographs
scattered across a table fades into view; each photograph depicts the face of a Nazi
perpetrator. Svilova cuts to a close-up shot of two of the faces, SS Officer Max Sell
96and Commander Richard Baer, before returning to the shot of all elevenphotographs. The voiceover informs the audience that ‘these are the men responsible
for the deaths of four million people.’ The photographs in this instance constitute anarrative strategy to signify resolution by allowing the audience to identify the enemy.
Furthermore, the images provide the Soviet soldiers, doctors and nurses – arguably
the collective hero of the film – with an antithesis that, up until this final moment,
has remained anonymous. The poor lighting with which the photographs of the
Nazis are captured by the film camera, complemented by the impassive andunemotional facial expressions depicted in each one, renders it difficult for theviewer to find any life in the photographs. Contradicting Bazin, Roland Barthes
argues that death cannot be evaded and, even if death has not yet occurred, aphotograph reminds us that it will:

The photograph’s immobility is somehow the result of aperverse confusion between two concepts: the Real and the
Live: by attesting that the object has been real, the photographsurreptitiously induces belief that it is alive, because of that
delusion which makes us attribute to Reality an absolutely
superior, somehow eternal value; but by shifting this reality tothe past (this-has-been), the photograph suggests that it isalready dead.27

Barthes posits a valuable notion: the medium of photography, whose existenceaccording to Bazin is justified by its ability to record and encapsulate life, is unable tofulfil its destiny; it confirms death rather than serves to avoid it. Svilova uses thephotographs of the Nazis to offer visual confirmation that their reign of terror isover. Although Richard Baer, for example, lived until 1963, his photographrepresents the death of his ideology. This notion could not have been achieved withmoving image; any suggestion of movement or life would have merely served toundermine the very point Svilova appears to be making. Susan Sontag places atrocity

97photography somewhere in between the ontological theories of Bazin and Barthes:‘Photographs of the suffering of a people are more than reminders of death, of
failure, of victimisation. They invoke the miracle of survival.’28 What they cannot do,though, despite the coherence of Sontag’s argument, is provide unequivocal proof ofthe events they record: ‘Photographs of atrocity illustrate as well as corroborate …
they give the indelible sample. The illustrative function of photographs leaves
opinions, prejudices, fantasies, misinformation untouched.’29 One of the reasons why
atrocity photographs are not indisputable evidence is that, as Hannah Arendt
observed shortly after Auschwitz’s liberation, they depict the event at a specificmoment in time.30 Arendt alludes to photography’s fatal flaw: what happens before
and after the split second when the emulsion in the camera is exposed to lightremains unaccounted for. This is not to argue that motion picture has managed toeradicate this particular inadequacy; due to its own limitations, the film camera has
also been unable to answer many of the questions surrounding the liberation ofconcentration camps such as Auschwitz. Nevertheless, although the photographs fallshort as proof they can, as Sontag rightly concludes, acknowledge.31 ResolvingOświęcim’s narrative with photographs of eleven Nazis can neither explain why theatrocities happened nor can they represent the many who were in some way
responsible for it. The photographs can, however, allow for an acknowledgement of
the evil that remained as a constant factor throughout the camp’s appalling history. I
return to these ontological theories shortly.

Obscuring accounts of Jewish suffering
Further analysis of Oświęcim reveals how – using both image and sound – the film
systematically marginalises the Jewish suffering at the camp. Archive documents98reveal that, after receiving the footage, the Central Studio for Documentary sent atelegram to Mikhail Oshurkov on 3 April applauding the professional standard andclear, correct orientation of the footage. He is also praised for ‘avoiding the dangers
of naturalism’,32 meaning that there was no undue concentration on images that
identified Jews. Despite the instructions to avoid naturalism, there was an element ofindecision for the camera operators. They filmed a pile of tallits, the Jewish ritual
prayer shawl, which unambiguously represented the number of Jewish victims, butthese shots were not included in the final film. The fact that these images were filmed
at all suggests a lack of certainty on the part of the cameramen as to what wasappropriate for the film and what was not. Svilova performed a crucial ‘gatekeeping’
exercise. Even though the commission that toured the camp noted the ‘massproduced signs in the form of six-pointed stars with the word Jude inside the star’,33
any footage gathered during the liberation that explicitly or implicitly touched upon
the Jewish dimension of the Holocaust remained on Svilova’s cutting room floor.

This decision-making process is not only supported by the outtakes of Oświęcim,which includes the shots of the tallits, but also by the German documentary, The
Liberation of Auschwitz, which claims to feature the full sixty minutes of usable footage
captured by the Red Army’s cameramen. This footage is accompanied by a voiceoverbased on the anecdotes of Alexander Vorontsov who shot the liberation footage andwho is intermittently interviewed throughout the film. As Hicks suggests, the outtake
reel enables us to trace the process that Soviet attempts to represent the Holocaust
had to negotiate before appearing on screen, and this process can be compared withthe attempts of other media to depict the same events.34 For example, Yitshak Aradargues that, on the whole, Soviet print media at worst ignored and at best diffused
Jewish suffering into a policy of universality.35 When contextualised in this manner,99

the films’ clichés become more evident and their silences more telling. They grant us
insight into the difficulties faced and paths taken when filmmakers first attempted toportray the Holocaust.36 Comparing the outtake reel and The Liberation of Auschwitz
with Svilova’s film confirms the latter’s blind spots. For example, The Liberation of
Auschwitz and the outtake reel inform us that, alongside the family photographs
Svilova incorporates into her film, there were photographs depicting the arrival of a
train full of Jews at Auschwitz. Nearly every person in each photograph displays aStar of David on their chest. In conjunction with the factual and dramatisedreconstructions of the Holocaust produced since, these photographs validate theclaim that Jews who arrived at Auschwitz were not just a nationality of victims but
stood as a target for complete annihilation. Furthermore, a funeral held at Auschwitz
on 28 February, 1945, for the 470 bodies found during the liberation is a pivotal
scene in Svilova’s film, yet footage of a traditional Jewish burial, included in The
Liberation of Auschwitz, is noticeably absent.

As Oświęcim does not acknowledge the victims as Jews, the voiceover, which
comments on the images directly, also fails to mention their overwhelming presence
at Auschwitz. Amid describing the images, the voiceover recounts the Nazi legacy,
sharing with the viewer statistics pertaining to the number of dead and outlining indetail Hitler’s aim for world domination. This information, while unrelated to
specific images, reinforces the film’s rhetoric. According to the voiceover, Hitler’sgoal was to ‘exterminate the European intelligentsia’, reiterating that ‘four million
people died at Auschwitz’ – both consciously elusive statements. In fact, the word
‘Jew’ is mentioned only once throughout the film’s duration, as a ‘nationality’ ofvictim in a list containing Polish, Czech, Dutch, etc. The role of the voiceover, then,contradicts Svilova’s preference for the visual generation of meaning, most likely100indicating that a studio executive did not deem the images sufficiently clear to tell the
Auschwitz story in the way considered most beneficial to the aims of the Central
Committee.

Oświęcim’s absence of singular Jewish suffering, recognising it – if at all – in only
vague and almost abstract terms within the realm of universality, lies as much in
Svilova’s shot selection as it does in the act of cutting them together, and not only inthe shots selected for inclusion but in the shots that were not. It is for this reason
that a study of Svilova’s role in the film cannot be overlooked, despite her absencefrom the shooting location. The result of her selection and rejection process is a filmthat suggests Jews suffered almost inadvertently, embroiled in Hitler’s war against the
Slavic people, a line that followed the Soviet authorities’ rejection of the Holocaustand ‘restricted the representation and discussion of the fate of Jewish victims as
being separate from that of Soviet citizens more generally and other occupied
peoples’.37

Sovietising the Holocaust meant editing images of Jews to appeal as widely as
possible to the Soviet population, whose fears and presumed anti-Semitism mightotherwise cause this call for vengeance to flounder.38 To rouse Soviet soldiers toavenge the dead, filmmakers were encouraged to downplay the Jewish identity of thevictims so as to avoid confirming Nazi propaganda that claimed Russian soldiers
were being exploited to fight for Jews. It also involved depriving victims andeyewitnesses of language. Soviet atrocity footage frequently shows victims’ sufferingin a graphic manner, photographing the faces of the dead so as to enable spectator
identification. The purpose of this identification was to move the spectator to act, forthe dead are presented not as alien from but as similar to the spectator. Oświęcim
101

differs in this respect as Svilova does not incorporate close-up shots of faces. This
was a decision made by Svilova, since the initial footage shot by A. Pavlov included
close-up shots.39 While, then, Soviet wartime films attempted to Sovietise the
Holocaust, Oświęcim concentrates instead on the theme of universality to meet thedemands of an international audience. As the Soviet camera operators and editors did
not perceive these films as depicting the fate solely of Jews, and certainly not as
documenting the Holocaust, they worked under tight restrictions. Atrocities could be
represented but they could not be ethnically differentiated; the films thus formed a
specific representational mode and visual language, an idiom with which to articulate
pain and suffering.

The absence of Jewish suffering in Soviet wartime film
Despite a general overlooking of its filmic depictions of the Holocaust, the Soviet
Union was the only anti-Nazi power to be occupied yet able to continue its cinema
industry. Soviet wartime film had depicted Nazi persecution of Jews prior to the war,at least until the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. After the invasion inJune 1941, Soviet media began to make film documents of Nazi atrocities against
Soviet and Eastern populations, and the depictions continued throughout the war
until the liberation of the concentration camps. The first filmic reference, however,to the Nazis’ genocidal acts toward Jews appeared implicitly in Soiuzkino Journal no.84(Soiuzkinozhurnal, 1941). Solomon Mikhoels, a famous Jewish actor and director at
the Moscow Yiddish theatre, makes a speech about the importance of Jews to fightback against the enemy. Before it was edited and included in the newsreel, Mikhoels’s
original speech referred explicitly to the intention of the Nazis to annihilate Jews.40 A
second speech, this time by Ilya Ehrenburg, is also edited to remove much of his102

discussion concerning Nazi anti-Semitism and emphasise instead the common fate ofJews and Soviet citizens.

A few months after the release of Soiuzkino Journal no.84, the first filmic depictions ofNazi aggression were exhibited. Soiuzkino Journal no.114 (1941) portrays the liberationof Rostov-on-Don in November 1941. The cameramen did not simply record thesesights but, as with the filming of Oświęcim, carefully determined which subjects would
be filmed, how they would be filmed, and which individuals would be used toencapsulate wider suffering. ‘The film does not even imply, let alone state, that thedead are Jews … The presentation of the dead as victims of a generalised Nazi
violence toward the town and its population serves to obscure the racial motive forthe crimes.’41 One of the victims documented is Vitia Golovlev, a boy of sixteen(though the commentary claims he is thirteen) who was murdered by the Nazis forrefusing to surrender his pigeon.42 While Vitia lies dead, slumped up against a wall,
the pigeon is still alive in his hands. Not only does this confirm that the shot wasstaged, the pigeon’s survival implied a Soviet spirit of resistance and innocence, andVitia himself was immortalised as a figure of hope for the Pioneer movement. The
film does not make it known that Vitia was Jewish. Rather, the newsreel represents
him as an arbitrary victim of violence, which fits in with the agenda of the story to
Sovietise the Holocaust. The suggestion that the Nazis chose victims irrationally –targeting anyone Soviet – also serves to highlight the barbarity of the fascist regime,
depicted as an unsystematic murdering machine.

While Rostov was the first notable city to be liberated, camera operators had alreadywitnessed the aftermath of smaller scale atrocities, but it was months before theydecided to film them. ‘The tragic vistas of retreat and columns of refugees103contradicted their expectations of a triumphant Soviet advance. Moreover, they wereafraid to film scenes without having required permission to do so.’43 As I havealready illustrated, the production notes of Oświęcim make clear that camera operators
were under strict instructions as to which images could and could not be exhibited to
Soviet audiences.

Although the Soviet films almost always deliberately understate the distinct fate ofJews by placing them with other victims of the atrocities, it is not the case that they
all do; some scenes explicitly identify Jewish victims. Soiuzkino Journal no.9 (1942), forexample, documents Jews and the armbands they were forced to wear in Orlov, acentral Russian district, though it does not go to any extent to explain why they wore
armbands – why they needed to be identified and segregated. Again, this newsreel
fails to seize the opportunity to explain the wider picture of Jewish victimhood.
Klooga Death Camp (Klooga—lager´ smerti, 1944), a one-reel special focusing on theliberation of the camp, documents victims with the Star of David on their uniforms.
Analogous to the shots of tallits in Oświęcim, the fact that the cameramen capture somany images that unambiguously identifies the dead as Jewish is a testament to thelack of clear guidance warning filmmakers what they should and should not capture.
The instructions to avoid naturalism were evidently not always understood or camewith flexible conditions. These films thus constitute both a visual record and an
initial effort, albeit inconsistently, to grasp and reconstruct the events of the
Holocaust.44 While the films did, on a few occasions, strive to depict Jews as Jews,
the political climate of the wartime Soviet film industry made these exceptions rare.
Even when filmmakers attempted this, they tended to avoid making Jews the
exclusive focus of their films, implying or suggesting more than they showed orstated.45 Therefore, the collective nature of Soviet newsreel tended to dilute any sense104

of personal affliction against Jews, and the few exceptions to this pattern are alsoseemingly flawed, as well as in other media. Referring to articles in Pravda and Izvestiia
about the Jewish victims of Majdanek, Karel Berkhoff states that, ‘Despite atransparent effort to deemphasise the Jews murdered in Poland, they were not always
omitted.’46

The tendency to classify Jews alongside other victims continued in almost all othernewsreels until the end of World War II. Soiuzkino Journal no.10 (1942), for example,
depicts a mass grave outside Kerch, a city in the eastern region of the Crimea, but
fails to identify the victims as Jewish. The film presents Grigorii Berman crying overthe bodies of his wife and children, but only a photograph taken by Jewish
photographer, Evgenii Khaldei, which is captioned with Grigorii’s name of the man
and in turn implies his Jewish identity, offers an insight into the ethnicity of thevictims.47 Soiuzkino Journal no.27 (1942) depicts frozen bodies in Barvenkovo, Ukraine.
The commentary aims to dismiss any notion that their Jewish identity was a factor in
the murders, stating that, ‘These peaceful citizens became victims of Fascist barbarity.
They were killed simply because they were Soviet people.’ The outtake reel from thefilm shows that the victims were wearing armbands, but the newsreel is carefullyedited to conceal what would have been explicit iconography of their Jewish identity.

These newsreels are not arbitrary examples to highlight the complex representationof Jewishness in Soviet wartime cinema. They have specific pertinence to Svilova, inthat she incorporated the scenes I have described from Rostov, Klooga and Kerch
into Atrocities. This is not coincidental: the footage was always intended to be used as
documents of Nazi crimes. The demand for retribution began with Molotov’s fournotes, the first issued in November 1941, which all refer to notions of law
105

contravened by Nazi atrocities. Yet, as Hicks suggests, the calls for a legal resolution
were part of a wartime propaganda strategy aimed partly at bolstering the image of
the Soviet Union with its British and American allies, but above all at re-establishing
the Soviet government’s moral superiority among its own citizens, whom the war had
shown to be so alienated that they were often attracted to Nazism.48 We canunderstand this to mean that, although Oświęcim was produced a number of months
before the International Military Tribunal had finalised the plan for the trials at
Nuremberg, it anticipates a legal outcome. For example, Svilova’s focusing on
documents rather than witnesses ‘avoids any emotional excess that might beprejudicial to justice and the creation of a legal precedent’, and the film ends with aquotation from Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill urging the war criminals to be tried.49
Also, the film’s subtitle, Film Documents of the Monstrous Crimes of the German Government
in Auschwitz (Kinodokumenty o chudovishchnykh prestupleniiakh germanskogo pravitel´stva v
Osventsime), sets the film in a legal context by implying that the aggression of the
Nazis exceeded that which can be expected during wartime. From the Soviet
perspective, the laws of civilised humanity, which are to be upheld at all times, hadbeen broken.

Atrocities (1945)
On Day 59 of the main Nuremberg Trial (14 February 1946) Chief Counsellor of
Justice L. N. Smirnov introduced documentation pertaining to crimes committed
against the civilian population of Eastern Europe. While Smirnov’s presentation was
focused on the criminal violation of the laws and customs of war, he also alluded to
Crimes against Peace: ‘The planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of
aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or106

participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of theforegoing.’50 Smirnov presented evidence for three full days, concluding the case on
Day Sixty-Two with Atrocities. A number of different versions of Atrocities are in
circulation; thus it is important to note that all references to the film are based on myviewing of the print preserved in the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo
Archive. Reading the film as an extension of Smirnov’s presentation, a controlled andcalculated visual manifestation of evidence designed to corroborate the spoken andwritten word, sheds light on its absence of Jewishness. The indictment did notinclude what we refer to today as genocide, which was instead included under theterm of Crimes against Humanity: namely murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation and other inhumane acts committed against civilian populations.51
Atrocities avoids discussing ethnicity for this reason.

Although understanding the crimes for which Atrocities provided evidence isbeneficial to my analysis, more so when I study the visceral qualities of the images, it
has not altogether resolved the matter of Jewish absence. Smirnov dedicated Days
Sixty-Seven to Sixty-Nine of the trial to the presentation of Crimes against Humanity.
Despite the opportunity to emphasise Jewish extermination in a way that fitted into
the Allies’ handling of its indictments, no film evidence was used to support theallegations. The Soviet prosecution’s passing up of this opportunity suggests that theabsence of Jewishness in Atrocities was not only a case of semantics – a second issue
prevented the film’s inclusion of any images that alluded to specific Jewish suffering.
Lawrence Douglas’s analysis of Nazi Concentration Camps (Stevens, 1945), a montage
of atrocities exhibited as evidence by the American prosecution, proposes that thefootage could not act as evidence, auxiliary or otherwise, for an offence
unprecedented in law and one almost impossible for a courtroom to fathom. For this107

reason, Nazi Concentration Camps documents a barbaric campaign of extermination
but does so in a highly elliptical manner. Calling attention to the film’s voiceover,Douglas notes that the word ‘Jew’ is mentioned only once in the film’s sixty minutes,
and in such a way as to eclipse any suggestion that the Holocaust was directed against
them: ‘The 4,000 Ohrdruf victims are said to include Poles, Czechs, Russians,
Belgians, Frenchmen, German Jews and German political prisoners.’52 Any further
mention of terror directed specifically against Jews is suggested ambiguously by thevoiceover: ‘Under the guise of an insane asylum this had been the headquarters forthe systematic murder of 35,000 Poles, Russians and Germans sent here mainly forpolitical and religious considerations.’53

Nazi Concentration Camps was designed to coincide with the underlying judicial visionof the Allied allegations at the trial, translated into an idiom consonant with the lineof prosecution adopted to impeach the defendants. As the unprecedented nature of
the crimes to which the film bore witness complicated attempts at assigning blameand seemed to undermine the jurisprudential arguments upon which the Allied
prosecution was based, the American prosecution argued instead that militarism
remained the greatest threat to world peace and could be understood as theproximate cause of the Nazis’ other crimes, most notably, the Holocaust.54
Consequently, the film understood the murder of European Jews in terms of theperverted logic of political control and military conquest, rather than as part of a
genocidal project.55 Atrocities also marginalises Jewish particularity for this specificlegal reason: the prosecuting authorities’ decision to focus on warfare instigated a
restrictive reading of the charge that included the Holocaust: Crimes against
Humanity.56 Such ambiguity rendered the judges of the trial unable to charge theNazi defendants with the attempted destruction of Jews. Instead, the Holocaust was108deemed overall instrumentalist – a means to hold the Nazi movement together,consolidate power, for robbery and intimidation.

Synchronic analysis
Although Nazi Concentration Camps and Atrocities were the only two feature-lengthmontages screened at Nuremberg, there were a number of other atrocity films madein the aftermath of World War II. Before I explore the visceral qualities of Atrocities,
it is helpful to undertake a synchronic analysis of some of these films. F3080 was thename given to an Anglo-American project to compile a documentary film on
German atrocities.57The project originated in February 1945 in SHAEF (Supreme
Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) where Sidney Bernstein, Chief of thePsychological Warfare Division’s Film Section, began preparations for a film basedon material shot by the service and newsreel cameramen accompanying the British,
American and Soviet armies.58 The main objective of the film was German reeducation, with an emphasis on five distinctive themes: victims of German atrocities;
the perpetrators; witness testimonies; physical conditions inside the camps; and thereactions of German civilians when confronted with the evidence of atrocities.59 As
Atrocities was not a re-education film, it does not feature scenes of compulsory public
visits. The post-war Anglo-German relationship complicated the potential receptionof the film: the British government wanted to encourage the German populace rather
than shame it.60 Thus, F3080 was shelved until 1952 when it was transferred on fivereels from the British War Office to the Imperial War Museum. Another importantfactor that contributed to the shelving of the film was the profusion of atrocity
footage already in circulation. Death Mills (Burger, 1946), for example, released acrossEurope and America in January 1946, had already incorporated a large amount of the109

material in F3080, as had Welt im Film No.5, an Anglo-American newsreel released on
15 June, 1945, also made for the purpose of German re-education.61 The Imperial
War Museum released F3080 in parts to Channel Four on 20 December, 1983, with a
new title, Memory of the Camps.62 Subsequently, it was screened in its entirety by
Frontline in the United States on 7 May, 1985, complemented by a re-recording of
the original voiceover.63

Memory of the Camps marginalises the extent of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.
Even during the coverage of Belsen, which features heavily in the film having beenliberated by British troops, the voiceover and images do not accommodate for the
40,000 Jews present in the camp during its liberation.64 In fact, there is only one
reference to Jews in Bernstein’s film: speaking to the camera, a Reverend at Belsensays, ‘Whether they were Catholic, Lutheran or Jews, we only know they were born,
suffered and died. Now they lie, Catholics, Lutherans and Jews, indistinguishable,
cheek-to-cheek, in a common grave.’ The Reverend’s choice of words inadvertently
reflected the British Ministry of Information guidelines of 1941, which advised that
propaganda must deal with ‘the treatment of indisputably innocent people, not withviolent political opponents’.65 Bernstein’s objective for Memory of the Camps – similar
to Svilova’s for Atrocities – was to universalise the victims of Nazi aggression; todefine them by their humanity and innocence as men, women and children fromevery European nationality.

While the British government was anxious for the Britishness of the liberations to beemphasised, such particularism was not extended to the victims. Tony Kushner
maintains that the reluctance of the government to identify the specific Jewish plightand the inability of people to grasp the nature of Nazi anti-Semitism helped ensure
110that the majority of the British population could not fully comprehend the truth ofan extermination policy.66 Furthermore, Joanna Reilly argues that psychologicalfactors were important in forming the attitudes of the British public to the news oforganised extermination but they did not work in isolation, instead operating in a
specific ideological and cultural framework centred on the existence of acommanding monocultural liberal ideology.67 To stress the Jewishness of those who
had suffered in Belsen was seen to be against liberal principles.68 Emphasisingminority particularity, even in mass death, was viewed as dangerous in that it mightlead to the risk of further anti-Semitism. The strength of liberal opposition to any
form of Jewish separatism, even when the reality of Nazi extermination became clear,
was thus maintained. Also, the fear of giving credence to Zionism prohibited any
particular mention of Jews: references were seen as inappropriate at a time when
Zionists were claiming the nationbondedness of all Jews in opposition to British
policy in Palestine.69 At its worst, to highlight Jewish difference was, in the words of
the British state, ‘to perpetuate the very Nazi doctrine which we are determined tostamp out’.70 Although this was the official British line, no direct pressure was placedon the media to carry out this policy and the downplaying of the Jewish aspect ofBelsen, which was presented to the British public in April 1945, was essentiallyvoluntary.71

Memory of the Camps adhered to certain political guidelines in its absence of Jewishness,but the failure of the film to question Nazi Germany’s Jewish policy also centres on
an inability on the part of the government to prepare the public for any truths it didchoose to impart. Other newsreels that contained footage from several of the camps
were screened across Great Britain in the week beginning 30 April, 1945.72 Audienceswere spared the most horrific scenes from the camps on the basis they were111

emotionally unprepared.73 The cinemas often showed only a shortened version of thefilm and insisted on presenting it, rather distastefully, as part of a programme
including cartoons and blatant propaganda, the latter then casting doubt over theauthenticity of the images and, in turn, further hindering the truth of the Final
Solution from becoming an established fact.74 Similar tendencies were palpable in theequivalent American media liberation reports. Animosity against Jewishness andopposition to Jewish particularity continued to dominate American thinking for the
first few months after the end of World War II.75 There were, however, subtle
differences between the reactions of the United States and Great Britain. The muchlarger number of survivors present in the United States and the greater influence ofAmerican Jewry helped to create and maintain awareness of the Jewish tragedy. In
December 1945, under pressure from Jewish and non-Jewish lobbyists, President
Truman announced a scheme of preferential treatment for displaced persons within
the immigration quota of the United States while, in Great Britain, the Home Officeattempted to hamper Jewish immigration with convoluted bureaucratic processes.76

At the time of its release, Death Mills (Die Todesmühlen, 1945) was considered theofficial atrocity film, particularly in Germany and Austria.77 Death Mills is most often
credited as the work of Hanus Burger, a Jewish emigrant from Czechoslovakia,
though the film is occasionally credited to Hollywood director, Billy Wilder,particularly for versions with an English voiceover. In her article, ‘Compulsory
Viewing: Concentration Camp Film and German Re-education’, Susan Carruthers
refers to Wilder being engaged with the project but without a clearly defined role.78
Although Death Mills is most often credited to Burger, Carruthers alludes to thenotion that the film was in fact a collaborative effort: ‘Burger’s desire to furnish theaudience with information about the inmates’ lives before their incarceration was112overruled by Wilder; consequently, survivor testimony is strikingly absent from thefilm.’79 Burger’s proposal to embed the atrocity footage in a fictional frame barely
survived the film’s final cut. Instead, the historical mise en scène is sacrificed for
confrontation sequences that re-enact for German audiences Eisenhower’s enforced
encounters – most notably at Buchenwald – between civilians drafted from local
towns and inmates of the camp. During such scenes, cameramen had been instructedto capture ‘the attitudes of the civilians before being brought face-to-face with theatrocities’, together with close-up shots of their expressions immediately after seeing
them.80

The Soviet Union provided ready-made sequences for Death Mills; material from
Auschwitz was particularly valuable as it had not yet been viewed by American
audiences.81 This footage aside, it contains much of the same material as Memory of theCamps and is presented in a similar fashion. Despite their general resemblance,
however, the British media responded negatively to Death Mills, describing it as badly
constructed and inferior to its own newsreels.82 British audiences questioned thecompulsory civilian visit to Buchenwald, unaware that, had Memory of the Camps beenreleased for public viewing, they would have observed an identical scene. Death Mills
was also considered a failure by its American producer. Surveys carried out after thefilm’s circulation reported that German audiences were not instilled with the sense of
personal guilt Death Mills was designed to evoke.83 Rather than stimulate a muchneeded wave of introspection, it drew their scorn.84 Susan Carruthers takes issue with
this, questioning what crimes German civilians had committed: ‘How could [atrocity]
films hope to distinguish a planned programme of extermination from the chaos,disease and starvation engendered by the war’s chaotic denouement?’85 By asking thisquestion, Carruthers suggests that it was not a realistic or morally correct aim of the113film to make German audiences feel guilt for crimes they scarcely understood, letalone committed.

Camps of the Dead (Camps de la Mort, Les Actualitiés Françaises, 1945) was filmed by
French and other Allied war correspondents in the liberated camps of Langestein,
Ohrdruf, Dachau and Mittelgladbach.86 Pierre-Henri Teitgen, the Minister ofInformation, handed the responsibility of the project to newsreel producer, Les
Actualitiés Françaises, on 18 May, 1945.87 The film was primarily intended for French
audiences but, as with Memory of the Camps and Death Mills, it was also dubbed into
German and presented in the context of re-education in the French occupied zones.
Teitgen had expressly requested that the film incorporate a montage of the British
material from Belsen and Gardelegen and American footage from Buchenwald andColditz.88 Post-war French discourse bears a similar track record of anti-Semitism to
the Soviet Union. As André Pierre Colombat notes, the specificity of theextermination of Jews was largely neglected by French historians until the trial of
Adolf Eichmann.89 This is not to argue that the general public was ignorant ofVichy’s persecution of Jews or of the Final Solution; indeed, an estimated 90,000
French Jews were exported and killed in concentration camps during Germany’s
occupation, which places France in a position of personal affliction, much more sothan the relatively unaffected countries of Great Britain and the United States.90
Perhaps for this reason, Camps of the Dead is less circumspect of Jews, though themention of crimes specific to them is limited to one incident: during scenes shot at
Buchenwald, the voiceover speaks of 50,000 Jews who received lethal injections assoon as they arrived at the camp. The film does not provide further details of thiswidespread persecution; in similar fashion to British, Soviet and American114

concentration camp films, they are presented as arbitrary victims of Nazi
aggression.91

A comparison between these different documentary responses to the Holocaust
implies that the absence of Jewish suffering in atrocity footage cannot be attributed
solely to simplistic notions of anti-Semitism, and there existed a variety ofmotivations for the absence, dependent upon each country’s political agenda. ‘Soviet
cinema’s willingness to use film as propaganda, as a tool of persuasion, and its
assertion of the right to represent atrocities for the purpose of propaganda
influenced similar decisions by other nations.’92 Oświęcim and Atrocities are two piecesof a broad and complex puzzle, bringing to attention the almost inevitable posttraumatic power struggle that occurs to obtain the rights to what will become theprevailing historical memorialisation. Tony Kushner argues that British andAmerican treatments of the Jewish crisis might be explained by the failure of stateand society to solve the contradictions of liberalism.93 In these democracies,
liberalism determined that responses and attitudes were fundamentally ambivalent:
the nature of Nazi anti-Semitism was rarely understood and Jewish victims were
frequently blamed for their own misfortune.94 In the context of post-war America, asPeter Novick points out, Jews accounted for only a fifth of the inmates liberated byAmerican troops.95 As a result, Death Mills and Nazi Concentration Camps witness thehorror from a point of detachment, which originates as much from confronting theresults of the Holocaust as it does from confronting the Holocaust itself. The
audience is persuaded to lay its sympathies with innocent Allied soldiers now
responsible for the cleaning up of the aftermath; the bodies are the Other – foreign
and unfamiliar – represented as anonymous and almost insignificant. The following
analysis contends that Atrocities constitutes a far more intimate portrayal of its events.
115

Svilova substitutes the clinical mode of observation in the British and American
responses with melancholic sentimentality that, beyond a desire to elicit pathos,
perhaps reflects a desire to use the footage as an opportunity for genuine recollection.

The death of the moving image
The following analysis argues that Atrocities reinforces two threads of politicalrhetoric. Through the omission of visual indicators and a carefully scripted voiceover,Atrocities does not mention that Jews were targeted for complete annihilation. As thissubject has already been discussed at length in my analysis of Oświęcim, for theremainder of the chapter I will focus on the second thread, which supports thenotion that the Nazis committed heinous, unimaginable acts of torture in its
campaign for world domination. Svilova communicates this thread of ideology byselecting shots with the strongest visceral impact. These shots intended to ‘wound’
the audience in the courtroom and secure death penalties for all the Nazi defendants.
Eliciting sympathy from the audience was a widespread technique in Soviet wartime
film. The basic cinematographic goal of the camera operators was to create visuallystriking, memorable and persuasive shots and sequences. Mikhail Glider describes
this as ‘filming with feeling … to let the camera see what your eyes see … to shareyour indignation and distress’.96 Camera crews concentrated on filming people who
were crying profusely.97 These imperatives coexisted with the need to fit the evidence
into a politically pre-established picture of Soviet and not Jewish victimhood.

As Svilova selected the footage from other films, ones that were intended to appeal
to spectators’ emotions, Atrocities frequently emphasises individual victims andpresents them as connected with the viewer; it individuates the victims to elicit

116

greater sympathy, ‘sometimes by showing faces and adding biographical details of thevictims’.98 The first half of the film, set entirely within the Soviet Union’s pre-1939
borders, is dominated by images of family members coming to terms with theirlosses. Beginning in the Soviet Union and moving to crimes committed elsewheresuggested that the atrocities began in the Soviet Union and the Soviet civilians were
the primary target for annihilation. Cataloguing the crimes of the Nazis in this ordercoincided with Stalin’s deployment of cinema as a tool of legitimisation, a means of
examining and condemning the actions of anti-communists, and in turn rationalising
his excessive control methods. Incidentally, Atrocities is not always credited to Svilova.
Although Svilova states in her autobiographies that she directed it, and Gwendolyn
Foster, Peter Rollberg and Masha Enzenberger credit the film to her in theirbiographies of her work, referring to the film as Fascist Atrocities,99 the film archive inthe Library of Congress, for example, credits it to Manuel Bolshintov, owing to thefact that his name appears on the signed affidavit in the opening shot.100 The
voiceover reads the affidavit in which Bolshintov vouches for the testimonies of thecameramen and confirms their accompanying of the Red Army divisions responsible
for liberating regions previously occupied by Nazi troops. Bolshintov states that thefootage was shot immediately after the Nazis departed and that, crucially, the footage
was not altered or emended. This affidavit is important to a study of Svilova: notonly has it led to the film being credited to another filmmaker, thus undermining thestrength and depth of Svilova’s contribution to Soviet film, it also alludes to theauthenticity of the images. One can detect the claim in the affidavit that capturing theatrocities on celluloid provided preeminent verification they happened, andhappened exactly as the film describes.

117

Michael Marrus argues that ‘the evidence of Nazi atrocities, including visual evidence
on film, was so shattering that the image of transgression presented during the trial
long outlasted and had a far greater impact than the restrictive legal arguments madeby the prosecutors.’101 Marrus’s statement suggests that images have a capacity towound an audience deeper than spoken or written language. The notion of wounding
is again reminiscent of Roland Barthes’s punctum: functioning unconsciously on thepart of the photographer, a photograph can unexpectedly prick, sting or cut the
intelligibility of the culturally connoted meaning of the image. Present inphotographs that imply irretrievable loss, the punctum is not apparent to all viewers;
it defies reduction to the generalised code of the stadium, the more widely available
meaning whose connotatively charged subject matter is determined by culturalcontext. The punctum is not often employed in the analysis of cinematic texts. Thismight be due to Barthes himself who identified disparities in tense between the still
and the moving image. He asserts that ‘film can no longer be seen as animatedphotographs: the having-been-there gives way to a being-there.’102 By this he suggeststhat movement within the frame invalidates the having-been-there and substitutes itwith the verve and vitality of life. Christian Metz also construed the moving image as
the life-giver: ‘Film gives back to the dead a semblance of life, a fragile semblance,but one immediately strengthened by the wishful thinking of the viewer.
Photography, on the contrary, by virtue of the objective suggestion of its signifier(stillness) maintains the memory of the dead as being dead.’103 Atrocities, however,renders such clear-cut distinctions appear almost irrational. The morbid nature of
Svilova’s film – the overwhelming presence of suffering that permeates every shot –is so overwhelming that it distorts the discernment between the still and the moving
image. The pictures are animated yet simultaneously frozen. Oscillating between thevibrant and the motionless, the mourning process of photography that haunts
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Atrocities is assimilated here into the vigour of cinema. Despite any activity, deathremains the eidos of the film.

Judith Butler locates the quality of an image’s grievability (essentially its ability toengage the audience in pathos) in the absolute pastness that is conferred on a living
being, one whose life is not past.104 Yet, Svilova principally documents people whose
lives have passed, and the film’s absence of synch sound for witness testimony
further silences the images, allowing the dead to eclipse all life. In terms of its
grievability, then, one might argue that the audience grieves, first, because collectively
it has outlived the lives that Svilova documents and in turn recognises there is loss
and hence there was life, and, second, more crucially, because the victims remain,
misleadingly, in the tense of the being-there. Their lives have passed but the
movement within the frame acknowledges this truth in present terms. Although thehaving-been-there becomes the being-there, as Barthes suggests, the being-there is
still irrevocably lost. This is the tragedy of Atrocities and also the measure of its
grievability, and these attributes work alongside cinema’s unrivalled claims for truth.
There was, and perhaps still is, an assumption that the capturing of events on
celluloid is unequivocal proof they happened. Susan Sontag argues that the notion of
atrocity requires photographic evidence: if there is no photographic evidence thenthere is no atrocity.105 In turn, photographic evidence establishes the truth of theclaim of atrocity and, consequently, there can be no truth without photography. In
1922 Walter Lippman suggested that ‘photographs have the kind of authority overimagination today which the printed word had yesterday and the spoken word before
that. They seem utterly real.’106 By 1945 the moving image had supplanted
photography in the social consciousness as the realist medium – objective and119sacrosanct – which paved the way for Atrocities to anchor Smirnov’s presentation at
Nuremberg and use its visceral power to secure the most stringent punishments.

Colonel Pokrovsky, a colleague of Smirnov in the Soviet prosecution, specificallyaddressed the power of filmic footage in the courtroom. On Day Fifty-Nine,
moments before Smirnov commenced his presentation for Crimes against Peace, hestated that, ‘Most of the film [Atrocities] pertains to crimes against prisoners-of-war ...
The silent testimony of the helpless prisoners burned alive in hospitals, of prisoners
mutilated beyond all recognition, of prisoners tortured and starved to death will, I am
certain, be far more eloquent than any word of mine.’107 Not only did Pokrovsky
confirm that the film evidence was presented with the knowledge it had the potential
to wound the viewer, he prompted the courtroom audience to read the film from a
specific vantage point: as the collective testimony of all the victims depicted within
its frame. He bestowed on Svilova the authority to represent those who were unable
to give evidence. Thus, the film is not an arbitrary appendage to the accusations
presented by Smirnov – a means of tying the evidence together in a concise package
to conclude his presentation. It is verification of the evidence, designed to incite in
the courtroom a level of pathos unachievable through other media. Pokrovsky’s
reading of Atrocities as the collective statement of all the murdered victims it portrays
can be linked to the measure of the film’s grievability. Like the testimony of anabsent witness, the being-there evokes only the presence of death.

Testimony of an absent witness
Sontag suggests that, for an image to affect a viewer, it must contain relevant politicalconsciousness, without which it might be perceived as fanciful.108 The horrific nature120

of an image can prevent rational or critical thought – it can be easier to recoil than toconfront. The way in which the Soviet prosecution structured its presentation
indicates that it was attentive to the need for certain evidence to be contextualised;
Smirnov dealt with some massacres in a cursory manner while others were examined
in detail. The extent to which each was recollected depended not on its magnitude,i.e. the number of deaths, but much more on the visceral qualities of the evidence
that could support the allegations. For example, Svilova re-edits the footage filmed at
Rostov. Survivors who had either returned to the city or emerged from hiding searchamong the bodies for anyone they might recognise. She includes the shots of Vitia
Golovlev propped up against a wall, framed in wide-angle and then mid-shot. Citingfrom one of Molotov’s notes, dated 6 January, 1942, Smirnov stated on Day FiftyNine of the trial:

In Rostov-on-Don a pupil of the commercial school, 15 year
old Vitia Cherevichny, was playing in the yard with his pigeons.
Some passing German soldiers began to steal the birds. The
boy protested. The Germans took him away and shot him, at
the corner of 27th Line and 2d Maisky Street for refusing tosurrender his pigeons. With the heels of their boots the
Hitlerites trampled his face out of all recognition.109

Atrocities does not contain much spoken detail about Vitia’s death; the voiceover,which names him as Vitia Golovlev, merely states that he was murdered for refusing
to relinquish his pigeon. Yet, the two shots of Vitia’s lifeless body offer a far moredetailed account of his fate than any number of written or spoken words combined.
As I stated in the introduction to this chapter, the moving image can instantly
describe a scene with a facility and scope that would otherwise defy words ordescription. Vitia’s defeated posture, the deep laceration along the length of his leftcheek and the damage to both of his eyes, narrates a story of tragedy and irreversible
loss. At times, certain details escape the scope of the visual and the voiceover121

provides for the audience knowledge that does not arise directly from looking: in thewords of Sontag, images may affect us but they do not provide us with anunderstanding of what we see.110 This evaluation is borne out in the film’s
construction. The voiceover informs the audience that the victims of Rostov were
‘housewives, peasants, intellectuals, workers, even passersby’. Separating the victims
into these categories suggests arbitrariness, and serves to absorb subtly the theme ofuniversality into the film’s narrative. Although the film emphasises the notion of
genocide, albeit without using that term, it deliberately understates the particularnature of Jewish suffering. The Rostov sequence again fails to mention the Jews who
had died there.

As Colonel Pokrovsky stated in the courtroom, prisoners-of-war met gruesome fates,
particularly in Rostov. At the town’s train station the bodies of prisoners lie neatly inrows; the torture they endured is evident in their facial disfigurements. A panning
shot depicts one prisoner whose nose and mouth lie almost side by side, anotherwho no longer has a nose, and another who no longer has ears. Such torture
methods may not have been the cause of death, but Svilova makes clear through theinclusion of these shots that many victims endured unimaginable pain before they
died.

Death by asphyxiation was one of the Soviet prosecution’s most damningaccusations of Crimes against Peace, a charge Svilova supports with a variety ofvisual evidence and spoken testimony. Mass murder in Kerch, for example, wasdiscussed at length by Smirnov. Svilova re-edits the shots detailing the aftermath of
this violence: townspeople carrying out the task of exhuming bodies from the mass
graves. The responsibility their collective conscience compels them to bear is beyond
122imagination, for the first time Svilova portrays the mass murder of children.
Incidentally, Smirnov prepared the audience for this scene two days before Atrocities
was screened, declaring: ‘[In Kerch] the Germans initiated their monstrous atrocities
by poisoning 245 children of school age. Later on you will see the small bodies ofthese children in our documentary film.’111 In these shots the horror of aggressive
war is wholly realised. Moreover, the viewer can fully comprehend the haunting ofsurvivor guilt when Svilova holds on the mid-shot of Grigorii Berman crying overthe bodies of his wife and young children. His facial expression reveals the story of aman who is devoid of spirit or willingness to continue living. The pan from his faceto his murdered family depicts a depth of emotion untranslatable to other media. The
moving image allows for an awareness of proximity, sentiment and temporality, allwithin a matter of seconds.

Another incident of asphyxiation in Kharkov, Ukraine, was raised by Smirnov andintegrated by Svilova into the film. In contrast to the bleak landscapes thatcharacterise Atrocities up to this point, Kharkov is flooded in sunlight, illuminating
the civilian bodies scattered along the town’s pavements and roads. Svilova initially
focuses on the victims who have been tortured and burned alive before examining
the use of murder vans in the town. The voiceover informs the audience that a ditchon the outskirts was found to contain 14,000 bodies of people murdered in the vans.
Although the cameraman is positioned on the ditch’s edge, it is difficult to identify
the bodies as human beings – the remains have begun to dissolve into the soil. Kiev
was discussed in detail by Smirnov throughout the three days of his presentation,
though footage shot in the city plays a minor role in Atrocities. Captured in a ten-shotmontage of wide-angles and mid-shots, survivors embrace their murdered fellow
citizens. The seventh shot in Svilova’s sequence is anchored by a punctum, a123meaning detached from any cultural code. A man lies horizontally behind what
appears to be a length of barbed wire. In the foreground, the wire, faintly out offocus, intersects vertically across his forehead. Framed in this way, probably
accidentally, the image is shot with Christian symbolism: the man is martyred, lying
dead in his crown of thorns. On Day Fifty-Nine the massacre at Babi Yar was raised
as evidence, and Smirnov took the opportunity to correct what the Soviet
prosecution believed were inaccurate statistics:

After the liberation of Kiev it was established that the extent of
the atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist invaders far
exceeds the German crimes as stated in the first instance. Fromfurther information submitted to the Extraordinary State
Commission of the Soviet Union, in connection with the cityof Kiev, it is evident that during the monstrous so-called
German mass ‘action’ in Babi Yar not 52,000 but 100,000 wereshot.112

The voiceover of the film reiterates Smirnov’s correction, stating that ‘Babi Yar in
Kiev was the site of the worst massacres. The victims included over 100,000 men,
women, children and elderly.’ Wolfram Wette, a scholar of Nazi crimes, estimates thenumber of victims at a figure closer to 30,000.113 Notwithstanding Smirnov’s
overestimation, Babi Yar represents the largest single mass killing against the
population of the Soviet Union. Svilova depicts the tragedy in three shots: a tracking
shot along the ravine, a pan across one of the ditches and a close-up of a body. The
body, lying face down with arms outstretched, is in the later stages of decomposition.

While Crimes against Peace did not directly address the Holocaust, mass murder inconcentration camps was included within the terms of its indictment. Thus, on Day
Sixty-Two Smirnov described at length the mass shootings of prisoners at Majdanek,
an accusation the film supports not only through wide-angle shots of excavation but

124also with close-up shots of skulls containing the unmistakable sight of bullet holes.
Despite over 70,000 deaths at the camp, Smirnov explained to the courtroom why
relatively few bodies needed reburial by outlining the use of crematoria. The
voiceover draws attention to the efficient and unrelenting use of gas chambers andincinerators in almost identical formulations to those used in the courtroom. Svilova
takes Smirnov’s evidence and augments it, providing a visual tour of a prisoner’s
journey to death. Shots of the gas control system and the observation window arefollowed by shots of the shower room, the chimney and the ovens. In addition toclothes, spectacles and documents, Atrocities contains shots of children’s toys foundduring the Red Army’s tour of the warehouses. The image of a naked doll, similar tothe one seen in Oświęcim, is sadly reminiscent of the many infant corpses witnessed in
the film up to this point. The documentation itself plays a vital role in anchoring thetheme of universality. Passports are held up to the camera and the voiceoverprovides the details of their previous owners – an Italian schoolteacher, a Dutchelectrician and a French farmer. Smirnov had established the theme of universality ashort time before the film’s screening, declaring that the ‘Hitlerite hangmen’ of
Majdanek had exterminated ‘Soviet prisoners-of-war, prisoners-of-war of the former
Polish Army, and nationals of various countries: Poles, Frenchmen, Italians, Belgians,
Dutch, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Croats and Jews’.114

Universality was a prevalent theme throughout Smirnov’s discussion of Auschwitz,
and this was reflected by Svilova in Atrocities. The footage of the victims’ possessions
presents the suitcases in the same way as the passports in Majdanek. Bearing thenames of countries across Europe, close-up shots of the cases’ labels testify to thetransnational identity of the Nazis’ victims. Smirnov presented still photographs ofthese possessions shortly before the screening of Atrocities. He stated that ‘not less125

than four million citizens of the USSR, Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia,
Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Holland, Belgium and other countries’ were murderedin the camp.115 The camera pans at eye level across the faces of a number of
Auschwitz’s prisoners. Echoing Smirnov, the voiceover states that ‘among thesurvivors were people from all over Europe: Poles, Russians, Czechs, Hungarians,
Jews, French, Serbians, Romanians and Belgians.’ This is the only example in
Svilova’s film where the victims are separated into ethnic categories as well as bynationality or occupation.

Auschwitz’s gas chambers were discussed on Day Sixty-Two, but the evidence
focused less on the victims than on the business transactions that led to theconstruction of the chambers. This emphasis is also maintained in Atrocities where
Svilova touches on the subject of extermination by gas: shots of the crematoria
blueprints and Zyklon B canisters are deemed sufficient to tell this part of the
Auschwitz story. The day before the screening (Day Sixty-One), Smirnov presented
the report, ‘The Infamous Crimes of the German Government in Auschwitz’, andcited several short passages from the second section, ‘Murderers of Children’.
Smirnov provided a number of examples of child massacres and ill-treatment, manyof which were witness testimonies of incidents such as ‘the poisoning of 164 young
boys at Birkenau’ and ‘children being thrown onto bonfires near Crematoria Five’.
The closing sequence of the Auschwitz montage depicts Soviet doctors treating
survivors, a number of whom are children suffering frostbite. The mid-shot of ayoung boy’s compacted toes is rendered more horrific by the look of fear on his face.
The camera captures the moment when the boy appears to acknowledge that thedamage is irreversible, he is permanently maimed. Svilova encourages the viewer toimagine every painful, awkward step in the boy’s future life and dwell on the126knowledge that each one will serve for him a reminder of the torment he endured.
Smirnov brought the courtroom’s attention to these examinations, including
complaints of widespread frostbite. Thus, the theme of Auschwitz as the camp forchild murder and suffering was established in the courtroom through spoken andvisual indicators before the moving image made tangible the allegations.

Svilova’s exhumation sequence in Atrocities reaffirms this motif: a number of thebodies being unearthed for reburial are conspicuously smaller in size and more fragile.
The voiceover informs the audience that ‘children born in the camp were snatchedfrom their mothers and eliminated.’ In perhaps the most tragic shot of the film, afoetus is curled up on the dusty ground, its umbilical cord still attached. To intensify
further the macabre imagery, a Soviet doctor holds in his hands the corpse of a baby
born prematurely. The doctor holds the baby up to the camera, inviting the viewer totake a closer look, and speaks inaudible words, though his facial expression attests to
his distress. ‘The foetus emphasises the trope of child murder and restates the
genocidal nature of the Nazi regime.’116

The Danzig Medical Academy is the last location Svilova features in detail. The
voiceover informs the audience that, in the cellar of the building, the Germans
manufactured soap from human fat. A Red Army delegation walks through the cellar
and inspects containers full of decomposing bodies. The skin on the bodies does not
fit tautly, suggesting that it has been stretched. In another explicit image, a number ofheads are stacked in a wooden basket while, to their left, decapitated bodies lie in arow. The voiceover claims that ‘skin was also processed by the Germans,’ astatement that is supported by the depiction of a bathtub full of skin. On Day SixtyTwo Smirnov exhibited to the courtroom the testimony of Sigmund Mazur, a Nazi
127

laboratory assistant who worked at the Academy.117 Mazur’s testimony is used to
introduce an array of damning evidence, including the process for making the soap.
Atrocities features Mazur’s interrogation by the Red Army. The shot is brief andwould be described as superfluous were it not for the vital supporting role it playedin giving the courtroom a concrete sign to interpret – Mazur’s image augmented thepower of the evidence. In this instance, Svilova does not provide the testimony of anabsent witness, but she authenticates an existing testimony through the verificationof its source. Current research indicates that soap from human fat was not
manufactured at the Academy on the scale implied in the presentation and film, but
it might have been produced for experimental purposes.118

Svilova documents a number of sites in Atrocities that did not feature in Smirnov’s
presentation. The reason for these exceptions might have been due to a process ofprioritisation: the Soviet prosecution used a criterion to determine which locations
would demand the court’s time. For the locations absent from Smirnov’s statements,
there seems to have been a tacit understanding that these images were deemed to
speak for themselves, requiring no introduction or contextualisation. Scenes ofreunions of family members with their dead relatives in Klin, a town near Moscow,
are particularly hard to bear. One shot of a mother shaking the head of her deceased
daughter either documents her refusal to accept that she is dead or an attempt tobring her back to life. Footage recorded in Lokotni depicts the bodies of elevenvictims who lie frozen in contorted positions, many with their hands above theirheads as if trapped in a stance of surrender. By focusing on images with visceralqualities it can be agreed that Svilova consciously emphasises those atrocities theaudience can comprehend; those that each viewer can picture and recreate in his or
her mind. For this reason, Svilova recounts the traumatic but numerically128

insignificant deaths of 120 people in the Belorussian village of Pekalino – the people
were locked inside two houses that were subsequently burned to the ground – inmore intimate detail than, for example, the unfathomable number of deaths at Babi
Yar.

Svilova documents the remnants of a school classroom-turned-torture chamber in
Kaluga, near Moscow. The camera pans along the floor to capture a number ofhands, amputated at the wrist, in the corner of the room. Outside, depicted in a low
angle mid-shot, nooses hang from a lamppost. In these two shots, Svilova represents
Kaluga as a town whose infrastructure was manipulated by a macabre imagination. In
Pyatigorsk, in the north Caucasus region, survivors exhume the bodies of their fellow
townspeople. While the voiceover reminds the audience of the apparent irrationality
by which the victims were targeted (‘they came from all walks of life: engineers,
doctors, chauffeurs, typists, accountants, waitresses, guards and housewives’), thecamera pans across the tortured bodies lying face-up in an orderly row. The bodies
decrease in size as the pan unfolds, so much so that the last few bodies represent theremnants of infant lives brought to tragic and premature ends. Despite this horror,
the resolve of the townspeople to give the victims a deserved and proper burial istestament to the victory of good over evil.

In Rzhev, west of Moscow, Vera Jerebetskaya shares her account of the Nazi
occupation. The audience is not privy to her anecdote and the voiceover does not
speak her words for her. The camera, however, pans down to her hands where theuse of body language provides an auxiliary means of communication. Svilova
captures the aftermath of Vyanza’s occupation, a city near the Belorussian border, ina six-shot montage of decaying bodies. The last scene is particularly distressing: a129

close-up shot of an infant’s lifeless face cuts to a mid-shot of a woman – who is most
likely the infant’s mother – standing over her deceased child wiping tears from hereyes. The scene wounds the audience, but not because it contains infant mortality;
instead, the sympathy derives much more from the mother’s apparent inability toembrace her child. The physical distance between them implies on the mother’s partan acceptance of her loss: she has admitted defeat. In Slobodka, on the shore of theBlack Sea, the reported deaths all belong to one family, the Shedudachenkos. Svilova
depicts the bodies lying face-up on the sand, tainting what should be an idylliclandscape. The camera tracks across the bodies and the voiceover introduces eachmember of the family in ascending order, beginning with Paul, aged three, andconcluding on the image of the grandmother, aged sixty-five. Moreover, thevoiceover informs the audience that, in Klooga, near Tallinn, the retreating Germansoldiers razed a concentration camp; the prisoners were shot then burned. Svilova
includes the footage that had already appeared in Klooga Death Camp of a survivor
lying down on some unused logs and explaining to a Red Army delegation (and tothe camera) how human flesh was used to ignite different parts of the bonfire. It is
not explained, however, how he managed to escape his fate to serve as a witness.
Nevertheless, his testimony represents a crucial component in the film’s claim as
proof for the crimes of the Nazis. Here, Svilova employs the purest form of what
Ewa Mazierska describes as the ‘witness strategy’.119 She argues that the use ofsurvivor testimony was the main reason behind the popularity of The Last Stage(Jakubowska, 1947), a fiction film set in Auschwitz, because audiences of theimmediate post-war era responded more fervently to anecdotes told from a firsthand perspective.120130In the former German territory of Silesia, Svilova captures the skeletal frames of
starved prisoners lying stagnant in their cells. A subtle movement is detected among
the dead and it becomes evident that one person is still alive. The male victim uses allof his strength to turn his head to the camera. What appears at first to be aremarkable feat of survival promptly becomes another story of tragedy: the voiceover
informs the audience that the prisoner died shortly after filming. The image’s
evidential force – that is, its quality as an indexical record of a subject who was, but is
no longer, there – is linked to an experience of finitude and subjective dispossession.
Within this shot the distinctions between life and death, the still image and themoving, the having-been-there and the being-there are deeply problematised. In a
Poznań prison, Svilova portrays an execution chamber in a series of wide-angles andclose-ups. Shots of the guillotine, the blood drainage system and the executioner’s
gloves and apron are bathed in light reflecting from the room’s metallic instruments
and clinically sterile surfaces. Svilova re-employs a motif from Oświęcim to conclude
the sequence: a close-up shot of a hand flicking through pre-war photographs ofpeople enjoying their lives is juxtaposed with a three-shot montage of bodies foundafter a mass hanging. The young men lie on makeshift stretchers, the dark bruises
along the lengths of their necks are conspicuous against the whiteness of their skin.
Framed in a close-up shot, the camera pans across the men’s unresponsive faces. The
having-been-there of the photographs is substituted by the being-there of themoving image, yet both denote a one-way journey of irreversible loss. The final
location featured in Atrocities is the prison at Sonnenburg in Poland. A cameraman
films inside one of the cells before directing the lens through the cell’s small window
where bodies can be vaguely identified in the yard outside. Any thought that Svilova
intends to spare the audience from witnessing more explicit scenes of murder is brief.

131

The closing shot of the film is a high-angle pan of the yard where hundreds of bodies
lie, killed just hours before the Red Army arrived.

Conclusion
To examine atrocity footage is a difficult task, and my repeated viewing of Oświęcim
and Atrocities has not made the experience any less uncomforting. Indeed, one could
argue that there is little else captured on celluloid in the history of cinema that isharder to tolerate. The unnerving quality of the footage is not necessarily inherent to
its chilling content but derives also from a sense of guilt on the part of the viewer,
which intensifies over the course of examining the films. Sontag speculates that thedead are profoundly uninterested in us – they do not seek our gaze.121 Studying
atrocity footage over a long period of time, repeatedly and often in slow motion, canelicit a feeling of ashamed voyeurism, perusing at leisure the nakedness, humiliation,
pain and vulnerability of the victims. Such emotional responses help to draw adistinction between the visual and the visceral. At Nuremberg, Atrocities did notintend to educate and inform (that was Smirnov’s responsibility); its images aimed –and still aim – to affect audiences in a way that bypasses cognition. The process ofperceiving, understanding and resolving is undermined by the force of the image. In
similar vein to the aura of death that, for Barthes, pervaded photographs of his
mother after her passing, Atrocities deals with irrevocable loss. Despite claims of its
transcendental nature, the moving image in this instance ultimately fails in its role as
life-giver. What might appear as a shortfall, however, was on the contrary Svilova’s
most important asset in the context of the courtroom. I have read Atrocities as theSoviet prosecution intended: a visual testimony to support the spoken and written
evidence. Introducing Barthesian concepts into this discussion, as well as references132to theorists such as Butler and Sontag, has not only been necessary to provide thesensitive imagery with the required contextualisation but also to gauge its relationshipto modes of affect, including questions of grievability. At Nuremberg Atrocities had apotential of grievability that surpassed all other modes of communication, which inturn elucidates the film’s evidential power. As Hicks observes, in opening our ears
and eyes, we can discern, beyond the constructed conventions of Soviet cinema, thetestimonial power of sounds and images, where key ongoing issues in the
representation of the Holocaust were being confronted.122 While Oświęcim was notscreened in its entirety at Nuremberg, its anticipation of the trial means that it
represents with Atrocities a rational and harmonious line of allegation, one which
resulted in a narrative that today will be viewed as inaccurate but in the immediate
aftermath of World War II was one audiences could comprehend and, crucially, onethat the law’s relatively primitive understanding of war crimes could accommodate.

Svilova’s atrocity films were not only made in proportion to the doctrine of theAllied prosecution at Nuremberg; first and foremost, they complied with the Soviet
policies of defence and legitimisation. My analysis suggests that these two forces werelargely compatible. Characterising the murder campaign of the Nazis as one aimed
against all non-fascists indirectly approved Stalin’s Marxist-Leninist philosophy andjustified his distrust of the outside world. At the time of their release, Oświęcim andAtrocities vindicated the Central Committee’s autocracy and drive for industrialisation,
reaffirming to the masses that a stronger, far-reaching and more equipped Soviet
Union would deter anti-communists from future invasion. It was the population’s
responsibility to ensure that the horror it witnessed would never be repeated.

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Chapter 3:
Female Spectators and the Feminine Ideal

Introduction
This chapter discusses the techniques Svilova employs to mobilise a female audiencethrough the depiction of Soviet women. These multifaceted representations
collectively promote a ‘feminine ideal’ and display ‘celluloid role models on whom
the audience could pattern their lives’.1 My analysis focuses on the period between
1939, the year in which Svilova began her independent career, and 1948, when her
representations of Soviet women became more intertwined with discourses ofOrientalism and cosmopolitanism. Such an analysis is not only vital in view of
Svilova’s gender but also in relation to wider ideological concerns. Kristen Whissel,
discussing gender in early Hollywood documentary films, argues that we cannot fully
understand it without considering how the director’s body of films participated in therearticulation of gender, race, nation and empire.2 Supporting Teresa de Lauretis’sview that a film’s form can be deconstructed to ascertain, at the very least, the genderof the target audience,3 my analysis also argues that the visual and symbolic space in
Svilova’s films is organised in a way that specifically aims to address female audiences135

– expressing a collective dimension of female experience alongside ideas of female
solidarity throughout her work.

My chapter begins with an overview of women’s evolving social status from the postrevolutionary to the Stalin era, before outlining in detail a theoretical framework formy analysis. The analysis itself initially focuses on two documentaries produced
during Stalin’s drive for industrialisation – Roof of the World (1939) and Metro (1940) –after which I turn to depictions of the feminine ideal during wartime. I analyse Newsof the Day no.10 (1944) and News of the Day no.9 (1945), the latter of which contained
stories about two illustrious female heroines, actress Evdokya Turchaninova andpilot Valentina Grizodubova. This analysis precedes a section on the allure of power
during the post-war era. My case studies here are International Democratic Federation of
Women (1947) and International Democratic Federation of Women in Paris (1948). Last, I
discuss the feminisation of the countryside in News of the Day no.43 (1948).

Cinema, the double burden and ‘egalitarianism’
For all the problems associated with gender bias, both implicit and explicit, the 1917
revolution offered unprecedented opportunities to women.4 These were most readily
accessible to ‘the young and urban, particularly those free of parental responsibility’,5which in many respects describes Svilova herself. If women embraced the new valuesof Bolshevism and could negotiate or overlook the hurdles of gender prejudice, their
desired career path did not have to remain a fantasy. As Barbara Clements argues,‘nowhere else in Europe were there so many female lawyers, professors, scientists
and artists, as well as judges and party secretaries, as there were in the [postrevolutionary] Soviet Union.’6 A series of conferences in November 1918 led to the136establishment of the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women. This preceded
the creation of Commissions for Agitation and Propaganda among Working Women,
which was in turn reorganised into the Women’s Department (or Zhenotdel) in 1919
by Aleksandra Kollontai, the most prominent woman in the Bolshevik Party.7
Kollontai’s faith in female autonomy, disseminated in an explicit, outspoken manner,
led many to consider it inconceivable she lived beyond Stalin’s Purges.8

During the decade of its existence, the Zhenotdel played a central role in the politicalmobilisation of women, extending the Central Committee’s influence to the female
population and drawing women into active participation in the construction of a newsociety.9 It is not coincidental that, during this period, the film industry witnessed a
growth in the employment of female workers.10 With parity in mind, these women
were encouraged to develop their skills and enjoy wider responsibilities. An editor
such as Svilova could fulfil her role beyond its physical demands; permitted thechance to use an editing table not as a means to an end but to understand it as a toolof her occupation and use it to its full capacity. Actresses were also encouraged torealise their potential: no longer employed simply for having the right ‘look’, women
could move from in front of the camera’s lens to behind it, performing more cerebral
tasks such as directing. My introductory chapter mentioned the careers of Esfir Shub,
Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Aleksandra Khokhlova and Yulia Solntseva, who were all
given opportunities to direct or edit high-profile assignments in the 1920s. Besides
these four, a number of other women climbed the ranks of the industry in the same
period, including Nadezhda Kosheverova who joined the Leningrad film studio in
the late 1920s, working as an assistant director to Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid
Trauberg on The Youth of Maxim (Yunost Maxim, 1935), the first of the Maxim trilogy,
and Vera Stroyeva who started her career in 1925 as a scenarist before directing her
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debut film, The Right of the Fathers (Pravo ottsov) in 1930. Employment of womenscreenwriters also increased. The most celebrated of these were Katerina
Vinogradskaya who began writing in the 1920s for established directors such as Ivan
Pyriev, and Nina Agadzhanova who was a script collaborator of Sergei Eisenstein.

In the 1920s it was largely male directors who made films with feminist themes. The
most famous and controversial was Abram Room’s Bed and Sofa (Tretya meshchanskaya,1929), in which a young woman, Luidmila, leaves a ménage-à-trois to live by herself.
Some female directors such as Preobrazhenskaya directed children’s films, whichmeant that as well as conducting professional work in the cinema they were also
participating in the traditional female role of upbringing. As I mentioned in Chapter
One, Preobrazhenskaya did direct one film that dealt with women’s issues, Peasant
Women of Ryazan (1927), a melodrama set in rural Russia. Therefore, although
women’s themes were at the time popular, they were not a distinguishable feature offilms made by women. This might be because, as Maya Turovskaya has argued, theidea of equality presupposed that women should be the same as men: ‘Accordingly
they strove to master the most difficult of all professions. In such a climate, it did notseem appropriate for women to make films about distinctly women ’s themes.’11

Stalin’s tightening grip on the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, which resulted inprogrammes of industrialisation and collectivisation, was accompanied by aredefinition of organisational and political needs. In 1930, as the Central Committee
was gradually reorganised to reflect its increasing control over the population, theZhenotdel was formally abolished.12Its demise confirmed that the libertarianelements of the Bolshevik transformation were incompatible with the ambitions andvalues of Stalin’s new regime. His main tool of legitimisation, cinema reiterated to the138

Soviet masses the need for sacrifice in the construction of a Marxist utopia. By 1929
the period of avant-garde experimentation, which had developed the art form in
rapid time and produced a collection of valuable films in the process, was over.
Filmmakers such as Svilova were pressured to concentrate their efforts on educating
workers in the spirit of communism; they had to offer an unwaveringly positive
image of the future socialist utopia and ensure that it reached and galvanised themasses. The willingness to forgo quality of life for future recompense was demanded
most of all from the country’s women. As a means of mobilisation, Svilova’s films
praised them for their self-sacrificing labour, symbolising the suffering and heroism
experienced by the whole country. This tribute was intended to reflect back onto
audiences: feeling appreciated for their efforts, women would return to their lives
rejuvenated, inspired to boost their exertion and continue to bear social inadequacies
without complaint. As my analysis will argue, the legitimisation of gender inequality iscommunicated by Svilova through both the highlighting of women’s place in society
and the aesthetic details of their bodies and their work.

Stalinism inculcated a strong work ethic and sense of duty upon women – work wasperceived as the most important aspect of life. Yet, motherhood was also a duty andthus the speed and success of industrialisation depended upon women’s complianceto balance domestic and state responsibilities. The mid-1930s, when Svilova was stillworking in collaboration with Vertov, was the period in which cinema was most fully
geared toward mobilising the masses and reinforcing the importance ofindustrialisation. Stalin’s campaign adopted pro-natalist lines, following the logic thata larger population would result in a more formidable workforce. The new policy wasin part a response to the demographic havoc wrought by crash industrialisation,
manifested in a great rise in abortion and a decline in the birth rate. The abolition of139

the Zhenotdel did not help matters, since the departments within it had been activein the struggle against abortion. To tackle this issue, as well as the increase in divorce
rates encouraged by ‘postcard divorce’, drastic changes in legislation were made tosupport the pro-family doctrine. A bill on abortion and divorce was published on 26
May, 1936, which, in addition to outlawing abortion in all except life threatening
circumstances, envisaged allowances for mothers with more than seven children,
greater maternity and nursery provision, more difficult and expensive divorce
proceedings and a curbing of fathers evading alimony payments.13 The number ofboth legal and illegal abortions declined immediately afterward but started to riseagain in the late 1930s and early 1940s as the situation for women deteriorated, partly
due to the shortages caused by war preparation but also because the new labour
legislation of the pre-war period curtailed the rights of mothers.14 The labour decreeof 1938 specifically reduced maternity leave from sixteen weeks to nine, and made it
contingent on a prior period of seven consecutive months of employment.15 This
move contradicted the pro-family doctrine and was resented by women workers.
Moreover, mobilisation laws passed on 1 September, 1939, forced many women to
deputise for male workers in factories, lead mines and power plants. With no extra
provision made for child care, the policy caused widespread dissatisfaction.16

The Central Committee perceived motherhood as a duty to the state, but one that
was at least rewarded; for example, the title of ‘heroine mother’ was bestowed on awoman after the birth of her tenth child. As well as legitimising the industrial
revolution, cinema played a vital role in communicating views on motherhood.
Vertov and Svilova produced a number of films during this period that have themesof a feminist nature. These themes not only reflected Stalin’s adoption of pro-natalist
policies – efforts made by the state to address every woman as a mother or potential
140mother and encourage population growth17 – but also represented Svilova’s growing
influence in the partnership. Vertov adopted a female point of view, perhaps as areaction to the suffering, powerless role forced upon him by cinema’s authorities,
and Svilova expressed her view through Vertov, gaining greater control over thewriting and directing.18 While Three Songs of Lenin (1934) and Lullaby (1937)
represented Central Asian women, Three Heroines (1938) documented thehomecoming of three Western Soviet female pilots who had successfully broken theworld record for a non-stop flight in their aeroplane, Rodina (‘Motherland’).19 These
three films provide a study of gender representation in their own right but, more
relevant to this thesis, they anticipate a number of themes that resurface in Svilova’s
independent films.

With the male population largely absent, particularly during and after World War II,
Soviet women were forced to become ‘superwomen’, heading the household as themain provider as well as the main carer and domestic worker. Their presence in theworkplace was not a result of successful implementation of the communist ideal ofgender equality, for it was driven by the necessity for economic and politicalreconstruction, and this necessity ‘was presented to women as a unique opportunity
for self-realisation’.20 Svilova’s films, according to the formula of socialist realism,
highlighted not the double burden itself but the new possibilities associated with it.
Although the Central Committee’s gender policies emphasised opportunities for
women in the Soviet Union and countries that adopted communism – particularly in
education, professional work and in areas previously dominated by men – ‘millionsof real women often felt the new reality brought them more disadvantages thanadvantages’.21 The Soviet woman, then, exemplified an objectifying use of thefeminist ideal within the signifying practices of a culture determined by the demands
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of an imposed ideology: the seemingly emancipated women in Svilova’s films worked
in complicity with a patriarchal system.

These notions of how women should behave and think were shaped and maintainedby cinema, where forms of legislation, rules, etiquette and upbringing werecommunicated. Oksana Bulgakova describes cinema’s 1930s stereotype of women as‘not primordial but a fully-formed heroine with clear convictions, a developed
character with a mature appearance, ac carefully moulded figure. She was strong, withbroad bones, prominent features and a sporty figure … She was a healthy beauty.’22
Bulgakova continues to define the heroine of the Stalin era as a woman with‘immutable clarity, a whole-hearted nature, optimism and an absence of doubt,
represented visually by expansive gestures and resolute strides’.23 What is also striking
about the on-screen heroine is that she led a loveless life – duty and work left noroom for heterosexual romance. Sexual freedom, tolerated in the 1920s, was strictly
forbidden – nothing was to distract from the ‘the cause’.24 As I will go on to describe,
intimacy and sensuality are largely absent from the Soviet cinema of the Stalin era
and notably from Svilova’s films. This is why, Bulgakov argues, even the mostbeautiful of Stalin’s on-screen heroines were represented as emancipated and equal tomen, appear somehow ‘man-like’.25

The function of the heroine was to infect the female audience with an optimism andconfidence in society. An open hatred of ‘the enemy’ encouraged a love of theMotherland and Central Committee, as personified by Stalin and reflected in theimage of lesser party figures. ‘The heroines called on spectators to model their own
lives according to the stories told on-screen, following the paths that leads them
upwards.’26142

It is important to note that, during this period, peer groups replaced family groups as
the locus of individual identity. This is significant when we consider where women
watched Svilova’s films. Most likely screened in workplaces, women engaged with theimages alongside their colleagues, which meant that, first, they received updates on
the Central Committee’s policies together – potentially increasing their receptiveness– and, second, they did not have to neglect their responsibilities at home or at workto visit the cinema. The importance of Svilova’s films in the battle for women’s
support and compliance lay most crucially in literacy levels, which were much lower
among women workers. In the late 1930s, when Svilova started work at the Central
Studio for Documentary Film, more than half of all female factory workers were only
semi-literate;27 consequently, visual media was a more effective medium than print
media. Also, women generally kept their distance from political affairs. The average
Soviet woman was less likely to be involved in political and technical education thanher male counterpart. At one party meeting it was observed that ‘many women arebourgeois; they love their comfort and are not interest in socialist life’.28 Despite its
condescending tone, the observation about women’s indifference to social life
contained some truth, in that women’s attention was indeed focused on the homeand family. This was not the result of a love of comfort – women were obliged todeal with domestic matters due to the enduring assumption that they should bear the
responsibility for shopping, child care and housework, in addition to full-time workoutside the home.

Female spectatorship and processes of identification
In order to analyse the methods Svilova employs to construct a direct relationshipwith her audience, one anchored in progressive depictions of femininity, it is vital to143place this relationship in an appropriate theoretical context. The female spectator infilm studies has predominantly been a textual one. Jackie Stacey has summarised
traditional psychoanalytically based feminist definitions of female spectators as‘devoid of sociality and historicity, she has often been seen to be a subject position
produced by the visual and narrative conventions of a film text and assumed torespond to it in particular ways due to the universal workings of the female psyche.’29
Women are typically ascribed the place of passivity within patriarchal culture, andthis has been reinforced within the textual model of spectatorship. Calling for arethinking of such approaches, Jennifer Bean has proposed a different methodology
of envisaging female spectatorship, by ‘drawing parallels between what appears to bea more heterogeneous, embodied, socially configured viewer mobilised in earlycinema and late cinema’.30 Thus, we must look at the ways in which women negotiate
media meanings through active processes. Rather than a passive viewer, an
acknowledgement of the female spectator is made with the understanding she brings
to the film her particular history and social identity. By associating Svilova’s modes ofnarration with the semiotic theories of the Soviet montage era, it can be argued that
she expects from her female spectator a mode of reception that demanded active
participation in the deciphering of meaning; the viewer was meant to link cognitively
the themes of the stories to the policies of the Central Committee. In this respect,
meanings do not reside in the text but instead emerge in the negotiation between text
and reader.

The Soviet female spectator has not been the subject of extensive discussion. Lilya
Kaganovsky’s How the Soviet Man was Unmade (2008) represents the most valiant
attempt at explaining the complex relationship between the reader and text. As thetitle of her study suggests, her focus is the male body and the production of Stalinist
144

masculinity. By unpacking male subjectivity, Kaganovsky touches upon the on-screen
representation of men and what she perceives as ‘homosexual panic’, in which men
are feminised and reject positions of virility.31 While this focus on the male differsfrom my analysis, the general absence of heterosexual relations Kaganovsky describes
is certainly applicable and serves to connect the corresponding studies. The panic
over heterosexual relations is a product of a larger undertaking: the refusal toparticipate in traditionally assigned gender roles. Kaganovsky’s dissection of malebonding and how the utopian world of male companionship offers male protagonists
a way out of heterosexual relations is in many ways the opposite side of the
dichotomy I describe in this chapter, where the women in Svilova’s films are
documented building solidarity among themselves, largely without a male counterpart.

Svilova’s emphasis on female camaraderie and its use as a tool of motivation for thefemale spectator also reflects Anne Eakin Moss and the ‘harem’ she identifies infilms of the Stalin era.32 Although since the late 1920s the new Soviet citizen may
have been primarily represented by the male body, and even the new Soviet women’sbody was often represented as more masculine than feminine, in the late 1930s the
new Soviet social body was repeatedly represented by feminised and eroticisedgroups of women, luring the spectator into a fantasy of abundance and harmony.
Moss explores the manipulation of cinematic devices in films such as Lullaby, A Girlwith Attitude (Devushka s kharakterom, Iudin, 1939) and The Radiant Path (Svetlyi put´,
Aleksandrov, 1940) to draw the female spectator into a vision of Soviet society
figured as an obedient and productive women’s community. Moss argues that thesefilms both eroticised the groups of women on-screen and asked spectators to feelthemselves a part of the community through the powerfully affective functions of
the cinematic apparatus. A higher order of propaganda, the films attempted ‘not just145

to whitewash viewers’ perceptions of reality, but also to modify their perceptions ofthemselves … the focus on female heroines taught the spectator to navigate Soviet
society and sacrifice the self in order to become part of the Soviet community.’33

While Kaganovsky and Moss have provided an entry point to my analysis of
Svilova’s on-screen heroines, the relationship she fuses between her female audienceand the feminist ideal is perhaps best contextualised by Jackie Stacey’s discussion on
female audiences of Hollywood cinema in the 1940s.34 Stacey carried out extensive
research to collate the opinions of filmgoers and draw comparisons between theconceptual ‘spectator’ constructed in film studies and the actual women who watchedfilms. Based on empirical evidence, her notion of spectatorship offers an informed
and concrete picture of spectatorial habits, attitudes and desires during and afterWorld War II. Stacey argues that the relationship between the female spectator andthe feminine ideal is based on processes of identification. In this context,
identification loosely means engaging with a character, revolving around a set ofcultural processes that describe heterogeneous connections between the spectatorand fictionalised other. While ‘identification is made through recognition’,35 this does
not merely involve the spectator’s identification of similarity but also the productive
recognition of difference:

When the spectator displays sentiments of worship, devotion
or adoration, the process of identification is not based on
similarity – it happens from afar … Difference between the
spectator and the feminine ideal, or the possibility of closing
the gap produced by the difference, elicits pleasure for thefemale viewer.36

Within this framework, identification involves a wanting to be. It concerns intimacy
between femininities, which are not direct articulations of erotic object choice but are
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more related to terms of negotiation between the self and other. On the one hand,the spectator values difference because it enables her to be taken to a world in which
her desires can be fulfilled; yet, on the other, the need for similarity is not entirely
eradicated because it enables her to recognise the qualities she already has and allows
her to imagine herself in the position of the feminine ideal. Karen Hollinger argues
that the mediation of similarity and difference is crucial to overcome the dilemma
created by ‘cross-sexual identification’ fantasy.37 Anne Eakin Moss concurs in thatasking the spectator both to identify with and desire the heroine unsettles theformation of sexual identities as the spectator is an object of desire throughidealisation but she is also inscribed into the community and asked to identify with it.
Yet, the continual negotiation of self and ideal works across multiple registers ofcinematic desire to compensate for the ambiguities inherent in the diversion of theerotic gaze.38

Therefore, the process of identification is not only a relationship between the self
and other but one between the self and imaginary self. Identification can centre on adenial of the self in favour of the ideal – the desire to transform into her. It is
important to note that, unlike Stacey’s study, this analysis does not rely on concrete
statements of actual female audiences at the time, nor is there much solid evidence as
to how women spectators responded to their on-screen depiction (with the exceptionof the appearance of actual on-screen spectators that I shall discuss below in moredetail). Nevertheless, Stacey’s findings can be used to speculate what Soviet women
were meant to experience. The female spectator was expected to recognise herself inthe fictionalised world of the films, based on the similarity between herself and thefeminine ideal, which operated through a desire to maintain the difference between
herself and the ideal: she wanted to be both similar to, and different from, her on147

screen counterpart. Recognising similarity and difference was meant to produce
pleasure between femininities. Writing in a different context on how female
friendship is often featured in novels by women authors, Gillian Frith has described
this form of pleasure as ‘intimacy which is knowledge’.39 Self and ideal are notcollapsed into one but rather there is enough difference to create the feeling of reality
so that a degree of imperfection ratifies the existence of the ideal. Difference
produces a distance that becomes desirable for the spectator, both as something toovercome and as something to maintain.

The continual negotiation, then, between the spectator and ideal depends upon the
mediation of similarity and difference across the multiple meanings of cinematic
identification and desire. Acknowledging difference is crucial for the female spectator
because it provides the space for fantasy – a shift occurs from the preference forsimilarity to the realisation that this connection remains at the level of desire;pleasure is thus experienced through an imagined transformation of self. Despite theemphasis on realism in Stalinist cinema, symbols and myths were a prominent feature,offering the spectator an avenue to escape her world and assume an on-screen
identity. Such escapist strategies have also been documented in other socialist andpost-socialist environments.40 What can be observed in this case is a temporary lossof self and the adoption of another persona, especially in terms of sharing emotions
with the ideal. The boundary between self and ideal is relatively stable, ‘crossed
during the film viewing in terms of the spectator entering a fantasy world andbecoming her fantasy self, but this temporary, one-way movement leaves the
spectator’s own identity unchanged by the process’.41

148

While the spectator and feminine ideal are simultaneously separated and merged in acomplex process of recognition, based on the spectator’s acknowledgement of, anddesire for, similarity and difference, in some of Svilova’s films their relationship is
articulated through the recognition of an immutable difference, allowing the desire to
become more like the ideal to emerge. Stacey has argued that ‘the distance between
the spectator and ideal can produce a kind of longing that offers fantasies oftransformed identities.’42 These desires are often expressed through discourses ofglamour – some of Svilova’s screen icons provide templates of traditional feminine
appearance, encouraging conventional forms of aspiration among the women whose
lives were dissimilar to the ones they observed on film. The construction of Svilova’s
feminine ideal endows her subject with confidence, sophistication and self-assurance,
traits the female spectator interprets as desirable and inspirational: their courage,
confidence and independence offer the female spectator fantasies of power outside
her own experience. The look of Svilova’s female spectator has deeper implications
than sexual objectification; it implies dynamics of admiration, reverence and otherprogressive resonances.

Stacey extends our understanding of cinematic identification beyond the level offantasy to analyse the overlap between the female spectator and the feminine ideal,
what she defines as ‘extra-cinematic’ identificatory practices.43 Identification occurs
within the imagination and at the level of cultural activity. Extra-cinematic
identificatory practices take place outside the act of looking, manifested in the actionsof the spectator. Her desire to replicate the ideal does not only evolve at the level offantasy but involves activities in which the ideal becomes intertwined in the
spectator’s physical identity. Stacey regards imitation as a symbol of extra-cinematic
identification, when the ideal is used as a model for behaviour.44 This notion is149

particularly relevant to Svilova who captures on-screen female viewers replicating the
movements of the feminine ideal. Beyond offering the feminine ideal as a role model,
Svilova uses on-screen audiences and their imitation of the ideal to guide thereactions of her cinema spectator. This is just one of the techniques Svilova employs
to mobilise the female spectator, the rest of which are analysed throughout thecourse of this chapter. Taking into account the processes of spectatorial
identification, my analysis foregrounds Svilova’s complex interplay of similarity anddifference between audiences and the feminine ideal – their need to be inspired intheir real-life pursuits while simultaneously escaping from them – and how thisinterplay served to legitimise and serve the agenda of the Central Committee. I will
aim to show how the representation of female solidarity was shaped and defined bystate ideology, playing a distinctive role in the cinema through Svilova’s visual signs
and narrative construction. These devices mobilised the female spectator to make theon-screen heroine an object of desire.

Industrialisation and the re-imagined woman
Svilova began her independent career at the height of Stalin’s industrial revolution.
The movement of women into what were traditionally masculine workplaces to copewith the demands of production was reflected some years later in Great Britain andthe United States where a similar transition took place to stabilise each country’s war
economy. For example, writing on the British context, Antonia Lant argues that massmobilisation of women worked against traditional notions of national stability, forwomen could no longer be counted on to be at home – in fact, they were required by
law not to be.45 Svilova’s films produced before Soviet involvement in World War II
make conspicuous the way identificatory processes were formed in cinema. The huge150

enveloping apparatus mass mobilisation required meant that any film from thisperiod was entrapped in a vast discursive web, across which multiple, possibly
conflicting images of patriotism and of gender were linked.46 Soviet women had tomake sense of a range of representations of themselves and these representations
constructed national identity.

Roof of the World (1939), Svilova’s first independent film, documents the constructionof a hydroelectric power station in the Pamir mountain range.47 It was shortly
followed by Metro (1940), which incorporates images from the very centre of theSoviet Union – the subway system in Moscow. Although the contexts of female
occupation are very different in the two films, the techniques Svilova employs tomobilise the female spectator remains largely unchanged. In 1939, the possibility of aworld war intensified the need to integrate women into traditional male workplaces.
Similar in aesthetic to the industrial scenes in Lullaby, the women in Roof of the Worldare masculinised by the nature of their work; they hunch over to shovel concrete andlay bricks. Svilova’s selection of shots and the order in which they are assembled
accentuates this impression. The gender of the workers is unidentifiable in theestablishing wide-angle shot: they move gawkily; their pace was likely to have been
determined by the laboriousness and tedium of the work. Only when Svilova selects
further mid-shots and close-ups are the workers identifiable as women. Female
spectators working in the industrial sector were able to identify with the workers
through the similarity of their workplace. Yet, any relationships built on the processof similarity are soon undone by the introduction of a dialectic mode of editing that
relies on the recognition of difference: shots of female scientists enjoying the safe,
clean and carefree environment of a nearby laboratory are juxtaposed with the151construction scenes, depicting for the spectator a life in which she could contributeto the revolution in ways that were not so physically debilitating.

While highlighting the importance and variety of women’s work, the introduction of
the laboratory sequence, and Svilova’s artistic decision to juxtapose it with theconstruction scenes, suggest that the story intends to inspire the female spectator.
The images serve as evidence that women are not to limit themselves to the arduous
nature of blue-collar employment. Juxtaposing shots of the two workplaces alluded
to the socialist fantasy – women are encouraged to overlook their physical reality, thehere and now, and entertain thoughts of an alternative future. The shots of thefemale laboratory assistants are central to the premise of aspiration: beyond easing
herself of physical exertion, the female spectator is given a further incentive toconsider white-collar employment, one that is designed to address her specifically asa woman. Although the laboratory assistants are dressed in the same overcoats astheir male colleagues, their hair is exposed, which allows for essential gender
distinction. Nancy Huston argues that the diversion of men’s sexual energy into
murderous energy for war was signalled through the ritual head shaving on the firstday of military service.48 From this we can understand hair as an outward sign ofactive sexuality that was removed to coincide with the physical demands of wartime.
While women did not remove their hair, they had to disguise it, tying it up and hiding
it under a cap. In the laboratory sequence, the women’s long hair is exposed, for it is
one of the key elements of femininity, part of a culturally constructed dimorphism.
Svilova includes shots of the women’s hair to inform the spectator that the ideal of
glamorised womanhood did not need to be threatened; certain occupations would
allow them to overcome the masculinity of industrialisation and retain theirfemininity.
152

Promotion from blue-collar labour was not, then, only a means to financial
independence and an escape from the dangerous and arduous work of construction
sites, it enabled women to be women, to preserve their feminine characteristics andrefined qualities. Cinema was unwilling and unable to banish the pleasures andprofits of female glamour in the name of civic-minded austerity. However, underpressure of the ethos of industrialisation, Svilova embarks on a conspicuous strategy
of ranking and reclassifying femininities, endowing each scene of a woman’s
attention to her appearance with patriotic significance – the maintenance of a legible
femininity was an integral part of being Soviet. As Antonia Lant argues, remaining
womanly was a means of patriotism because the survival of femininity was a sign ofstrength and perseverance.49 The feminine ideal on display in the laboratory sequence
challenges the pervasive fear that ‘the adoption of uniforms or overalls by women
would actually diminish sexual difference, that women would lose theirfemininity.’50As long as hair is exposed, this threat is minimised considerably. One ofthe problems of combining femininity with uniformity originated in the powerful
notion of femininity as incompatible with cohesion, rationality and publicdependability.51 To some extent, therefore, focusing on femininity adds prestige towomen’s versatility, the feminine ideal becomes synonymous with an outward
feminine appearance, which, for Svilova, counteracts any suggestion that only
industrious women are contributing to the socialist campaign. Aware of the need for
women to undertake unglamorised work, yet anxious about the long-term price ofchanged sexual roles, Svilova juxtaposes the construction site with the laboratory,
thus assuaging fears that femininity will be lost in the cause of industrialisation whileproviding the necessary difference female spectators sought to identify between
themselves and the ideal.52 The identification of this difference, and the challenge to153negate it in their lives, is theoretically speaking understood to motivate them andbring them pleasure.

The narrative of Svilova’s following film, Metro, is based on the same rhetoric evident
in Roof of the World, one that served to challenge the widespread fears among Soviet
women that industrialisation was forcing them to be uniformed and uniformly
unattractive. It can be argued that Svilova’s selection of shots does not wholly calm
these fears but rather hopes to reinforce to women their duty: while some women are
in a position to retain their femininity in the workplace, those who cannot are to view
it as a necessary sacrifice – what could also be described as an act of patriotism. The
way in which Svilova constructs the feminine ideal in Metro probes the rigidity or
flexibility of gender identity by detaching gender signifiers from the expectedbiological sex. Antonia Lant has found a corollary in her case study: ‘The women,
sexually disguised, are not, for patriotic reasons, obviously glamorised.’53 The female
spectator, already encouraged to identify with her split identity caused by the double
burden, ‘could also perceive the potential loss of her femininity as a symbol of her
nationhood’.54 In this respect, the feminine ideal is a flexible creation, a malleable
concept that is adapted to suit various workplaces and physical manifestations. Inturn, Svilova does not produce simple, single identities for her spectators but asksthem to reform identity into the role of the ally, into a state of mobilisation, and intoa state of being a national subject, permitting them to demonstrate their invincible
solidarity to Stalin’s united and class-free society. Metro itself was intended as a filmic
tribute to Stalin: the document in which Svilova outlines her proposed narrative forthe film is introduced with an epigraph quoting Lazar Kaganovich, People’s
Commissar for Transport: ‘The metro is one of the glorious victories won under
Stalin’s leadership.’55
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Svilova’s use of the workplace as the background for her engagement with the female
spectator is not unusual in the context of socialist realist cinema – media
representations of women often placed them at work, so much so that this theme‘provided the crux of female identity in public discourse throughout Soviet
propaganda of the 1930s’, as Choi Chatterjee has argued.56 The first half of Metro
documents Moscow’s underground train system as a distinctly feminine workplace,omitting any shots that depict the presence of a male worker, though men are seenusing the metro as passengers. Svilova calls attention to the dominant presence of
women in this particular space and celebrates the variety of their work: women are
captured in montage sequences scrubbing walls, buffering floors, operating ticket
booths, driving trains and performing conductor’s duties. Remarkably, women alsobuild the stations, as footage in the second half of the film indicates, depicting theconstruction of the third stage of the metro infrastructure. Despite the presence of amale worker in this sequence, the woman remains as his co-worker. The emphasis of‘co-’ is relayed mostly through costume: women wear the same overalls and hardhats
as the men, the latter of which disguises the workers’ hair and renders gender
identification an impossible task. Furthermore, the movements and body language ofthe male and female workers are almost indistinguishable.

In terms of filmic representation, the potential for glamour and self-confidence thatis evident in Roof of the World, intertwined within a feminine aesthetic, lends itself
more readily in Metro to a spectacle of masculinisation. A series of close-ups draws
attention to the similarity between the women’s overalls and their male co-workers’,
which again might indicate that Svilova hopes to challenge any fears, such as thoseprevalent in Great Britain, that legislating women’s dress, by equipping them withpractical uniforms in order to unify them, might have the power to disguise, alter, or155

even reconstruct their real selves.57 Svilova possibly tries to diffuse any concerns thatthe connotations of male strength attached to their work uniform would permanently
empower female wearers. On this point, it is important to call attention to thesignificance of the scene’s context. The parity between men and women is not only
due to Svilova’s focus on the overalls but, like the construction scenes in Roof of theWorld, is also indebted to the arduous nature of the work itself, which allows little
opportunity for feminine behaviours or movements. Although the metro
infrastructure is represented, in the most part, as one constituted by women, it is notnecessarily feminine. This reading is supported by the fact that the only female
worker whose gender can be categorised from a distance is one who is notundertaking such physically demanding work – she walks along the railway line
fulfilling quality control responsibilities.

The concluding sequence depicts a woman wearing white overalls and a hat cleaning
the seats inside a carriage; her movements are careful and precise. A second woman
cleans the carriage furnishings, acknowledging the camera with a proud smile. A finalwide-angle shot of the platform captures the stationary train being cleaned by womenon ladders. These women’s movements are subtle and delicate, far removed from thecumbersome, ungainly body gestures in the earlier construction sequence. The
women smile to each other, suggesting that this workplace is one where female
solidarity was strong between colleagues. Here, Svilova plays on the appeal that liesin the scope the film gives to female experience, and especially the representation of
female-to-female relations.58 In Great Britain, The Gentle Sex (Howard, 1943), a film
narrating the lives of seven British women during wartime, was among the mostprofitable films of the war period, indicating that it must have held a certain
attraction to women, given their predominance in the audience.59 Janet Thumin
156

concurs, arguing that ‘wartime films which dealt with the relationships between
women proved popular with the female spectator.’60 Although Metro was produced
the year before the Soviet Union’s entry into World War II, the pressure placed on
women, and the related gender transformation that took place, allowed women torecognise in each other their suffering, stoicism and courage, acknowledging theirvital function in maintaining the meta-structures of family and nation. The feminine
ideal in Metro, one who celebrates the sacrifices of other women and inspires them intheir work, offering support the state could not provide, crystallises the uniquecharacter of Stalin’s gender transformation. As in British wartime films, Svilova
emphasises female experience. There is a recognition that, with the growing female
audience, further patronage – and patriotism – might be encouraged by stories about
female solidarity. There was a need to present their solidarity as part of the greater
national effort, and it became part of the Soviet Union’s political body.

In Roof of the World and Metro, Svilova engages the spectator in two modes of
opposition, that of similarity/difference and that of masculinity/femininity, though
the latter is by no means clear-cut and the dimorphism of hair provided for Svilova
the necessary distinction upon which to draw. As the dialectic models of masculinity
and femininity, which helped to guarantee social stability in the formative years of theSoviet Union, were thrown into torsion by industrialisation, and as women donned
uniforms and entered workplaces en masse, representational division is one of theways in which Svilova refashions a semiotics of sexual difference. In the absence oftraditional schema of separate, gendered spheres, her films allude to a gendered cleftin new, vertically stratified terms. The demands of industrialisation – of rationing,mobilisation and patriotism – require a new version of femininity and, while Roof of
the World and Metro map out these changes, they also suggest to the female spectator,
157

perhaps implicitly, that the feminine ideal and the traits we associate with femininity
are only compatible for a chosen few.

Female heroines in wartime
Stalinist initiatives forced women to join men in workplaces in the 1930s, before thenreplacing them when men were conscripted for combat in 1941. Through the formal
arrangement of her films, through imagery and narrative themes, Svilova continues toinvite the female spectator to identify with on-screen heroines. Yet, women’s pivotal
place in her films as a specular object is modified; the female form has to be morestrongly aligned with national identity. The primary meaning of the opposition ‘us’and ‘them’ shifts from referring to the two sides of gender to the two sides of war:
woman versus man is readily transposed onto Soviet versus non-Soviet. Constructing
a feminine ideal who is in part to be recognised by her physical difference to man
gives way to a further merging of genders. While Svilova strives to speak to women,
acknowledging and encouraging their labour and sacrifice, she no longer refers to theplight of women’s continued femininity: the feminine ideal is wholly masculinised toinspire women to embrace the changing demands. As Metro appears to indicate, theloss of femininity is dressed as a patriotic duty. The absence of conventional gender
distinctions in Svilova’s wartime films challenge what has in Laura Mulvey’s opinion
been one of cinema’s primary cultural roles – the invention and reproduction ofimages that sustain the rift of sexual difference.61 As familiar habits of the cinema,such as its patterning of narrative resolution through gendered reference, areovertaken by vast national changes, Svilova’s construction of the feminine ideal
becomes more complex.

158

In Soviet discourse, through a subtle repositioning, the war of the sexes was put on
hold while a war against a different enemy was being fought. The meaning of
femininity, then, was not the same along every dimension and not for every spectator;
it was not defined against masculinity or against a different class of femininity. Thezone of sexual difference was invaded and commandeered, in the name ofestablishing a more urgent difference – that of nationality. During World War II,
cinema was the most powerful medium for building patriotism in that it reached awider public than any other. The war produced a need for images of national identity,
both on the screen and in the spectator’s mind, yet Soviet national identity was not anatural, timeless essence but an intermittent, combinatory historical product, arisingat moments of contestation of different political and geographical boundaries. In thisrespect, its construction paralleled that of the representation of gendered identity.
Here, the mutually dependent categories of masculinity and femininity fluctuatedaccording to historical moment, while their ideological power rested with the
opposite notion that their meanings were fixed through attachment to biological sex.
National identity had to be forged from traditional aesthetic and narrative forms.
Never straightforwardly or permanently stated, it emerged only partially from aninsistence on a specifically Soviet nature, definable only through difference fromanother identity, another place that was not Soviet. We can read Svilova’s wartime
films not only for progressive images of women, or to see how these images diverge
from contemporary experience, but also to understand how, in her imagining of
national identity through different versions of screen femininity, the films negotiate
with, and participate in, the representations of womanhood and nationhood.

Initially the Central Committee was reluctant to enlist women in combat positions,instead recruiting them to perform traditionally female roles, such as repairing army
159

clothes and nursing injured soldiers.62 As the need for more infantry increased,
women were drafted to overcome the deficiency. They were involved in every branchof service, eventually constituting nine per cent of Soviet military personnel by theend of the war.63 As well as providing vital infantry roles, 200,000 Soviet women flew
in the air defence forces during World War II.64 This notable statistic implies that the
campaign to promote female interest in aviation, of which Vertov and Svilova’s Three
Heroines was intended to be a part, was successful. In the face of continued domestic
erosions in male and female roles, Svilova develops a new way of delineating maleand female spheres, placing them in a vertical orientation, attaching femininity to theland and to the skies. Paul Virilio, a French cultural theorist best known for his
writings about the impact of technology on urbanisation, writes that war is a space inthe geometrical sense with its own reference points and landmarks.65 This insighthelps us to understand how Svilova stakes out meaning through an emphasis on
boundaries, borders, coastlines and maps, and through a new stratification in plot
and mise en scéne, of the realms of air, land and sea – themes that resurface in her
peace-time depictions of foreign lands and otherness in the post-war era. Wartime
cinema envisioned the space of the nation in new terms, renovating the severely
tested metaphor of home as an embodiment of nationhood by aligning land and air
to domestic and non-domestic spheres, spheres in which traditional genderedassociations were still, intermittently, in force despite the wartime upheaval in genderroles.

In fact, Marina Raskova, the lead pilot documented in Three Heroines, influenced theCentral Committee to accept women into male air regiments and to create three allfemale ones,66 suggesting that, in this instance, there was an unequivocal association
between the illusion of rhetoric and the reality it served to create. Despite their160

contributions to the defeat of fascism, most women were excluded from the rank ofhero and framed as the Other, against which male heroes were measured.67 Soviet
heroic rhetoric often included women in the symbolic nation (Three Heroines, forexample), but a masculine vision of the nation and its citizens was most often
disseminated. Although heroines were honoured, and offered an alternative model ofinclusion in the nation, they were never as independent, popular or heroic as the men
who were inspired to greatness by their tenderness and love for a female country.
Only they, as Karen Petrone concludes, were deemed the true protectors of themotherland.68

Three Heroines is an example of how engagement in war required a further reimaging
of gender roles and how the deployment of cinema was meant to educate women on
state expectations and motivate them to fulfil the new demands. Svilova’s
independent films produced between 1941 and 1945 strive to spark in her female
spectator a sense of recognition, to make her believe that she was the one to whom
the images spoke. While there is no similarly iconic equivalent in Svilova’s films, theAmerican persona of ‘Rosie the Riveter’, and the means by which the female
spectator identified with her, provides pertinent comparisons to the relationshipbetween Svilova’s spectator and the feminine ideal. Rosie was a government initiative,a fabricated female archetype to convince American industry to do its patriotic duty
to help the war effort by employing female labourers – in 1942 President Roosevelt
stated that, ‘In some communities employers dislike to employ women. We can nolonger afford to indulge such prejudices or practices.’69 Rosie, who also bore theresponsibility of first encouraging women to apply for ‘men’s’ work, came as part ofa media rhetoric that had, since 1939, sought to link women to the workplace. Thisrhetoric resulted in, or reflected, a twenty-five per cent increase in the female
161

workforce since the turn of the twentieth century.70 Rosie was a tireless and patriotic
woman who was not just a riveter but carried out secretarial work, engineered trains,
flew aeroplanes and planted trees. Symbolising the changing role of women in
Rosie’s industrious character was understood to have played a major factor in thedramatic increase in the female labour force, which rose fifty-seven per cent between
1942 and 1944, and in the strengthening of national identity, indicating that acarefully constructed fictionalised ideal cannot be underestimated as a tool ofmobilisation.71 She became idealised as a result of Norman Rockwell’s May 1943
Saturday Evening Post cover;72 dressed in greasy overalls, the image depicted Rosie
sitting on an iron girder and eating her lunch. This image was reproduced in various
forms in advertisements, poster campaigns and in cinema. Rosie the Riveter (Graham,1943), for example, was a romantic comedy in which Rosalind ‘Rosie’ Warren takes aposition in a wartime aeroplane factory in California.

The British government also deployed cinema to mobilise its nation’s women; films
such as The Gentle Sex and Millions Like Us (Gilliat and Launder, 1943) showcased
wholesome figures of femininity to spark patriotism in female audiences, which inthe mid-1940s made up a huge proportion of filmgoers.73 British cinema also held up
Soviet women as appropriate models for emulation: there are several indications thatthe idea of the Soviet woman as unglamorous counterbalanced American screen
goddesses in the British wartime discourse of femininity.74 Such notions came, atleast in part, from the screening of Soviet films in Great Britain. Knowledge ofSoviet women’s wartime experience boosted British women’s association with adespecularised femininity. In Tawny Pipit (Miles and Saunders, 1944), for example, thefictional Lieutenant Bocolova (played by émigré actress, Lucie Mannheim) visits arural British village and comes to represent the Russian feminine ideal. Her162

combination of strength and bravery, sustained for just a few minutes on screen,tantalises a local Land Army girl who ponders: ‘I want to see what she’s got that I
haven’t.’ It was a comparison the women in the audience were also encouraged tomake.

As with Metro, Svilova’s News of the Day no.10 (1944) highlights the necessity ofunglamorous wartime work. Svilova addresses Soviet women through discourses thatcan speak to them as real women, despite the fact that they now existed outside thehome and had been for some time. This tension underscored the Central
Committee’s failure to construct a coherent replacement feminine ideal during
wartime, which makes visible what were clear contradictions of female subjecthood.
Antonia Lant argues that a similar contradiction occurred in Great Britain:

Femininity’s unstable wartime nature was most perfectly
expressed in the government’s lingo for the deployable female,‘the mobile woman’. She shifted from exclusion from theconcept of nationhood to the acute need for her incorporationin the nation.75

War produced a laminate of multiple femininities in conflict; women faced
irresolvable contradictions in the versions of femininity that surrounded them and bywhich they built their images of themselves. News of the Day no.10 documents women
undertaking tasks in a variety of workplaces, ranging from lead mines, construction
sites, oil fields, collective farms and coal mines. Svilova also visits them on thefrontline, where they are depicted driving tanks and fulfilling medical duties. Theirrespective triumphs in these occupations intend to instil an atmosphere of optimism
for a glorious communist future. The montage provides a host of different versionsof the feminine ideal, and the spectator can choose with whom she wants to identify.
Svilova does not make any efforts to disguise the physical extent of the work,163

particularly those tasks carried out by women in the coal mine whose weary,
blackened faces Svilova captures in a series of close-ups. This attempt at realism
informs us that the process of identification at work is centred on notions ofsimilarity, for there would have been no discernible difference between the life of thespectator and that of the ideal. The following harvesting sequence, however, contains
an element of fantasy: a female agricultural worker stops picking peaches, puts down
her basket and begins to play games with her children who have accompanied her towork. Based on what we know of collective farm life, it is likely that the spectator
would not have linked this playful scene with the reality of her workplace. Following
Jackie Stacey’s argument on identificatory processes, the spectator is more likely tohave responded to the image of the feminine ideal with a desire to cancel out thedifference between her reality and the fictionalised depiction of collective farm life.
This desire brought pleasure and, consequently, can be understood as an effective
tool of mobilisation.

Throughout the harvesting sequence, Svilova emphasises the valuable contributionof children, documenting them as they climb rickety ladders to pick fruit and use
their nimble hands to tie rope. In this respect, the feminine ideal is not encapsulated
in the archetypal female worker – the new Soviet woman who was simultaneously aperfected model of femininity and one willing to sacrifice her femininity for Stalin’s
wartime cause – but in her offspring. The female spectator is encouraged to raisechildren who would also dedicate themselves to the defeat of fascism and theconstruction of the Marxist utopia. This theme is continued in News of the Day no.9
(1945) in which Svilova portrays aviation hero, Valentina Grizodubova (who featuredin Three Heroines), accepting her Soviet Hero Star medal. Rather than document theceremony in detail, Svilova cuts to a later scene depicting Grizodubova in an164

informal setting talking with three younger women. While her words are not audible,
the voiceover indicates that Grizodubova is sharing the joy of her achievements in
the hope of inspiring future pilots. Considering the extent of these achievements, thefemale spectator is invited to view Grizodubova as a role model, spirited by her
courage and freedom. The act of aviation itself is crucial to this reading, as a pilot’s
licence is intrinsically related to themes of independence and liberation. The fantasies
of escape and power evoked by Grizodubova once more correlate with Stacey’s
processes of identification: in this instance, pleasure is on offer to the spectator not
only through the fantasy of escape but in an encouragement to fill the gap between
her own life and that of Grizodubova’s.

Svilova, then, addresses the spectator in such a way as to encourage her to recognise
herself as a national subject through the process of engaging with the ideal. The
production of a coherent national identity was not dependent on stable andreassuring gender roles, as it had been before the industrial revolution, but was reliant
on continuous change and upheaval to these roles: no longer reassured by the
maintenance of traditional femininity, the Soviet Union in wartime found security inthe chaos of the new social order, where women replaced or joined men in all aspectsof life. Victimised by the Nazi invasion, it became a country that temporarily defined
itself by the permanent turmoil it endured. Yet, while women taking on male roles
led to a deglamorisation of the national heroine, a process in which the majority of
Svilova’s films had to participate, other depictions of the feminine ideal worked toredefine femininity and they had, by their very focus, to dramatise its concurrent
disintegration. In the same newsreel episode, News of the Day no.9, Svilova depicts theseventy-fifth birthday celebrations of Soviet actress, Evdokya Turchaninova. The
story hails Turchaninova as a heroine of the Soviet regime, a regime without which165

her talents might not have been realised. The scene opens with a wide-angle shot of
the stage of Moscow’s Maly Theatre. Only the stage is lit; the rest of the theatre
remains in darkness. Turchaninova enters the shot from the right, being guided onto
the stage by a chaperone, and stands on the stage to await the start of theproceedings. Svilova cuts to a low-angle mid-shot of Turchaninova. She wears awhite dress with a black shawl. Turchaninova stands upright with a posture of dignity;
her facial expression emitting sentiments of humility and humbleness. A panning
shot from right to left depicts a man in a tuxedo carrying a bouquet of flowers acrossthe stage. He places them at the feet of Turchaninova who in response takes a stepback in astonishment.

The sequence continues with a woman in an oriental gown giving Turchaninova agift and a parting kiss on the cheek, before a second bouquet is delivered at
Turchaninova’s feet. Recorded in live sound, the audience can be heard giving around of applause. Svilova returns to the opening establishing shot to capture childballerinas performing for Turchaninova and then cuts to a mid-shot of the ballerinas
recorded from a camera on the stage. For the first time, Svilova cuts to reaction shotsof the audience, noticeably to a mid-shot of a group of young women who applaud
enthusiastically. A tearful Turchaninova delivers a speech to the audience. She talks
directly into the camera with strong body gestures, covering her heart with both
hands to indicate that her words are truthful and sincere. In Turchaninova, Svilova
documents for the spectator a feminine ideal who was endowed with a distinctive
voice, one who could narrate her own story coherently. Turchaninova’s speechexhibits a modern consciousness of the self, aware that she has lived before and after
the revolution, the most significant event in her nation’s history. The divisioncontained in Turchaninova’s story, between the oppressive pre-revolutionary past166

and the glorious present, enables Svilova to perpetuate a sense of overcoming – acommunist victory in the face of adversity. One constant that runs throughout
Svilova’s many gender discourses is the ability of the feminine ideal to grapple with
rapid change and persevere, despite hindrances from inside and outside Soviet
borders.

The feminine ideal and the allure of power
The image of the feminine ideal as an autonomous and resourceful labourer, working
to secure the future of the Soviet empire, persevered beyond World War II tocoincide with the launch of the fourth Five Year Plan, which focused onreconstruction.76 The stories documented in Svilova’s newsreels during this period
tend to correspond in form and aesthetic with the pro-natalist campaign of the prewar era, focusing on repopulation and family values. While the industrial revolution
continued where it had left off, and women were still carrying out roles typicallyascribed to male workers, Svilova reminds women of their femininity, a way of redomesticating them. The feminine ideal is now a woman who is both industrious andglamorous, a hybrid of the two ends of the spectrum witnessed thus far. A clear
example of this reimaging is News of the Day no.12 (1947), which contains a story froma motorcycle factory in Zapolyarye. The women are organised into production lines,
surrounded by heavy machinery. They work at their stations, assembling different
parts of the motorcycles. The theme of female solidarity gradually established since
Metro is still very present, as the women smile at each other and to the camera, where
their enjoyment appears to originate from both the work itself and the femalecompany. What separates this story from Svilova’s earlier industrial scenes is thewomen’s attire. They are not uniformed; instead, they wear their own clothes and167

without overalls to protect themselves from the grease and dust. Svilova emphasises
the femininity of two women assembling the front wheels. Close-up shots capture
the detail of their floral dresses, necklaces and bracelets. Referring back to myreading of Roof of the World, the feminine ideal in the motorcycle sequence hasretained her femininity as an act of patriotism, though this act could be understoodas a greater victory than that of the laboratory assistants who had to escape theindustrial workplace to maintain the traits of their gender. Svilova appears to suggestthat escape is no longer necessary: women can retain their femininity in the industrial
workplace, in turn implying steps of grand progress in the formation of a Marxist
utopia.

During the reconstruction period after World War II, the Central Committee
addressed the female masses through a fantasy of power. As with the original drivefor industrialisation, reconstruction was dependent upon women bearing the double
burden; convincing them that they could attain influential positions in the workplaceand elsewhere was a means of guaranteeing their cooperation. 77 Women who bought
into this fantasy were deemed to work more productively than those who were
dubious about the possibility of obtaining future authority. International Democratic
Federation of Women (1947) documents the federation’s conference in Prague that year.
In 1947 the federation was governed by Nina Popova, the Director of the Soviet
Women’s Committee and Chairperson of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet
Women. Popova is the film’s main protagonist; she features in nearly every shot andis thus represented as central to the federation’s activities (due mainly to her
Sovietness). She personified a nation whose leadership qualities were being
implemented to guide Eastern Europe out of the aftermath of World War II. In this168

respect, Popova’s leading of the federation symbolises the wider context ofEuropean reconstruction.

Popova’s opening speech to the federation is the defining scene of the film’s first
half. Her address to the federation is significant because, as Elżbieta Ostrowska
suggests, women delivering speeches to women in the Stalin era can be interpreted as‘proof of a newfound subjectivity within the state structure’.78 It indicates thatwomen have a voice in Stalin’s regime and are allowed to express it, but only certain
women, who are selected on their merits and achievements. Popova symbolises tothe female spectator the success of egalitarianism and challenges any perceptions ofCentral Committee policy as genderist. The segment of Popova’s speech included in
the film describes the courageous fight waged by Soviet women against Nazi
occupation; she shares with passion stories of valour in the battle for the defence of
freedom and independence. The selection of shots in this sequence suggests anobjective on Svilova’s part, first, to augment Popova’s physical size to give an
impression of strength and authority, and, second, to emphasise the respect thefederation’s members had for its leader. The sequence begins with a side-angle midshot of the female audience facing left. Svilova cuts to a wide-angle shot of Popova
walking toward the front of the conference room. The women applaud as Popova
steps up to the lectern situated on a low stage. As Popova begins to speak, her headand shoulders are depicted in a low-angle mid-shot. Facing left, she sways as shebuilds emphasis and rhythm in her speech, to the point at which the tight-angled
shot can no longer contain her within its frame. A second wide-angle position
captures Popova leaning forward on the lectern, using her outstretched arms forbalance. A further low-angle invites the audience to view Popova’s exaggerated facial
gestures: she opens her eyes wide and grits her teeth to emphasise the passion in her
169words. Svilova cuts to a mid-shot of a portion of the audience applauding, followed
by a medium close-up of one young woman applauding Popova in a wildly excitedmanner.

The second half of the film narrates the delegation’s tour of Prague’s politically
relevant tourist sights. The federation’s visit to the newly-opened Lenin Museum andthe Liberation Monument, the latter of which celebrates the efforts made by theSoviet Union in 1945 to liberate Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation, serves todownplay Popova’s status as a feminine ideal and instead highlights her Soviet
identity. In doing so, the film diverts from its celebration of female unity tocommemorate Soviet triumph and legitimises the policies of the Central Committee.
The visit to the Liberation Monument not only allows the Soviet Union to become
the film’s proxy protagonist, it also rationalises the selection of Prague to host theconference.79 One result of the gratitude many Czechs felt toward the Soviet Union
for their liberation was a rapid increase in the support of the Czech Communist Party,
so much so that by 1948 it was the largest single party in Czech Parliament. Soviet
refusal to participate in the Marshall Plan essentially dictated the negative stand takenby the pro-Soviet governments of the countries of Central and South-Eastern
Europe. The Central Committee exerted strong pressure on them in this respect and,as a result, Czechoslovakia, as well as Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania
and Yugoslavia, rejected assistance under the programme. This was a major step individing Europe and toward creating greater international tension. The consultationsof representatives of nine communist parties held in Poland in late 1947 only
increased the level of confrontation in Europe, for their resolutions emphasised thedivision of the world into two blocs. The prevailing atmosphere of mutual suspicion
and mistrust, exacerbated by the legacy of past relations and by new divisions, led to170a situation in which military force became the predominant element in the policy ofcontainment.

Bearing in mind the political background to the federation’s visit to Prague, the film
can be identified as a vehicle intended to cement Czech and Soviet political relations,and Popova is used as the catalyst to bind this relationship. The delegation visits a
glass-blowing factory on the journey back to the conference hall. The sequence
begins with a mid-shot of a group of the factory’s all-female workforce. Popova
enters the factory in a wide-angle shot. She smiles and introduces herself to theworkers with handshakes and kisses on the cheek. Svilova is apparently keen tocapture Popova’s influence beyond the federation’s members, as she holds on a sideangle shot for a number of seconds to depict a production line of workers sitting
behind their machines applauding Popova’s arrival to their section of the factory. Shewalks along the line and introduces herself to the workers; in turn, each worker
stands to her feet and shakes Popova’s hand, providing the scene with the sentimentsof a royal occasion. Popova’s facial expression, consisting of lifted eyebrows and awide smile, connotes genuine interest in the workers and the vital roles they perform.
Before Popova leaves the factory she gives the workforce some words ofencouragement. The sequence begins with a wide-angle shot from a camera
positioned on the stage facing the seated audience. While the audience applaud,
Svilova cuts to a mid-shot of two women looking straight ahead toward the stage.
Both women nervously shake their legs in anticipation. A shot of Popova adjusting
her posture is reflected in the actions of the two women who sit up straighter in theirseats. Jackie Stacey argues that, while in the act of viewing, imitation is different fromthe fantasy of becoming the ideal, or even expressing the desire to become like hermore generally, since it involves an actual imitation of the ideal or of her particular171

characteristics.80 In other words, this identificatory practice is a form of pretending orplay-acting and yet it is also different from pretending, as pretending is represented asa process involving the whole ideal persona, whereas imitation is used, at least in thecase of Popova, to indicate a partial taking on of some aspect of the ideal’s identity.
Svilova mobilises the female spectator not only by presenting her with the feminine
ideal but also through documenting the effect of the ideal via the response of her onscreen audience. The spectator can recognise in her fellow Soviet sisters their desire
to become Popova, and by colluding in the fantasy she too would feel pleasure.

Svilova selects numerous wide-angle shots of Popova delivering her speech, recorded
from a camera behind the audience. Popova does not have the same presence as she
did during her earlier speech: the substitution of low-angle mid-shots with wideangles alters the perception of her size. The wide-angle shots capture Popova
standing next to a male translator, the latter’s size emphasises – along with the shot
type – her less imposing figure. However, Popova’s body gestures supplement any
loss in the dimensions of her frame; even in wide-angle one can still observe thepassion in her eyes, and her arms and head move to accentuate her words. At the endof the speech, a mid-shot depicts the audience applauding, before a wide-angle shotof the stage observes the translator repeating Popova’s speech in Czech. The factthat the workers applaud Popova before her words are translated, as the order of the
shots infers, would not likely have been perceived by a spectator who was fully
engaged with the spectacle of Popova’s speech. Nevertheless, it is in this speech that
one can identify the analogy I described above. Popova’s address to the Czech
workforce can be read as a signifier for the Soviet Union’s growing influence in postwar Eastern Europe – in this instance, anticipating Czechoslovakia’s formal
acceptance of Soviet rule in February 1948. The role of Popova, then, encourages the172female spectator by suggesting that Soviet women are collectively the driving force
behind the reconstruction of post-war Europe. In Popova, Svilova depicts what isarguably her most definitive feminine ideal. Popova is portrayed as a committed,
compassionate and powerful woman, who, perhaps like Svilova, does not only regard
herself as a motivator of women – existing on the outside, communicating to thefemale population from a distance – but as a woman who wants to be part of thefemale solidarity she considers crucial if she and her Soviet sisters are to overcome
state burdens.

Svilova’s documentary of the following year’s conference, International Democratic
Federation of Women in Paris (1948), begins with a high-angle aeroplane shot of Paris,
capturing the iconic Eiffel Tower and Champs Elysees. A series of shots of posters
advertising the exhibition are assembled in montage. The posters, pinned onlampposts and boarded-up windows, depict women in powerful postures, which not
only provide the details of the event for the women of Paris but also provide for
Svilova’s audience a clear, explicit symbol of the federation itself. In similar vein to
the documentary recorded in Prague, the federation visits a monument of politicalrelevance. Tracked in a pan, the group of women approach a wall that bears theinscription: ‘The dead of the Commune, 28 March to 28 May 1871’. The Paris
Commune was a working-class government that briefly ruled the city during theaftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. The feminist movement within the Commune,
itself titled ‘Women’s Union for the Defence of Paris’, was initiated by Nathalie
Lemel and, significantly, Elisabeth Dmitrieff, a Russian exile.81 As in the Prague
documentary, this visit to a city monument can be read as a means of highlighting
Sovietness, foregrounded further by the second destination on the tour. Once thewomen have laid flowers and paid their respects to the memory of Lemel and173

Dmitrieff, they visit the building on Rue Marie-Rose where Lenin is believed to have
lived with his wife and her mother between July 1909 and June 1912. A close-up
captures a plaque dedicated to Lenin by the building’s entrance.

The exhibition itself is introduced with an exterior shot. The international nature of
the event is marked by the banner of flags hanging above the doorway. The foyer’s
walls are decorated with the portraits of female icons – Dolores Ibárruri, General
Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, and Nina Popova are two of the womenwhose images are on display. A montage of mid-shots and medium close-ups depicts
women of various ethnicities socialising with one another. While some women knit
and converse, others walk between the stalls where each participating country
displays its women’s achievements. Svilova pays closest attention to the Soviet
Union’s stall. Adjacent to information about Popova is a written statement from
Stalin in which he outlines his crusade for female emancipation. Three women, all ofdifferent ethnicities (one of whom is the Cuban delegate from the Prague
conference), read the statement and nod in synchronisation. This shot reinforces theideological template established in the Prague documentary, one that suggests theSoviet Union is guiding less able nations in the construction of a post-war
communist society, and gender egalitarianism is at the forefront of the movement.
Again, these themes become prominent in Svilova’s depiction of otherness in her
foreign newsreel stories, analysed in Chapter Four.

The closing shot of the film, which features a smaller version of Vera Mukhina’s
statue, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, positioned in the centre of one of the exhibition
rooms, reasserts women’s pivotal role in the reconstruction of the Soviet Union. The
statue, the original of which was commissioned for the 1937 World Fair in Paris and174stands at seventy-eight feet tall, depicts a young man and woman holding a hammer
and sickle in outstretched hands. One might interpret this closing shot as a means ofpromoting gender equality, and indeed that was the premise behind the statue’s
original conception. However, within the diegesis of the film, it is more rational toconsider the female hand behind the artwork. It is important to consider that, in
1948, Mukhina was one of the Soviet Union’s most illustrious female artists, and had
been for over a decade since the unveiling of the original statue. Worker and Kolkhoz
Woman, then, is less an icon of gender equality than a timepiece of female inspiration,
creativity and vision, implicitly underpinning the central message of the federationand the Soviet influence within its ranks. Svilova uses the ideology contained within
the artwork to encapsulate the overall meaning of her story. Drawing on Mukhina’s
artistic talent is perhaps expected, given that Svilova spent time in her personal life
publicising the work of Soviet women artists. In a letter to an unknown recipient,
Svilova describes organising an exhibition on 8 March, 1951, held on International
Women’s Day at the Central House of Journalists, to celebrate the work of womenphotographers and filmmakers, such as Lidya Stepanova, Irina Setkina and Liudmila
Semenova.82

The focus on Mukhina suggests that, to Svilova, powerful women come in different
forms. She goes above and beyond placing politically powerful women such as
Popova in front of the camera, instead focusing on women who had achieved theirstatus with a positive and charitable motive. These were not necessarily women offame – Svilova regularly showcases ‘ordinary’ women who had attained a degree of
influence in their chosen professions. News of the Day no.31 (1948), for example,
focuses on a female worker performing quality control on a production line.
Noticeably all the workers toiling on the production line are male.83 One possible
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reading of this scene is that, with hard work, women could detach themselves fromthe monotony of the production line and carry out more respectful – but lessarduous – work. This is a continuation of the themes elicited in Roof of the World
where Svilova juxtaposes a construction site with the relative peacefulness of alaboratory. Documenting successful women in traditionally masculine professions
was designed to encourage the spectator to consider entering these fields. News of the
Day no.31 implies that supervisory positions were not given to male candidates bydefault but were achievable by any deserving employee. In this respect, images ofpowerful women also act as a shield for the Central Committee: having viewed theseimages, the female spectator cannot hold the state responsible if such positions elude
her. Instead, she is encouraged to explore inwardly for the reasons that might
account for her lack of promotion or job satisfaction.

Mukhina’s statue, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, was originally designed to depict
symbolically the dominance of the masculinised centre over the feminised
countryside while simultaneously promoting gender equality. The feminisation ofrural lands was not only a metaphor: by the late 1940s, women constituted nearly halfof the collective farm workforce.84 Loss in battle and emigration to urban settlements
in search of better pay resulted in a deficiency of male agricultural workers. Women
supplemented the male workers reluctantly, on the whole bitterly opposing
collectivisation.85 To the Central Committee, their resistance was not a reflection of
their dissatisfaction but their selfishness, and further cinema campaigns were
mobilised to resolve the conflict.86 During collectivisation, when the Soviet state usedviolence to extract produce from the countryside and gain control of rural economies,
Soviet media began to depict peasants as female much more often.87 The
representation of the Soviet Union as a nurturing mother yielding everything to her176children suggested that the power dynamics between Stalin and his country were likethose of a husband and wife in a patriarchal social order.

News of the Day no.43 (1948) documents women working at ‘New Life’, a Voronezh
collective farm, which allows Svilova to highlight the feminised countryside and theeffective use of state-initiated facilities – even the name of the farm alludes to thebroadening horizons available to the dedicated Soviet worker. The ideologicaltreatment of women in the countryside follows a pattern similar to the women in
Svilova’s industrial workplaces, though here collectivisation is the catalyst to end
gender inequality. Svilova captures the women of New Life carrying out domestic
duties, such as making sausages and watering plants, as well as construction tasks,
such as building houses for the farm’s residents. Greta Bucher suggests that women’s
work during this time was perceived not as an act of survival but an act of ideology,88
and this is evident in the way Svilova emphasises the women’s dedication to work
rather than the work itself. Close-up shots of the women smiling at one another
under Stalin’s watchful eye – his image appears throughout the story in statue andportrait form – might have been intended to remind audience members of whatshould be the motivation behind their work. An emphasis on intangible rewards,
such as the admiration from fellow workers and gratitude from Stalin, frames thewomen’s labour as an act of sacrifice.

The dairy sequence, in particular, emits on the women’s part an unnatural obsession
with their work. In between cutting blocks of cheese, one worker finds moments tolook away from the job at hand to smile into the camera’s lens. She allows herself
only a cursory glance, aware that any longer might result in her becoming distracted
or fulfilling her task to a substandard quality, but it is still a sufficiently strong gesture177

to translate her joy to the spectator. A female worker operating a butter churn also
makes eye contact to engage with the spectator, and the nature of her job allows for aslightly longer and, consequently, more intimate connection with the camera. Theseshots imply that the women workers at New Life are explicit in their commitment to
the Central Committee; they are enthusiastic about socialism, eager to earn their own
income and prize their independence. In this respect, they are presented as‘kolkhoznitsas’ (collective farm workers) – the antithesis of the ‘baba’. Kolkhoznitsas
assumed heroic proportions: young and slim, they contrasted the buxom, maternal
figure of the pre-Stalin era. Regardless of whether they worked in traditionally maleoccupations such as tractor driving, or in female ones such as dairy farming, thekolkhoznitsas were icons of the new era, visual symbols of the success of Stalinism
and its dedication to egalitarianism.

Conclusion
This chapter has analysed the techniques Svilova employs to mobilise female
audiences through processes of identification with the Soviet feminine ideal. While,as E. Ann Kaplan argues, a filmmaker’s gender does not automatically determine
what kind of stories they tell,89 the attention Svilova pays to women – theproliferation of women’s stories and ideological concerns related to women – isconsiderably greater than that paid by other female directors of News of the Day. A
comparison with Irina Setkina, for example, indicates that women filmmakers did not
direct women’s stories by default. Setkina’s films primarily document the politicalelite: ceremonial meetings at the Kremlin; Soviet delegates leaving for foreign
territories; and scenes of demonstrations and rallies, etc. This suggests that thefrequent, positive representations on display in Svilova’s films do not merely reflect

178the agenda of the Central Committee but indicate that she has a personal investment
in her mobilisation of the female spectator. The archive documents related to
Svilova’s production methods imply that the subjects of her films were chosen forher. The only document in which she suggests a story for filming came very late inher career in 1955. Svilova proposes a narrative similar to Lullaby that intended to
document the raising of healthy children through the warmth of the Soviet mother.
She wants the emphasis to remain on both the women and the children, and she
considers including a scene on adoption: ‘We can move away from the mother’s
great humanity toward life and herself to show the home where the baby is being
adopted, the people involved and to the registry office where laws concerning
adoption are passed.’90 This document supports my view that Svilova had apreference for women’s stories and, while the ones I have analysed in this chapter
were most likely provided for her, given the choice, she would have directed similar
ones.

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Chapter 4:
Foreign Lands and Depictions of Otherness

Introduction
This chapter focuses on Svilova’s foreign-themed films and depictions of otherness.
The process of inclusion and exclusion has been central to Russian cinema from its
outset – the very first Russian film, Stenka Razin (Ponizovaya volnitsa, Romashkov,1908), furthered existing notions about Russia as different from the Orient. Buildingon themes in literature and theatre, cinema was merely the newest medium throughwhich binaries about what Russianness meant could be negotiated. Svilova, then, wasa successor to a number of Russian filmmakers whose work tapped into longstanding
cultural processes that defined ‘us’ and ‘them’. After 1917, Soviet culture continued
to attempt to divide the world into binary categories – the insider and the outsider –in an effort to define Sovietness and set the parameters of nationhood. Yet, Svilova’s
films indicate that defining Sovietness was a difficult process. Throughout the Cold
War, outsiders became insiders and ‘us’ became ‘them’; consequently, classifying
Sovietness required constant re-imagining. As Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie haveargued, films do not simply represent or express the stable features of a national
culture but are themselves the loci of debates about a nation’s governing principle,
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goals, heritage and history.1 Svilova’s foreign-themed films offer an exceptional
vantage point from which to examine Soviet understandings and anxieties about
what it meant to be Soviet in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that, during the Stalin era, Svilova’s depictions ofotherness are largely imperialist: communities and civilisations in the East are
constructed as primitive, strange and different. However, the films also document asimultaneous eroding of difference, as Central Asian and Far Eastern countries areseen abandoning primordial production methods in favour of Westernindustrialisation. After Stalin’s death, Svilova’s scope of foreign-themed films notably
widen, owing to Khrushchev’s policy of cultural enlightenment (commonly referred
to as the Thaw). While one can detect a certain cosmopolitan attitude in Svilova’s
work during this period – the depiction of an abroad that is exciting and alluring –under the umbrella term of ‘foreign news’, she also documents stories from theGerman Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and Poland, in these instances
portraying a foreignness that to Soviet audiences was not necessarily different. In
most cases, the definition and representation of foreignness are determined primarily
by developments in international relations. Svilova’s films capture the attempts of
Khrushchev’s administration to provide the masses with cultural enlightenment; inthis respect, they form a crucial part of a political agenda, a balancing act that aims
simultaneously to spread communism to the East and maintain peaceful coexistencewith the West. As Julian Graffy has argued, the Thaw was above all a time ofambiguity, a period in which competition with the West was fuelled by fear of its
economic achievements and apprehension about its potential influence on Soviet
society.2

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My study commences with an outline of some key theoretical issues. This is followedby an analysis of two of Svilova’s films produced during the Stalin era, Soviet
Kazakhstan (1942) and Yangtze River (1950). I provide an overview of the period oftransition from the Stalin era to the Khrushchev era and discuss why this change wasrelevant to Svilova’s depiction of foreignness. Focusing on the period from 1953 to
1956, I then analyse nine of Svilova’s News of the Day episodes and her three Foreign
Newsreel episodes. To determine which stories would feature in this chapter, I
considered the country of origin and its mode of government, the subject of thestory and any noticeable trends in the assembly of the footage. This chapter structure
provides a framework for a discussion on the development from the Stalin era to the
Khrushchev era, and takes into account Svilova’s progression from one newsreel tothe other.

Sovietness, otherness and cosmopolitanism
The tensions of modernism between the polar regions of the Soviet Union,
specifically the West’s perception of the East as primitive, have already been
discussed, most notably by Martin Stollery who has read a selection of European
modernist films in terms of their construction of the non-Western world.3 He argues
that, while films such as One Sixth of the World and Three Songs of Lenin depict theSoviet Union as the spearhead of Western industry, they also contain deep-rooted
questions and anxieties about the country’s identity in relation to its Central Asian
republics.4 I argue that similar anxieties can be detected in a number of Svilova’s
independent films from the 1940s, namely Soviet Kazakhstan (1942), which makes
clear that the successful continuation of the revolution is dependent upon theeradication of Eastern backwardness: in other words, the erosion of difference. This183

message was extended beyond the Central Asian Soviet republics to the Soviet allies
in the Far East.

Stollery’s readings of Soviet imperialism are indebted to Edward Said’s engagementwith the relationship between the East and West. Orientalism, as Said defined it, isboth a way of coming to terms with the Orient through the Orient’s special place inEuropean Western experience and a style of thought based upon ontological andepistemological distinctions between the Orient and the Occident.5 By offering a richpanorama of the ways in which Orientalist texts constitute the East as a racial,
cultural, political and geographical unity, Said’s analysis demonstrates that what is atstake in the depiction of otherness is the West’s desire to set boundaries for itself as aself-sustaining autonomous state. He illustrates the dialectic of Self and Other that is
at play in Orientalist discourse by continually alluding to the establishment of abinary opposition between the Orient and Occident. Said’s observations can beapplied productively to Svilova’s imperialist representations of Eastern regions
during the Stalin era. During this period, Svilova depicts Central Asia and the Far
East as passive and conquerable, territories whose progress and value are judged interms of, and in comparison to, the Soviet Union. Films such as Soviet Kazakhstan and
Yangtze River (1950) communicate a system of power and subordination organised
around Moscow (the Soviet ‘West’) as the imperial centre and the East as thedominated periphery.

After the Stalin era, when the anxieties of the East are on the most part substituted in
Svilova’s films for a positive engagement with difference and the nuances of Central
Asia and the Far East are celebrated rather than portrayed as obstacles, is best
understood in a framework of cosmopolitanism. Svilova no longer constructs the184East/West paradigm according to concerns about industrialisation and the generaldevelopment and prestige of the Soviet Union – anxieties that had shaped her
handling of the East until Stalin’s death in 1953 – instead highlighting Asian beauty,
art and cultural practices. Mica Nava has laid useful groundwork in terms oftheorising Western curiosity in Eastern traditions. While Said understood thiscuriosity as a Western attempt to exoticise otherness, Nava argues against tendencies
to condemn Western fascination with difference and offers a new approach, defining
it instead as a sign of attraction toward and identification with otherness.6 In thisrespect, Svilova’s films of the mid-1950s can be seen to articulate a general looseningof Soviet national identification to accommodate the traits of the Central Asian
republics, regions that were gradually accepted into the Soviet empire not only for
their dedication to socialism but also for their own idiosyncrasies. Broadening thecharacteristics of Soviet identity allowed audiences to appreciate the nuances of theirculture, which in turn encouraged patriotism and dedication to the building of thesocialist empire. Svilova presents Kazakh and Tajik women as role models in muchthe same way as she did their Western Soviet counterparts, though this time she
focuses on the women’s aesthetic beauty rather than their industrious nature or
artistic talents. Nevertheless, the relationship between the female spectator and thefeminine ideal remains centred on looks of admiration, reverence and other positive
resonances. These looks relate closely to what Nava defines as ‘visceralcosmopolitanism’, the audience’s identification with a subject on an emotional level.7
Svilova’s openness to Asian culture is extended to China where, despite theSovietisation of its industry, economy and infrastructure, Svilova finds moments tohighlight traditional Chinese customs.

185

Nava’s study traces the marginal status of cosmopolitanism in English cultural
history, focusing on the city of London in the twentieth century. According to Nava,
Gordon Selfridge’s department store ‘promoted social exchange’ and the‘transnational and cultural importance of commerce’,8 taking a cosmopolitan
intellectual stance of openness toward diversity.9 Selfridge expressed the opinion thatthe cosmopolite was a citizen of the world, free from national limitations andprejudices. Incidentally, Russia was one of the nations celebrated by Selfridge for its
difference; in 1911 he described the tour of the Imperial Russian Ballet as bringing ‘awealth of romance’ to London.10 In response to the troop’s cultural impact,
Selfridges marketed its tango gowns – another cultural import – as inspired by thevisual spectacle of the Russian ballet. The conscious selling of otherness suggests that
Selfridge’s ‘anti-insular transnational and utopian vision, in which cultural difference
was promoted, appreciated and even desired’, was partly driven by, or at leastassociated with, commercial considerations. His business plan was centred on
attracting customers from all countries of the world, a strategy whose logic asserted
that an all-inclusive customer base maximised profits.

Likewise, the cosmopolitanism detected in Svilova’s films of the mid-1950s came aspart of an agenda. The countries depicted were not arbitrary subjects of film
journalism but held significant political value to the Central Committee. Moreover,the inclusion of countries that were not necessarily foreign to the Soviet population
alludes to an imagined foreignness: audiences were encouraged to collude in the
fantasy of difference by acknowledging other regions in Eastern Europe as distantlands and allowing themselves to believe that the revolution was having a greater andfar-reaching global impact than it perhaps was. Yet, Svilova’s perception of Eastern
Europe as a distant land – what Anne Gorsuch describes as a type of ‘Soviet abroad’186

– is an intentional contradiction, a means of drawing attention to the region’s sharedsocialist identity.11 As Tim Bergfelder has illustrated in his analysis of The Edge ofHeaven (2007) – a film whose title literally translates from German as ‘On the OtherSide’ – sometimes the other side is absent, which articulates ‘an ongoing contestationof competing ethical and emotional attitudes toward the Other in a wider global
arena’.12 Rather than document foreignness, often Svilova merely takes the alreadyfamiliar and makes it more familiar, a process that challenges our understanding of
foreignness and encourages further investigation of its semantic scope.

Foreign stories in the Stalin era
In her career as an independent director, Svilova starts directing foreign stories in1942 and the output continues steadily until Stalin’s death in 1953. Fifteen episodesof News of the Day and five separate documentaries contain between them twenty-nine
individual foreign stories from twelve different countries, two of which are nonEuropean.13 This section focuses on two films: the first, produced in 1942,
documents Kazakhstan and the second, produced in 1950, documents China. Usingan array of editing strategies, Svilova communicates the Central Committee’s stanceon Central Asia and the Far East, employing a visual language to link this viewpoint
to developments in foreign policy. These stories represent, in Gorsuch’s words, a‘ritual of reassurance’: they offer a means of producing socialist-minded citizens
focused internally on the advantages of the Soviet system.14 In the official Stalinist
imagination, the East is presented as a younger and less advanced version of theSoviet self, an imagining that was used to legitimise Soviet domination over thesocialist periphery.

187

Soviet Kazakhstan (1942)
Svilova directs Soviet Kazakhstan while the Soviet film industry is based in Alma-Ata.
The film’s objective is to educate and involve Kazakhstan in communist ideology andtestifies to the successful incorporation of Central Asia into the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan had only become a union republic in 1936, and thus the film provides
the opportunity to share with Western Soviet audiences signs of progress, mostevident in changes to the lives of Kazakh women. By 1942 the Central Committee
had claimed victory of ‘liberating’ Central Asian women.15 Initiatives such as setting
quotas that granted women one third of posts in government and party institutions
ensured that they filled public roles.16 Gender offered no protection for women fromthe hardships of war but it did contribute to the aim of cinema as tool oflegitimisation by drawing on the gendered imagery that had evolved by the end of the
1930s and reinforcing it. Regardless of whether the Central Committee believed its
policies had emancipated Muslim women, its rhetoric left no doubt as to the serviceof humanity it had provided: ‘It required the enormous efforts of the Party … toraise up the formerly degraded and enslaved women of the East, to help her to throw
off the chador, the chachvan and the parandzha,’ claimed an article in Red Archive.17
Any success in the integration of Kazakhstan as a Soviet republic was not necessarily
symptomatic of Committee efforts but, as J. Otto Pohl argues, was more likely aresult of the vast number of Soviet exiles deported to Kazakhstan in the late 1930s
and early 1940s.18

Svilova focuses sections of the film on the changing role of Kazakh women. The film
opens with a mid-shot of a woman driving a tractor. Medium close-ups capture her
facial features, shot from a handheld camera positioned on the back of the vehicle.
The close-ups do not identify the woman as Other: in her headscarf and protective
188

eyewear, both reminiscent of traditional Western agricultural attire, there is a distinct
lack of difference on display. Four slim and muscular women work behind thetractor using various agricultural tools. Close-up shots of the four women’s hands arejuxtaposed with shots of the tractor’s mechanisms, implying the successful
integration of technology into traditional workplaces. ‘The struggle for white gold’appears as an intertitle to introduce a wide-angle shot of women in white headscarves
entering a field and hoeing the land. As the women move gradually from theforeground to the background, each one is represented by the white dot of herheadscarf. While ethnographic strategies become more apparent in the later part of
Svilova’s career, for now, Soviet Kazakhstan can be most readily interpreted as a textthat reflects the changing Soviet identity. The ethnoscape – the landscape of people
who constitute the shifting world at a specific moment – anticipates the continued
growth of the Soviet empire, and the fact that these images were first consumed at
the height of World War II in some respects serves to justify the growth:communism needed all the soldiers it could enlist to fight the fascist enemy.

The widening of Soviet borders to include Central Asia implied to audiences steps ofgrand progress. Female audiences would have observed with intrigue as a life theyrecognised was played out in a distant land. More importantly, they would have been
in a position to identify with the subject of their look. As I observed in Chapter
Three, Svilova uses the nature of women’s work as a basis for drawing necessary
comparisons and differences. Here, the physicality of the Kazakh women’soccupation, which demands the body’s protection, does not result in the fusion of
the male worker and the female but allows for a connection between Western
audiences and Eastern workers. By focusing on the disguised ‘traktoristka’, Svilova
softens ethnic difference between the Soviet East and West. Difference is hidden
189behind agricultural clothing on a literal level and Sovietness on a more abstract level,as ultimately it is the Sovietisation of agricultural methods – the protective clothing –that renders the ethnic distinction imperceptible to audiences.

Svilova’s emphasis on the Kazakh woman on the tractor is central to this argument.
In the early 1930s, Stalin recruited women to work in agriculture. This was less a
mirror to reflect the reality of women’s working lives in the countryside than asymbol of Soviet achievements and ambitions. The drive acted as a metaphor for
Soviet commitment to both women’s emancipation and economic progress. In thelate 1930s the campaign intensified to ensure that women could replace maleagricultural workers in the event of war. By this time the traktoristka had become an
icon and was glorified in popular culture, particularly in the cinema where Ivan
Pyriev’s film, Tractor Drivers (Traktoristy, 1939), was a huge success.19 Svilova taps into
this rhetoric and the opinions of Stalin himself who lauded the work of female
tractor drivers. Medal ceremonies were a recurrent feature of this period and women
were inundated with rewards for their achievements on the farms. By 1942 female
drivers accounted for forty-five per cent of the tractor workforce, a rise from justfour per cent in 1940.20

Svilova also taps into modernist rhetoric about women and technology. Kay
Armatage has drawn attention to the gendered role of the motor vehicle in her
analysis of The Trail of the Arrow (1920). This film was directed by Nell Shipman, oneof the most prolific women filmmakers in early Hollywood. Armatage argues that thecar, like many of the new technologies of modernity, was coded as masculine as soon
as it was invented; consequently, ‘women have continually been characterised asstereotypically incompetent interlopers in this man’s world.’21 Yet, Shipman’s190

narrative – she and a friend accept a challenge to drive along a dangerous track
through the Mojave Desert – is optimistic about the future for women in the modern
world, as are the intertitles that comment on the suffragist movement. At the time of
the film’s production, Shipman said: ‘I have proven that woman is on par with man
in driving a car, as she is in every other walk of life.’22 Writing on women drivers in
Hollywood narratives, Virginia Scharff suggests that the automobile provided asymbolic vehicle of women’s autonomy,23 embodied also by the use of the car by
suffragists during their campaigns. ‘Driving, touring, serving, repairing: these
activities helped to redefine the parameters of femininity and the image of ideal
womanhood.’24 While Essex, the car company that commissioned The Trail of theArrow, and the Central Committee intended to capitalise on women’s spending
power and legitimise the double burden respectively, the female driver was for
Shipman and, I argue, Svilova a symbol of ‘women’s geographical, political andpersonal freedom’.25 Hollywood and Soviet rhetoric, then, characterised robust
athleticism, competence and efficiency as the traits of the new woman. Yet, despite
the power afforded to the female tractor driver in Svilova’s montage – shot from low
angles in open fields, she can be interpreted as an heir to the land – Soviet Kazakhstan
is not the most explicit tribute to Soviet womanhood in Svilova’s body of work. The
driver’s headscarf and protective eyewear de-feminise her facial features and shed thescene of the exoticism prevalent in Svilova’s later Eastern-based narratives.

As my analysis in Chapter Three concluded, costume and dress are for Svilova vitalbuilding blocks in the generation of visual language. In fact, the use of costume as asemiotic indicator was a crucial component in the ideological function of Soviet
cinema. In her analysis of Happiness (Schast´e, Medvedkin, 1935), Emma Widdis
argues that the transformation of the main character, Khmyr, from peasant to ‘Soviet
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man’ is reflected in his dress.26 He sheds his ragged attire of felt shoes and smock andreplaces them with an outfit bought in a city department store – he effectively
purchases the signs of Sovietness as an act of patriotism. In this instance, as in the
traktoristka in Soviet Kazakhstan, clothes carry meaning; Sovietness is encoded in theattire of the on-screen heroes and heroines. The focus on the Western garments ofthe tractor driver suggests that, for Svilova, they are a symbol of belonging. She callson the binary distinctions of Soviet and un-Soviet dress as a means of articulating acomprehensive depiction of Soviet identity. It is important to note that the female
audience members involved in agricultural labour would have been aware that theidyllic, carefree representation of tractor driving in Soviet Kazakhstan was inaccurate.
Working in agriculture was gruelling work, particularly for female tractor drivers who
not only endured long hours and poor working conditions but, as Widdis argues, had
to deal with prejudice originating from gendered notions of women’s social roles.27
Women working in ‘masculine’ positions were met with hostility from both malecolleagues and the female colleagues employed to undertake ‘women’s’ work.
However, this is not to suggest that Soviet Kazakhstan would have been dismissed byfemale audiences. Louis Menashe argues that peasants enjoyed seeing idealised
versions of themselves.28 Svilova projects a utopia incongruent with reality, a Marxist
paradise the viewer was encouraged to perceive as a glimpse into the future Soviet
Union. Thus, audiences would not likely have viewed the film’s romanticism as an
attempt to mask the detrimental influence of forced collectivisation, which in
Kazakhstan alone led to the loss of millions of lives.29

Beyond the millions who died from starvation, changes to Kazakh women’s roles
were accompanied by destructive economic lifestyle transformations, and theimposition of Soviet hegemony and norms were perceived as alien and incompatible
192with Muslim traditions.30 The diegesis Svilova constructs in Soviet Kazakhstan shrouds
these realities, instead connoting an overwhelming sense of freedom, allegorised by
the vast, sprawling fields in which the tractor driver works. The expanse reflects the
predominant trope of ‘rescue’ that Ella Shohat identifies in colonial discourse andthat forms the crucial site of the battle over representation.31 The Western Soviet
empire imaginary metaphorically renders the East a feminine, colonised land saved
from her environmental disorder. Svilova appears to imply that the future of
Kazakhstan is determined not simply on domination but on the exercise ofhegemony and the development of consent. Although the tractor driver had beensuccessfully Westernised, the Kazakh women who emerge in later shots to work
alongside her with manual tools remind audiences that the task of modernisation is
not complete. As the Other, it is vital for Kazakhstan to recognise the validity ofWestern knowledge and continue to abide by its implementation. That hegemony,
which asserts Kazakhstan’s willingness to be governed, is conducive to a relationalmode of power that can respond flexibly, not just repressively, to unrest or
resistance.

Five years later, Svilova directs a second story from Kazakhstan as part of News of the
Day no.12 (1947). The story documents three women working in the tapestry industry
in Alma-Ata. Reflecting the veiled women in Vertov and Svilova’s Three Songs of Lenin,
the Kazakh women, wearing traditional Kazakh clothing and jewellery, are presented
by Svilova as the strangely different and elusive Other. She gives this impression notby focusing on the women’s Eastern dress but also by often only allowing the viewer
to observe the women through the gaps between the threads of hanging cotton.
These shots are juxtaposed with shots of finished tapestries placed around aworkshop. Visitors, mostly of a Central Asian ethnicity, examine the artwork in the193foreground while, in the background, a large tapestry pinned to the wall depicts Stalinleading a Central Asian army into battle. Like the traktoristka in Soviet Kazakhstan, theimage encapsulates the conquering of the region and its renaissance as a union
republic. Owing to Stalin’s sphere of influence and leadership qualities, Svilova’s film
implies that the complete eradication of difference between East and West was notnecessary in order to find a role in the socialist revolution for the primitive andelusive Other.

Yangtze River (1950)
The second of Svilova’s documentaries shot outside the Soviet Union is Yangtze River.
The context of the budding Sino-Soviet relationship is vital in the process of
decoding the film’s representation of China and Chinese people. Mao Zedong and adelegation had arrived in the Soviet Union in December 1949 to negotiate a SinoSoviet alliance treaty, which was finally signed on 14 February, 1950, and whatbecame the stimulus for a decade-long partnership.32 Fitting into the Soviet discourseof the post-war era, Yangtze River sets a clear hierarchy: the Soviet Union is the kindly
elder brother guiding his less-developed sibling, or the caring mother cultivating her
young child. As Mary Louise Pratt has argued, colonial powers sought to secure theirinnocence in the same moment as they asserted their hegemony.33 Soviet influence in
China can be interpreted in Svilova’s film as a necessary consequence of theliberation and rebuilding process. The cinematic language she employs to create
meaning is reliant on similar juxtapositions of conflict I observed in her atrocity films
and women’s stories. In the same way that Khrushchev would go on to offer simple
solutions to complex foreign policy issues and express them in the language of the
Bolshevik worker, Svilova constructs motifs and symbols working-class Soviet
citizens could readily interpret. Yangtze River commences with a high-angle aeroplane194montage capturing the winding river. The wing of the aeroplane is evident in a
number of the shots, which suggests that Svilova consciously chose the method offilming to be physically present on-screen. Judith Mayne understands the motivation
behind this technique as a way to build a relationship between the spectator and themeans by which the images are perceived.34 The audience sees the landscape throughthe technology that is not only facilitating the extreme high-angle shot but also
providing movement. This series of shots, and the river sequence to follow, arereminiscent of the ‘phantom ride’ prevalent in cinema at the turn of the twentiethcentury. Also referred to as ‘panoramas’, a phantom ride connotes a film that is shotby a moving camera, specifically one in motion on a vehicle.35 These moving camera
shots allow a broader view of the landscape and the movement seems to carry theaudience into the image, realising what Charles Musser has called the ‘spectator as
passenger convention’.36 Rather than simply reproducing the view, the sequence
recreates the actual penetration of space that travel involves. The phantom ride in
Yangtze River continues on water where, captured from the bow of a slow-moving
boat, the viewer is transported along the river’s surface, passing dark, imposing
mountains on both banks.

The sequence is interrupted by a cut to a shot from another part of the boat’s
journey; the boat is moving faster and the river is teeming with rocks and foliage.
The non-continuous editing reinforces Yangtze River’s early film aesthetic, evoking
images from a number of cinema’s earliest travel films; for example, The Haverstraw
Tunnel (American Mutoscope Company, 1897), Leeds – Views from a Moving Tram
(Mitchell and Kenyon, 1903) and Trip Down Market Street before the Fire (Miles
Brothers, 1906), all of which are assembled non-continuously to provide added
spectacle. Taking audiences unexpectedly to another part of a journey augmented for195them the thrill of Tom Gunning’s ‘cinema of attractions’, the unpredictability of theinstant stimulating their senses.37 In terms of spectator positioning, Svilova’s use of
the phantom ride is less evocative of early film. In 1950 audiences would have nolonger been pleasantly shocked by the discontinuous presentation of time, nor would
the novelty of two-dimensional moving imagery encouraged any sensory reaction.
However, the essence of the phantom ride – relying on codes of monstration rather
than narration – was still very much relevant to Svilova’s audiences. The travelling
camera provides a view of the landscape unrivalled by alternative cinematographic
techniques, allowing her audience to observe, perhaps for the first time, the Yangtze
River and surrounding areas.

Conflict is not only elicited through non-continuous editing but also through thejuxtaposition of shots captured from different camera positions on the boat.
Selecting shots from a camera positioned on the stern, the movement of the water isdifferent to the cutting motion in the previous shots. A camera positioned on theport side captures the passing bank. The terrain appears harsh, cold anduninhabitable. Returning to the shooting location on the bow, the horizon portends
civilisation: the silhouettes of buildings emerge on the banks in the distance while theriver itself begins to decrease in width and volume. Keeping with a non-linear
structure, Svilova returns the viewer to a previous, wider section of the river. Shots
captured from the bow prompt further conflict in the water’s movement: not only is
the water trailing rather than cutting but the pace of the current is evidently faster.
Despite the tempo, there is an overwhelming calmness to the journey. A tracking
shot along the right-hand bank depicts an assemblage of stone monuments,suggesting that for its inhabitants the region is sacred territory.

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Once the camera is positioned on land, the monuments become a temporary focusof the narrative. A wide-angle shot captures one of the monument’s interior.
Columns line the background of the shot and intersect with the other sides of thebuilding to create an open roof. Local inhabitants dressed in robes sweep the stone
floor. The dedication to maintain the monuments, and the significance they hold tothe local community, affirms the importance of spirituality to China and Chinese
people. This is relevant because it was socialism’s idealistic vision of shared burdens
and brotherhood that held a deeply spiritual attraction to Mao.38 The Soviet vision ofsolidarity in the face of capitalist adversity assumed a transcendent power compatible
with Eastern traditions. Svilova leaves behind the region’s historical identity to
document a bustling marketplace. A mid-shot depicts a smartly dressed man at a hat
stall. His Caucasian ethnicity indicates that he is a tourist or businessman. With hisback to the camera, he tries on a hat and poses briefly for the female stall owner. A
jump cut is employed to another mid-shot of the man trying on a second hat. The
stall owner playfully laughs, perhaps suggesting that the hat does not suit him.
Returning to the bow of the boat, an underexposed panning shot of the misty riverlends the location a peaceful quality. Next, Svilova juxtaposes shots from two modesof transport. A high-angle aeroplane shot interrupts the pan to carry the camera andthe audience along the river’s meandering path. Revisiting the boat’s stern, thecamera tilts down to capture the contours of the water’s surface, before the lowflying aeroplane facilitates close-up shots of the tributaries and streams branching out
from the main river. The final shot in the sequence is captured from the bow of theboat. Drifting slowly, the boat leaves a trail of minor ripples, providing a tranquil
conclusion to what was a vigorous and dynamic montage. The montage not only
allows Svilova to reinforce the travel theme of the film and prolong the phantom
ride, it fulfils a structural purpose: the time spent watching the montage doubles in197the mind of the viewer as time spent travelling. These sequences are essential inproviding a means of ‘transporting’ the audience to the following sight on the tour.

Svilova’s next sequence invites the viewer to step ashore and observe theidiosyncrasies of local life. It begins in a crop field where workers can be vaguely
identified moving among the vegetation. It is not unusual for Svilova to focus on thislocation, considering its pertinence to the sizeable Soviet workforce dispersed acrossvarious rural occupations. Audiences can recognise the workers’ hats as the ones seen
earlier in the marketplace. The hats, then, provide a recurring motif, a symbol toemphasise the self-sufficient nature of this simple civilisation’s infrastructure. A
medium close-up shot captures an elderly worker tying up wheat, a proud smile
resonates from under the brim of his hat. Returning to the river – the focus of thefilm and the nucleus of the region’s ecosystem – wide-angle shots from the bow of
the boat during a misty period of the journey provide the landscape with a soothingambiance. The river and mountains are barely detectable through the smog. A seriesof small boats scattered across the horizon row away from the camera into the
distance; fishing nets are thrown overboard. Close-up shots depict individual
fisherman pulling their nets back into their boats and emptying the fish into buckets.
A mid-shot captures a fisherman handing a large bucket of fish to a worker onshore,presumably to prepare for sale. Although one might expect fish to be thecornerstone of any river society’s economy, such a literal handing over of produce
from one worker to the next connotes the image of a civilisation-wide production
line. Svilova’s use of fish as an icon for economic stability reinforces the rhetoric ofman’s superiority over nature: he is the strongest species, whose domination of allothers is his entitlement.

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This interpretation is supported by the next and final shot of the sequence. Captured
from the stern of the boat in wide-angle, the bank is bustling with activity as various
produce is transported to shore and collected by labourers working in the next stageof production. What is most significant in this scene is that the people workseemingly without ownership of the produce, as if gathering it to offer to a higher
power: what Soviet audiences might have equated to collectivisation. Despite thisreading, China’s agricultural economy was yet to employ Soviet methods, owing to
Stalin’s insistence that China implement a gradual programme of socialism.
Consequently, Liu Shaoqi, the Secretary of China’s Central Committee, and Zhang
Wentian, an advisor to Mao, formulated a plan that allowed rural workers to retain
their land and profit.39 This plan was followed until 1952 when a full programme ofcollectivisation was implemented. Svilova’s allusion to collectivisation, therefore, was
not misleading; it merely pre-empted an adoption of Soviet methods that both Stalin
and Mao agreed to be mutually beneficial. Svilova appears to act upon the audience’s
ability to recognise certain signs of collectivisation without indefinitely confirming or
denying its presence. The final sequence of Yangtze River begins with the live soundof a steamboat’s horn. The river is juxtaposed with wide-angle shots of themarketplace and dockyard. Any activity onshore is neutralised by the calm water. A
camera placed on the surface of the river, likely held by a camera operator seated in a
low-lying vessel, allows the audience to appreciate the beauty of the sun’s reflection.
For the last time, Svilova selects shots of a monument, on this occasion with a focus
on the dragon sculpture situated at its entrance. Surrounded by foliage and bathed insunlight, the sculpture and monument complement each other’s artistic andarchitectural craftsmanship.

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The penultimate shot of the film is a wide-angle captured from the dock of the river.
A ferry arrives with a cargo of vehicles. The voiceover informs the viewer that thevehicles are a gift from the Molotov automobile factory, connoting China as abeneficiary of the Soviet Union. This reading is confirmed by the film’s closing shots.
From the stern of a moving boat, which is itself adorned with a Soviet flag, thecamera captures a number of other boats following behind in convoy. In Marxist
terms, the conflict between the thesis, the Soviet flag, and the antithesis, thefollowing boats, bolsters Yangtze River’s adherence to, and reinforcement of, theSoviet discourse about the Far East that made claims for China’s Sovietisation, eventhough this transformation had not yet taken place. Nevertheless, the impression that
Svilova gives, that China had at the very least attained a Soviet consciousness andbecome an integral part of the empire’s plans, was an accurate reflection of thecountries’ relationship at the time of the film’s production. As Xiaojia Hou argues, tomaintain the pretext of the Soviet Union’s guiding of less-developed countries,
socialist discourse proclaimed sameness.40 According to the official ideology, peopleof all nationalities were equal. Svilova’s acknowledgement of China’s Sovietisation is
also consistent with Edward Said’s conclusions about the nineteenth-century colonial
rhetoric that sought to maintain difference between white colonisers and the nonwhite subjects. Although there is a hierarchy of power – the film establishes theSoviet Union as the master and documents the recruiting of China as its apprentice –the suggestion is that any unbalance in power is only temporary until China matures.

Notwithstanding suggestions that China will be a valuable ally once it matures, Soviet
perceptions about the current usefulness of the Far East are clear. The myth of the‘friendship of peoples’ masked repression, inequality and the development of quasicolonial relationships between the Soviet Union and China.41 Yangtze River is more an200

example of how, despite proclaiming similarity, tensions in Soviet attitudes towarddifference shapes the way China is represented. Rather than celebrate otherness,
Svilova holds it as inferior. Dialecticism is not only at the heart of Svilova’s editing
structure but the rhetoric of Yangtze River itself is also binary in nature: China is seen
as a weaker racial Other to the Soviet Union, legitimising European dominance byoverdetermining the idea of White superiority. Svilova’s aim for Yangtze River is likely
to highlight for audiences the distance between the Soviet Union’s advanced society
and China’s primordial civilisation, rendering Soviet willingness to guide China aphilanthropic gesture, itself a means of pleading innocence while in reality reasserting
its authority. Beyond legitimising Stalin’s decision to adopt China as an ally, Svilova
frames the film as ultimately self-congratulatory, designed to encourage in Soviet
audiences a sense of pride in their country’s charitable nature.

A period of transition
In the aftermath of Stalin’s death, the Central Committee inherited the difficult taskof fulfilling its commitment to re-image the Soviet Union as a modern, cosmopolitan
nation. Stalin’s sudden absence, whose authority had substituted for real politicallegitimacy, forced his successors to determine which aspects of his regime should bepreserved and which should be discarded. Donald Filtzer suggests that cautious steps
toward de-Stalinisation were made almost immediately after Stalin’s death.42 Svilova’s
films of the 1953 to 1956 period capture the move away from Stalinist rhetoric anddocument the tentative efforts made at rapprochement with the Western world.
Vladislav Zubok argues that priority for the new foreign policy was divided between
the bolstering of communist unity and economic reform: associations weredeveloped with countries that could facilitate the Soviet Union’s continued expansion

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as a global superpower.43 Although these steps were self-serving, the Central
Committee acknowledged that Stalinism had deprived Soviet citizens of muchneeded cultural exposure. Consequently, in 1955, foreign tourism – previously
banned under Stalin – was allowed and a near total ban on foreign travel for Soviet
citizens overturned.44 As part of its need to refresh the image of the Soviet Union on
an international and domestic basis, the Central Committee returned to the Bolshevik
diplomacy of the 1920s, viewing trade deals with the West as the way to obtain vital
investments and technologies and acquire the support of conglomerates in improving
political relations.45 Other preferred strategies of the new foreign policy included
state visits and the promotion of disarmament,46 both of which were documented by
Svilova. The new foreign policy adopted after Stalin’s death should not be read
simply as the struggle between the friends and foes of his legacy; it was based much
more on the external and domestic situation inherited by his successors, ‘who agreed
that the Soviet state was in crisis … this realisation came to them within weeks of
Stalin’s death and was the cement holding together their temporary alliance.’47

Foreign stories: 1953-1956
The Central Committee’s move toward a more open foreign policy is reflected in
Svilova’s films in two main ways: first, there is a wider scope of foreign stories in her
News of the Day episodes and, second, she directs episodes of Foreign Newsreel in
1956.48 The increase from two non-European stories in the pre-1953 period of
Svilova’s career to seven by 1956 is the most important statistic because it mirrors
the broadening nature of Khrushchev’s foreign policy. Analysing a number of thestories broadcast between Stalin’s death and Svilova’s semi-retirement, the remainderof my chapter makes specific connections between issues of representation and the202

Soviet Union’s position in the field of global politics. My aim is to explore how thecosmopolitan image Svilova perpetuates might have been received by Soviet
audiences and to suggest what political benefits her progressive depiction ofotherness reaped. This depiction draws attention to the more ambiguously utopianand perhaps even emancipatory formulations of the Central Committee’s adopted
cosmopolitan outlook. Moving away from the Orientalism of the Stalin era, during
which Svilova underlines the Soviet Union’s management and domination of the
Other, and where her interest in difference is largely voyeuristic, particularly in her
collaborative films with Vertov, after Stalin’s death, her foreign-themed films display
a stance of openness toward diversity. In this respect, Svilova’s representation of the
Far East and Central Asia reflects what Mica Nava has described as acosmopolitanism that is part of modern consciousness, part of the structure offeeling associated with ‘modernity’; that is to say, with a mood and historical momentthat highlighted the fluidity and excitement of modern metropolitan life and wascharacterised by a readiness to embrace the new.49 Svilova’s adoption of acosmopolitan set of attitudes within a modernist frame signals the Central
Committee’s countercultural revolt against the insular dogma of Stalinism andattempts to overturn what were ‘traditional’ cultural forms and regimes of belief.50

News of the Day (1954-56)
News of the Day no.46 (1954) includes a story from Danzig Airport that documents thearrival of Polish sailors having been released from captivity in Taiwan; their merchantship, President Gottwald, had been seized by the Taiwanese Navy on 13 May, 1954.51
This story was not only relevant to Soviet audiences because Poland was then part of
the Eastern bloc, it was exhibited by Svilova to cast a negative light on Taiwan, acountry whose stubbornly anti-communist stance had resulted in the 1954 Taiwanese203

Strait Crisis, one of its many territorial disputes with China. A handheld camera
tracks a woman running toward a descending aeroplane and weeping into her
handkerchief. The aeroplane lands and its door opens; the fishermen raise their fists
in a gesture of victory as they walk down the aeroplane’s steps in single file. A large
crowd has joined the woman on the runway to celebrate the fishermen’s safe return.
A slow pan captures one of the fishermen jumping over the last few steps into thearms of a waiting woman, presumably his wife. Svilova uses conflict in movement asa means of energising a montage of the various reunions. One couple runs
horizontally across the shot toward each other, while another runs vertically. Men
and women hold each other in long, heartfelt embraces; there are scenes of bothlaughter and tears. The final shot does not depict a husband and wife reuniting but
focuses on an elderly gentleman kissing a man, presumably his son, on the cheeks
and using all of his strength to lift him into the air. This shot is conspicuous in thesequence because conflict is aroused as much by the generation gap between thefather and son as by the movement within the shot. Svilova reminds audiences thatacts of terrorism do not only disturb the institution of marriage but affect wholefamily units. The visual impact of the sequence lies in the sentiments of nostalgia
encouraged in the Soviet people by the scenes of reunification. Audiences would
likely have related the images to their own experiences at the end of World War II
when surviving soldiers and displaced family members returned home.

Taiwan’s unfavourable representation aimed to underpin its role as the enemy, astance reinforced the following year by News of the Day no.45 (1955) in which Svilova
documents reunions between the crew members of the Tuapse, a Soviet tanker, andtheir families at a Moscow airport after their release from Taiwanese captivity.52 It is
important to note that these were both genuine news stories, recording recent events
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for public education, not stories that were merely described as news despite holding
no temporal significance. The two Taiwanese stories confirm, first, how crucial the
Far East had become as a venue for a global power struggle, due largely to China’s
rapid economic growth, and, second, that Mao’s widening authority was such that, by
the mid-1950s, China no longer had to feature on-screen for its influence topenetrate Svilova’s frame. Although the Far East was a location for a power struggle
from as early as the nineteenth century, China’s development as a pluto-communist
state shifted the balance of power; consequently, hope was given to Marxist theories
about the inevitability of socialism. When Svilova does feature China on-screen, thecondescending depiction illustrated in earlier films such as Yangtze River is substituted
for an acknowledgement of the country’s potential. As Chen Jian argues, thesechanging representations reflected the Central Committee’s awareness that any
imagery alluding to China’s subordination to the Soviet Union would have been met
by China’s political elite with disfavour.53

Svilova directs three stories from China during this period: the construction of theTrans-Mongolian railway in News of the Day no.2 (1955), afforestation in News of the
Day no.39 (1955) and the construction of a cement works near Datong in News of the
Day no.1 (1956). These stories collectively depict China as a country committed toprogress. Capturing the construction of the Trans-Mongolian railway – a physicalconnection between China and the Soviet Union – served to represent burgeoning
trade links and the exchange of labour forces. Svilova commences the sequence witha conflictual juxtaposition, as high-angle landscape shots of the Gobi desert arecontrasted with low-angle wide shots of cattle carrying cargo across the sand.
Construction work is depicted in an underexposed mid-shot; a crane transports
heavy materials across the desert. Shot from a camera at eye level, one of the cranes
205lowers a section of railway line to the ground. Workers attempt to steady it as it
approaches their heads from above and carefully guide it to the ground. The
audience then views this process from the opposite angle: a camera is placed on topof the section of line as it is lowered to the ground. Reshowing the action from asecond camera angle not only represents one of the strongest examples of conflict in
Svilova’s films but also evokes the aesthetic of early cinema that forms part of
Yangtze River. Repeating the action, or constructing a ‘temporal overlap’, as Charles
Musser describes it in his analysis of Edwin S. Porter’s Life of an American Fireman(1903), is evidence, he argues, of early filmmakers’ attempts to come to terms withcinematic editing.54 It establishes spatial, temporal and narrative relationships, and,while a kind of continuity, is radically different from the continuity associated withclassical cinema.55

André Gaudreault defines Porter’s employment of the repeated shot in Life of an
American Fireman as a means to ‘resolve problems of spatial continuity’.56 This applies
to Svilova in that the technique allows her to overcome any logistical shortfalls
imposed on the cameramen shooting the scene and permits audiences theopportunity to view the intricate nature of the construction work from both angles.
However, the fact that she opts to repeat the same action rather than select shotsfrom a different action is vital in understanding the objective of the story. Svilova’s
temporal overlap breaks the fluidity of the continuity pattern established thus far in
the sequence and obscures it. In doing so, she reminds the viewer of film’s synthetic
origins, supporting Noël Burch’s argument that temporal overlapping was a means ofkeeping the audience placed firmly in front of the screen and preventing their escapeto an imaginary world.57 When one perceives the newsreels as vehicles of politicalrhetoric, it is logical that Svilova would incorporate techniques to hold the viewer’s
206attention. It was crucial audiences did not overlook the ideological messages and, in
this instance, remain unaware of the efforts being made to link Soviet and Chinese
industry. After the construction sequence, a train emerges from the distance andpasses a camera positioned at the side of the railway line; a wide-angle shot depicting
the train disappearing into the distance concludes the story. The juxtaposition ofthese two closing shots are perhaps Svilova’s way of reaffirming to audiences thecentral principle of the story: while the railway acts as a physical connection between
China and the Soviet Union, more importantly, the train represents the exchange of
products and labour – tangible benefits of the Sino-Soviet relationship and further
evidence for the unifying nature of socialism.

Svilova depicts the Datong cement works in similar terms. A wide-angle pan ofmachinery is followed by a stationary wide-angle shot of a large building. Inside, a
mid-shot captures two men looking at the building plans. On the construction site
the foreman instructs a worker in his task. Following a montage of wide-angle shots,
the camera pans along the horizon in low-angle, depicting workers walking across thescaffolding silhouetted against the grey sky. Thus, the peaceful, simple civilisation
portrayed in Yangtze River has been replaced on the most part by landscapes of heavy
industry. The themes of progress and unity evident in Svilova’s stories from China,
particularly those set out in the Trans-Mongolian Railway sequence, were supported
by stories shot inside the Soviet Union. Svilova did not portray foreign lands inisolation but sought to correlate them with domestic events. News of the Day No.60(1955), for example, contains a story depicting the arrival of a Russian delegation at a
Kuznetsk steelworks; Chinese workers give the delegation a tour of the factory.
Svilova juxtaposes these shots with Russian and Chinese people socialising over dayto-day activities, such as cooking and reading magazines. The future of communism,
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Svilova’s montage suggests, relies upon transnational unity inside and outside theworkplace. Initiatives to send more Chinese workers to the Soviet Union quietly
ceased in the late 1950s as all forms of cooperation between the two countries
gradually came to a halt.58

In addition to China, Svilova’s recurring depiction of India during this period reflects
the importance Khrushchev assigned to securing and cementing geographicalalliances in the East. In December 1953, the Soviet Union signed a five-year trade
agreement with India that negotiated the exchange of Soviet machinery and industrial
equipment for traditional Indian products. The signing of the agreement coincidedwith Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to New Delhi, underlining Indian criticism
of the United States’ involvement with Pakistan.59 Jerome Conley argues that thefostering of Indo-Soviet relations was in fact founded on shared concern for the ties
between the United States and Pakistan.60 In the view of early to mid-1950s Soviet
discourse, this shared concern temporarily eclipsed any differences between theSoviet Union and its Far Eastern ally. As an alternative to Orientalism, Edward Saidsuggests that producers of knowledge can extricate themselves from Orientalist
discourse, and the power relations within, by acknowledging the inextricableinterdependence of East and West.61 Svilova’s representation of India recognises thereliance East and West must invest in one another in order to globalise civilisation.
With common interests in mind, Indo-Soviet relations developed, further
strengthened in 1955 by the announcing of Soviet intentions to build a steel plant in
Bhilai, an eastern central city, and the hosting of the Bandung Conference, cosponsored by India and China. This conference also witnessed the birth of SinoCambodian relations, discussed below. In the months following the conference,
Svilova documents the President of India’s visit to a Bengali cable factory in News of
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the Day no.33 (1955). The sequence begins with President Prasad arriving at theentrance with his delegation. Close-up shots of the machinery are juxtaposed withshots capturing the delegation’s tour. The story was a means to provide Soviet
audiences with an insight into Indian manufacturing and industry, alluding to theeconomic benefits the new alliance would bring to the Soviet economy.

Later in the same newsreel, Svilova presents a more personal side of India and, rather
than comment negatively on its primitiveness, she sympathises with the difficulties
faced by Indian populations to protect themselves against natural disasters. Thisempathetic approach signposts a clear development in her portrayal of otherness.
Filmed on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, local residents hurriedly lay down
bamboo canes to prevent their land from flooding. The bamboo is transported bytruck before being rolled down the banks and put in place by workers in the river.
Svilova depicts in this sequence a vulnerable community whose continued safety
relies upon communal labour. This story did not appear to be a means ofundermining India – a visual tool, like Yangtze River, to highlight the weakness of theEast and its need to be rescued – Svilova displays both concern for the inhabitants,
by focusing on shots of their anxious faces, and admiration, through the capturing of
the speed, strength and dexterity with which they combat the hazard. The mostsignificant event in Soviet-Indo relations was Khrushchev and Bulganin’s tour of
India, documented by Svilova in News of the Day no.60 (1955). Two establishing shots,
one from an aeroplane and one from street level (the latter giving an indication ofIndia’s crowded urban infrastructure), introduce an interior mid-shot of a dining
room where Prime Minister Nehru, Bulganin and Khrushchev are supplied food anddrink by an array of servants. The voiceover announces Khrushchev’s support for209

Indian sovereignty over the disputed territory of Kashmir, reiterating for Svilova’s
audience Soviet commitment to the partnership.

The examples I have offered thus far – stories from Kazakhstan, China and India –are similar in their mode of presentation: Svilova indicates that the Central
Committee is willing to assist less-developed Eastern countries for their mutual
benefit. It is important to observe that the motivation behind the Soviet Union’s
forming of these relationships do not directly form a part of the stories’ narratives.
Svilova represents the resolve of the Soviet Union to assist countries with basic
infrastructures and primitive economies as driven ultimately by humanitarianism and,to a much lesser extent, financial gain, particularly in its relationship with India. The
fact that the Central Committee established relations in the East to coincide with
developments in the Cold War, seeking allies that offered geographical benefits to
the Soviet Union’s defence policy or countries that sympathised with socialism,
remained tacit.

While events in China, Kazakhstan and India were for Svilova relatively
undemanding subjects for documentation, in that they aligned smoothly with Soviet
foreign policy, other countries held more complex relations with the Soviet Unionand required Svilova’s careful handling. News of the Day no.17 (1955), for example,
includes a story from Osaka where a local workforce has gone on strike. A wideangle shot establishes an office building captured from the opposite side of thestreet. A picket line of workers stands with arms locked across the entrance to thebuilding and sways in unison from side to side. Police use water cannons to disperse
the watching crowd. Svilova heightens the atmosphere by juxtaposing the watercannon shots with medium close-ups of the swaying picketers, a tension that is210

eventually calmed by the introduction of a new location. Trade unionists sit around atable with company executives to negotiate the strike’s resolution. A close-up of apiece of paper being stamped symbolises the meeting’s success: the strike is over.
The two leading negotiators stand and face the camera to shake hands. A closing
mid-shot of the office’s clear doorway, like the stamping of the paper, confirms thatany disputes about the working conditions have been resolved.

Svilova had featured Japan in a story the previous year, in News of the Day no.60(1954), which documents the devastating aftermath of the country’s typhoon season.
Poorly exposed wide-angle shots capture waves crashing against the shoreline. Locals
emerge from the sea carrying the dead and injured on stretchers. Inland, the camera
pans along a street to depict the extent of the flooding; a river four feet in height
sweeps through the poorly constructed houses. The ferry, Toya Maru, floats capsizedin the Tsugaru Strait, a channel of water between Honshu and Hokkaido in thenorthern part of the country. On board the ferry the dead are covered in sheets. A
group of women light candles on the beach in memory of those who perished.
Svilova concludes the sequence with a montage of waves crashing against theshoreline. Her objective for this closing series of shots might have been to imply
irresolution: nature’s devastating force has not alleviated; the pain and loss enduredby the inhabitants is set to continue. The montage underscores Svilova’s sympathy
for those affected by the devastation. She displays through her selection of shots
genuine interest in the lives of her subjects, sensitively capturing their torment andhelplessness.

There is, however, a second possible interpretation of this story. During the Stalinera, and in the period between Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956,
211

it was typical for Soviet media to shed capitalist countries in a dark light. From his
interactions with media depictions of foreign lands, Emil Draitser, a Soviet citizen,
was left with the impression that the United States was a country fraught withdanger. He remembers viewing images in which ‘tornadoes smash houses in
Oklahoma; an earthquake pulls a chain of automobiles right down into the depths of
the Pacific; a hurricane sweeps along the streets of Miami; and immense forests ofMontana burn’.62 As peace negotiations between Japan and Soviet Union had not yet
commenced when Svilova documented Japan’s typhoon season, it is possible that her
intention was to encourage in Soviet audiences anti-capitalist sentiments through theemphasis on Japan’s vulnerability to natural disasters, which in turn might be read in
religious terms: God punishes those driven by self-wealth.63 Soviet citizens could feelsafe in the knowledge they were protected from biblical wrath by the moral goodnessof socialism. More so, the absence of wrath confirmed for the Soviet people thatsocialism was the only right and honourable system. Svilova’s depiction of thetyphoon season could be read in the simplified terms of ‘us versus them’, a reliable
structure to generate meaning and influence the perception of the viewer. Recallingthe moral vocabulary described by Mark Steinberg in his analysis of the Russian print
industry, visual symbols of suffering, redemption and salvation enabled people tounderstand their lives.64 Likewise, Svilova represents a more flexible and engaging
means by which viewers are able to make sense of their identities in a way that other,more complex, interpretations of Marxism could not allow.

Despite the validity of this reading, it does not wholly account for the energy Svilova
invests to capture the suffering of the people. Documenting the dangers to foreign
lands as a means of eliciting sympathy recalls the strategy used by Svilova in her
documenting of Indian floods. For this reason, my initial reading – decoding the212story as one designed to stimulate compassion – is more rational. Although it was
broadcast prior to formal negotiations, it might have been used as an ‘olive branch’, acultural exchange calculated to trigger the thawing of deep-rooted disputes, and thenews of the strike in Osaka the following year testifies to this reading.65 Also, thestory of the strike has communist undertones that would have increased its
newsworthiness. The fact that the Japanese workforce in the Osaka story unite tobattle a capitalist organisation – people of inferior wealth joining forces to defeat
those of superior wealth – might have been documented to heighten the distrust ofcapitalism and underline the importance of working-class solidarity, the latter in linewith the cohesive workforces documented by Svilova in, for example, stories from
China and India. Moreover, Svilova does not use a fade to mark the transition fromone geographical location to the next, as she typically did in her News of the Day
episodes, instead cutting from the end of one sequence to the beginning of the other.
This technique serves to fuse the two locations in the mind of the viewer,
representing another means by which Svilova aims to link the Soviet Union and theFar East.

Rural women in News of the Day no.60 (1954)
News of the Day no.60 contains a four minute montage depicting Eastern Soviet
women working in various agricultural processes. The length of this montage issignificant as a News of the Day episode, which comprised approximately ten minutesof film, would rarely contain an item longer than two minutes. Therefore, thismontage functions as the anchor of the episode. The overriding tension between the
inclusion of these women as Soviet and their exclusion on grounds of ethnicity is
resolved by the women’s Sovietisation – they are both familiar and unfamiliar. The
female spectator would have observed with intrigue as her body was substituted with213

one of difference but one with which she could identify. Svilova focuses on the
inclusive nature of cosmopolitanism. The attention she pays to the Eastern women’s
decorated bodies suggests feelings of attraction for, and identification with,otherness, the type defined by Mica Nava as ‘intimate and visceralcosmopolitanism’.66 Despite the differences between East and West, they are boundby a mutual commitment to socialism, which adds a layer of domesticity to thecosmopolitanism on display. While the Eastern Other in Soviet Kazakhstan is in theprocess of shedding her traditional methods, no such demands are made of theseworkers – the heterogeneous Other thus combines with the cosmopolitan Western
Soviet citizen to construct a progressive and diverse Soviet identity, and in doing so
removes any doubt that the Central Committee is committed to its newly adopted
modern consciousness. Svilova represents them not as abject or excluded but asmodern and liberated. The montage is a utopian vision in which cultural difference ispromoted, appreciated and even desired. As Nava argues, ‘desire for the Other, forsomething different, is also about the desire for merger with the Other, about thedesire to become different.’67

The first scene opens with a stationary wide-angle shot of Mukuzani, a Georgianvillage. A tracking shot captures a row of grapevines; the camera moves along therow before drawing slowly to a stop on a mid-shot of grapes on a branch. Once thelocation of the scene is established, Svilova concentrates on the workers themselves.
Framed in medium long-shot, three women sit on their knees and pick grapes fromthe low hanging branches of a tree. The shot is poorly exposed, and the women’s
white headscarves appear conspicuously against the dark background of the shot.
First, the focus is on the woman to the left of the three; she is framed in a head andshoulders mid-shot as she cuts the grapes from the tree’s branches. The most striking
214aspect of this shot is the joy with which the woman carries out her work. Although
one becomes accustomed to the overzealous facial expressions of workers in
Svilova’s films, the joy on display in this scene exceeds convention. This joy suggeststhat collective farm workers are sufficiently equipped to handle state expectations.
Capturing women enjoying their work was not a motivational technique exclusive tothe films of Svilova but was a motif characteristic of Soviet cinema in the Stalin era.
Gail Lapidus argues that it deflected blame away from the Central Committee:
women in the audience would not associate their own problems with their statecommitments.68 A wide-angle tracking shot, moving left at eye level, depicts the scaleof the working environment: white dots pepper the dark under-exposed landscape.
As previous mid-shots have informed us, each dot represents the white headscarf ofeach individual female worker. This was not the first occasion in which Svilova
represents women by a conspicuous item of clothing. Soviet Kazakhstan too contains
wide-angle shots in which the size and distribution of the female workforce isindicated to the audience through the movement of white headscarves juxtaposed
against a dark landscape.

The second location, Zailiyski (a region in the foothills of the Ala-Tau mountain
range), is established through a wide-angle pan moving left. Svilova aims forcontinuity between locations, carrying on the movement of the previous tracking
shot. The cut, however, is striking, not only through the change in camera movement(tracking shot to pan) but also through the change in light, as the second location isconsiderably brighter due to overexposure. The pan depicts a number of women on
ladders picking apples from tree branches. An extreme close-up shot of one of theglistening apples, with dew rolling down its side, connotes a sentiment of vigour andsustenance. The glistening apples imply that the women who defeat the strains of the215

double burden produce the healthiest and most wholesome fruit, and could
themselves be defined as the nutritious and unblemished fruit of the regime. The
camera then tracks from right to left, following a woman walking across themidground of the shot. Although the camera is positioned approximately fifty metresfrom the subject, the viewer can identify her vitality and energy: she walks, almost
skips, between the trees carrying two baskets of apples. As soon as the woman’s
position eludes the tracking camera’s focal range, Svilova redirects the sequence backto the women on ladders. One of the women is framed in the right of a mid-shot andfaces left, allowing the viewer to see her exaggerated facial expressions as she carries
out her work.

Svilova’s decision to hold on the shot of the woman’s face introduces to the text
corporeal readings. Béla Balázs argues that cinema restores to humanity a language offacial expression rendered illegible by literacy.69 The face is for most of us the locusof another person’s being and, although the camera can show the body in action,
there is something unattainable about its transience. The film audience is far moreconstrained than an observer in daily life. Yet, this shot of the woman’s face, thoughseen in passing, becomes a more stable object of attention and a receptacle forfeelings about the body as a whole. In other words, the close-up shot provides atactility absent in ordinary human relations. As David MacDougall suggests, ‘When
we meet others in day to day exchanges we do not explore their faces with ourfingertips, but in the cinema we come close to doing this, becoming especially alive
to the liquidity of the eyes and mouth and, at a more interpretive level, the flickering
signs of emotions.’70 The close-up shot creates a proximity to the face that we
experience much less commonly in daily life. The conventions of social distance (andreal distance) restrict proximity except in moments of intimacy. Cinema thus216

combines the private view with the public spectacle, creating a sharp sense of
intimate exposure of the film subject and a secondary sense in the viewer of being
personally exposed by witnessing the other’s exposure.

A second woman on a ladder, this time framed to the right of the shot facing left,
looks up from her work and smiles. The editing suggests that she is smiling at the
woman in the previous shot, which again implies to audiences a sentiment of female
bonding and unity, the same technique used by Svilova in the cleaning sequence inMetro and in the Federation films shot in Prague and Paris. The third location of themontage, the Murgab Valley in Tajikistan, is established in a poorly exposed wideangle stationary shot. A solitary tree stands in the foreground while mountains
extend across the background. The shot illustrates a harsh, dry climate, one in whichcrops stubbornly resist cultivation. This atmosphere is enhanced by the second shot:a high-angle pan from right to left. The location feels cold and intimidating to theviewer. This impression is contradicted by the third shot of the sequence: framed inwide-angle, a flowing river is depicted meandering underneath the overhanging
branches of the trees lining its banks. A woman in the background picks fruit fromthe trees. A connection is established between the feminised worker and thefeminised environment. The shot seems to imply that she is bringing life to her
surroundings; without her interaction, this location would remain as uncultivated as
the first two in the sequence. The idyllic nature of this shot is strengthened by asecond, slightly tighter, wide-angle shot of the running water, followed by a highangle wide shot of an enclosed lake steeped in tranquillity.

The vineyard itself is introduced by a wide-angle establishing shot; a row of large
trees, rich in foliage, cuts the shot vertically in half. A woman walks along the row
217toward the camera carrying a basket of fruit. Her dress appears strikingly colourful,even on black and white film, and her headwear is noticeably exotic to a Western
audience, standing upright on her head in the style of a fez. A low-angle mid-shot
depicts a second female worker. Although this worker is partly hidden behind a layerof thick foliage, the intimate framing allows for a closer inspection of her dress andheadwear, both of which are highly decorative: patterns of gold endow the front of
the headwear while the dress, and the sleeves in particular, are embellished withsequins. A medium close-up shot of a third woman, again on a ladder picking fruit,
further celebrates the elegant aesthetic of this working community. Cinema, as an
ideologically approved medium, negotiates the chasm between ‘us’ and ‘them’,
individuality and belonging, and dress forms a crucial component to these
distinctions. For Svilova, the clear-cut oppositions of belonging and non-belonging
characteristic of the Stalin era begin to break down and, in a new language of dress,
an all-encompassing vision of Sovietness emerges in their place.

Jane Gaines argues that the celebration of the female form is a dominant trait offemale filmmakers, most evidently when costume is used to emphasise it.71 In
Svilova’s sequence, the women’s exotic dress does not only exist to disguise thebody, it exists to be admired in its own right by the female spectator. The Eastern
woman as a model of Soviet discourse retains her feminist virtues; she is chaste andhonourable while simultaneously willing to reproduce when the state demanded. The
fourth shot in this sequence of mid-shots depicts a young girl cutting a bunch of
grapes from a branch. She holds the bunch in front of her face at eye level and smiles
proudly. The presence of children accompanying their mothers at work further
cements the efforts made by the Central Committee to encourage women to merge
their home life with their work. Rather than depicting women carrying out household
218duties at home, women perform these duties at work, crystallising the symbol of the
new Soviet woman as a worker who unites her domestic and state responsibilities.
Shots of mothers labouring at work accompanied by their children are utilised by
Vertov and Svilova in Lullaby to propose a solution for those women struggling
under the strain of the double burden. This scene from the Murgab Valley assures
women that it was their right, as well as their responsibility, to seek work outside thehome.72

Lynne Attwood’s research into the role played by magazines to construct the new
Soviet woman in public consciousness is pertinent to this newsreel and, to an extent,
Soviet Kazakhstan. Her research allows for an understanding of how audiences
responded to gender representations at different turning points of the Stalin andpost-Stalin eras. One conclusion Attwood draws is that, in media representations,
women wanted to see the double burden defeated; they wanted to see other womenachieving their goals and overcoming any restraints imposed on them.73 The
sequence, then, not only provided female audiences with the representation they
preferred, it also integrated Eastern women into the Western Soviet ideal by
highlighting their commitment to socialism, manifested mostly through the women’sability to overcome the double burden. While they should continue to be good
mothers and wives, a further dimension was added to modern women’s
responsibilities: they had to be loyal citizens and display patriotism through theirwork.

The women in this sequence, however, have not been thoroughly Sovietised. The
attention paid to their faces and exotic dress suggests that Svilova wants female
audiences to acknowledge the beauty of the garments and to appreciate the women’s219

valuable contribution to the evolving Soviet identity. Western Soviet admiration for
Tajikistan – admiration that was justified by virtue of the republic’s location within
Soviet borders – overturned the more typical narrative in which the larger, dominant
power is the giver of civilisation to the smaller, subordinate one. Instead, the women
are to be perceived as adding a further layer to the fabric of national selfhood, where
the old is not replaced by the new, a substitution highlighted by the traktoristka
sequence in Soviet Kazakhstan, but where both can exist harmoniously. In her
discussion on the representation of Central Asian women in Western media, MeydaYeğenoğlu argues that autonomous identification can only be reclaimed through theauthentic and the traditional.74 For the Eastern regions already assimilated into theSoviet Union, the West must be taken as a model but the primitive native cultures
should be preserved. This reading is inconsistent with the representation of Central
Asia in the Stalin era, the latter implied an ambivalent double gesture, exemplifying
what was a split character of nationalist thought. Svilova’s depiction of the women
implies that, by the mid-1950s, an expanded tolerance of international difference hadcome to fruition, something that stemmed, according to Ted Hopf, from a stronger
sense of Soviet identity at home, a confidence that permitted differences as long as
people were ideologically united on fundamental principles.75 Permitting difference athome, Kopf argues, made it less threatening to accept differences elsewhere.76

The Foreign Newsreel series (1956)
Whether personal choice or a decision made outside of her control, Svilova stops
directing episodes of News of the Day in early 1956 to begin work on Foreign Newsreel(also produced by the Central Studio for Documentary Film). Foreign Newsreel waspart of a media campaign that inundated the masses with images of foreign lands.

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While the countries documented coincided with developments in international
relations, Anne Gorsuch argues that ‘exposure to foreign lands was supposed to help
citizens become more Soviet … it would help them become more aware of thedifference between capitalism and socialism and they would grow to love theircountry even more.’77 Challenges to Soviet ideological superiority were a concern for
Khrushchev but the benefits of exposure to foreign lands were thought to outweighthe potential risks. Svilova’s foreign newsreels were crucial because they allowed
audiences to enjoy the exposure without leaving the safety of the Soviet Union. She
offers a series of ideologically controlled expeditions that transports audiences to theEast, across the vast territories of the socialist empire, and to the West, where theadvantages of peaceful coexistence are mapped through the documenting of cultural
events and scientific innovations.

Svilova’s directorial methods for Foreign Newsreel revolve around a similar, but not
identical, process to News of the Day – the assembly of pre-shot footage dispatched to
Moscow from the shooting location – though it is unlikely that footage shot for
Foreign Newsreel would have been captured by Soviet cinematographers. My research
into British Pathé newsreels from the 1950s indicates that the stock footage was shotby local cameramen and sold to documentary studios abroad.78 Newsreel directors
would have then crafted a unique product representative of their studio or
government’s agenda. This change in production process does not require a
rethinking of my approach to Svilova. There is no evidence to indicate that she had
any authority over the shooting of domestic or foreign footage in the pre-production
or production stage; her role commenced only once the footage was ready forediting. Svilova directed three episodes of Foreign Newsreel, episodes four, six andnine, before retiring from full-time work. I discuss the episodes simultaneously in221order to make the necessary connections and provide the most lucid and articulate
analysis possible.

Svilova documents the events following Tunisia’s gaining independence from Francein Foreign Newsreel no.4 (1956). A mid-shot depicts a light aircraft landing on a runway
and passing the camera. A low-angle mid-shot captures Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s
first President, stepping out the open door. As he attempts to alight the aircraft, he ismobbed by his ardent devotees: his male followers shake his hand while a female
supporter attempts to thrust her young daughter into his arms. Once at the bottomof the steps, Bourguiba disappears behind a flurry of journalists vying for a statement
or photograph. Bourguiba walks across the runway; now encircled by the military, heis able to walk without interference from his supporters. The second and final
location of the story is Tunis Stadium where the country holds an official celebrationof its independence. A wide-angle shot depicts a women’s army division marchingaround the track to the applause of the spectators. Despite the terseness of the story,
Svilova manages to convey in only a handful of shots the significance of Tunisia’s
independence, a country once starved of autonomy and forced to conceal its culture
and heritage at the expense of outdated sovereignty. Released from imperialism, thepeople of Tunisia have reclaimed their country for themselves. The film supports theright of citizens to repossess their land and share it among its rightful owners, andarguably it is this notion that Svilova intended to communicate; the one to which her
audiences would emotionally respond, having either remembered or been taught
about the events of 1917 that led to the deposition of Tsar Nicholas II and the birthof the Soviet Union. The energy and excitement emitting from the shots ofBourguiba is reminiscent of early footage of Lenin in the aftermath of the revolution,
footage that documented him on makeshift podiums speaking to crowds of avid
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supporters – the same footage Svilova spent many years collating and editing.
Audiences were encouraged to draw comparisons between the events on-screen andtheir identity as Soviet citizens, what it meant to be or feel Soviet.

Attempts to draw on the audience’s memory or knowledge of its country’s history reemerge in Svilova’s next newsreel, Foreign Newsreel no.6 (1956), where scenes from
Rajasthan capture celebrations commemorating India’s independence. A float in the
shape of a swan approaches the camera and subsequent close-up shots depict people
following behind it dressed in horse costumes, re-enacting a battle using rehearsed
movements. A handheld camera captures women dancing to a beating drum, thefrenetic cinematography reflecting the energy of the dancers and the passion for theirart. Svilova perceives India as a country steeped in aesthetics, a view reinforced byscenes from Bombay’s Festival of Dance and Music in her final episode, Foreign
Newsreel no.9 (1956). Accompanied by the sounds of an applauding audience, women
dance on stage under the weight of enormous water jugs positioned on their heads;
medium close-up shots capture their remarkable poise. Svilova’s representation ofIndia as a country savouring its liberation supports the political stories documented
in News of the Day. Between 1954 and 1956, Svilova provides audiences with theopportunity to observe India’s renaissance: freed from Western imperialism, it could
now forge international agreements on its own terms. Svilova encourages Soviet
citizens to recognise India as a valuable ally, a country with ambitious programmes ofindustrialisation and nuclear rearmament, in addition to a wealth of cultural
traditions.

While not a celebration of independence, the crowning of Norodom Suramarit as the
new King of Cambodia, documented in Foreign Newsreel no.4, displays a similar sense223

of optimism that surrounds a change of government and, again, it would have sought
to inspire in audiences a sense of familiarity with their own collective identity as
Soviet citizens. In Phnom Penh, Suramarit and his wife, Queen Sisowath Kosamak,
are addressed by a court dignitary in the throne room. In its presentation, the scene isequivalent to one held in any country with a constitutional monarchy. A handheld
pan captures the majesty of the occasion: flowers and gold adorn their surroundings.
The thrones, in particular, are decorated with exotic accessories. The King is
portrayed in a medium close-up shot; his cone-shaped headwear is exotic and eyecatching. Outside, the King and Queen travel in a horse-drawn carriage. The camera
tracks the carriage in a low-angle pan as it pulls away surrounded by townspeople,
some in traditional Cambodian dress and others in military attire. On 13 May, 1956,
shortly after Suramarit’s coronation, the Soviet Union and Cambodia made publictheir formal diplomatic relations, which not only determined the story’s inclusion but
strengthens my general argument: the newsworthiness of Svilova’s foreign stories –packaged in both News of the Day and Foreign Newsreel – depended upon developmentsin the realm of foreign policy, far removed from the camera’s frame.

Even though Svilova’s News of the Day stories from China and India allude toburgeoning relations with the Soviet Union (though not explicit about the primary
motivation behind their new affiliations), it is important to observe that the story
from Cambodia does not refer to the emerging alliance between the countries. Thereis no attempt to mobilise the masses into supporting an association with a new ally;
instead, Svilova states to audiences, matter-of-factly, that events in Cambodia areworth documenting on their own merit. In the months leading up to the publicannouncement of the coalition, it was imperative that Soviet audiences were exposed
to Cambodia – its customs, heritage and rule of government – so that, by the time224

the announcement was made and relations between Cambodia and the Soviet Union
had been legitimised in public consciousness, the masses were able to identify with
the new ally and in turn support the relationship. In only a few shots, Svilova’s
coverage of the crowing ceremony provides a broad picture of the traits intrinsic to
Cambodian national identity, and the informative, concise nature of newsreel made it
an ideal medium to encourage interest in Cambodia. She forms in the mind of theviewer a connection between Cambodia and the Soviet Union through the sharedemotions associated with coronations and revolutions. While this is a fairly overt
connection, the story also alluded implicitly to China. Similar to Svilova’s
documenting of the Polish fishermen’s release from captivity in Taiwan, China does
not directly feature in this story but its underlying influence is detectable through theweb of political relations in the Far East during this period. In 1956 China andCambodia had mutual interests: China required Cambodia’s cooperation due to thelatter’s geographical location (it was deemed dangerous if Cambodia became an allyof the United States) and, in turn, Cambodia relied upon the Chinese military to
restrain Vietnam and Thailand during territorial disputes.79 Their relationship was
further consolidated by a personal acquaintance between Mao and Suramarit.
Impressed by Cambodia’s gaining of independence from France in 1953, Mao sent atelegram every year to the Cambodian royal family to offer his continued
congratulations.80 Mao’s support suggests that any colonies surrendered by Westerncountries were viewed by the communist world as a victory against capitalism, astance that associates this story with Svilova’s coverage of Tunisia and India rejoicing
in their own emancipation.81

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Eastern Europe: The ‘Soviet Abroad’
Svilova’s Foreign Newsreel episodes do not only include stories from the Far East.
Countries in closer proximity to her base in Moscow were also considered foreign,
and it is evident from my analysis that distance held no relation to definitions offoreignness. Anne Gorsuch describes this phenomenon as a type of local
difference.82 Referring to the Soviet representation of Estonia during the Thaw as an
inner abroad, due to its combination of historic West European architecture andcontemporary European style, she argues that the region was newly marketed forSoviet citizens as an outside world both different and familiar.83 The stories from
Western and Eastern Europe came as part of a rhetoric that sought to position
Eastern Europe as a domestic, yet exotic, tourist attraction and encourage Soviet
citizens to visit there – in 1956 countries in Eastern Europe were the most popular
destinations for Soviet travellers.84Her portrayal was meant to encourage friendshipand mutual understanding between citizens of the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc
countries, and to contribute to the Soviet Union’s ideological and economic
appropriation and integration of recently acquitted territories considered especially
important in the Cold War battle for hearts and minds, as well as geographicalspaces. Moreover, documenting the East discouraged viewers from drawing
comparisons between their quality of life and the more rapid post-war economic
recovery of the capitalist West. By documenting Eastern Europe – essentially adomestic abroad – as part of foreign news, Svilova simultaneously provides evidenceof progress in the global socialist revolution while reasserting Khrushchev’s
cosmopolitan rhetoric. The shared purpose of both threads was to increase Soviet
patriotism.

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Many of the themes inherent to Foreign Newsreel no.4 are maintained by Svilova in
Foreign Newsreel no.6. For example, the motif of celebration that links stories from
Tunisia, India and Cambodia re-emerges in Foreign Newsreel no.6 in the form ofLabour Day commemorations. Svilova’s montage of shots from parades in Prague,
Warsaw and East Berlin occupies a large segment of the film. The inclusion of theseparticular cities implies that Svilova is promoting communist unity, a goal perhaps
foreseeable considering the socialist origins of Labour Day itself. The montages from
Prague and Warsaw are similar in design. First, both are based around street
processions. In Prague low-angle shots depict a balcony on which people wave at thepassing people below; they march and cheer, and banners blow in the wind. The
high-angle photography facilitates for the viewer a comprehension of the vast
number of people, who walk so tightly together that on occasion it is difficult todiscern one person from the next. Warsaw also hosts a parade enjoyed by a large
crowd: soldiers march holding flags; women march pushing prams in one hand andwaving flags with the other; and infants sit up in their prams to look at theirsurroundings. A high-angle wide-shot of the procession moving from right to left isfollowed by a reverse-angle of the same shot, eliciting conflict in movement. The
Prague montage contains similar juxtapositions: shots captured from camera
positions situated on opposite pavements conflict with one another, and the resulting
tension is augmented by the shot type – wide-angles precede extreme close-ups andvice versa. Last, two young women walk confidently and smile to the camera, clearlyrelishing its attention and the atmosphere of the event. A young man in militaryuniform walks in between the women and interlocks his arms in theirs. The trio
marches along with the procession, laughing at the young man’s bravado before
smiling again to the camera.

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Svilova represents the East Berlin celebration as a more formal and subdued event.
The camera pans across the interior of a stadium from pitchside, first capturing shotsof the politicians who are seated in the highest stand and then tilting down to capture
the lower stands where the public are gathered. A procession enters a wide-angle
shot from the left carrying white flags. People follow behind waving to the
bystanders. A high-angle shot depicts people walking right to left and waving to thecamera. Svilova arguably uses this shot to emphasise the range in demographic –women, children, soldiers and elderly people are all present to celebrate. The
concluding high-angle shot captures the street procession; the people walk right toleft across the shot, passing the Brandenburg Gate. This scene, in addition to thecelebrations shot in Prague and Warsaw, would have felt familiar to Soviet audiences.
Not only did similar events take place in Moscow annually but there would have also
been a cultural recognition triggered by the Warsaw Pact. Czechoslovakia, Poland
and the German Democratic Republic signed the pact, along with other member
states of the Eastern bloc, as a response to the forming of NATO the previous year.
In doing so, these countries pinned their loyalties to the communist side of Europe’s
dichotomy in the Soviet-led opposition to capitalism. Cultural recognition was not
limited to events in the post-war era but had been unfolding gradually since theSoviet Union’s expansion into the USSR in 1922.85 This sense of familiarity –audiences would have identified with events held in neighbouring Soviet states –suggests that foreign lands were only foreign to Soviet audiences in the sense thatthey existed outside Soviet borders. To Svilova, ‘foreign’ does not describe a strange
or exotic subject, as one might expect from a foreign newsreel. Emil Draitser recalledin his memoires that, ‘If the narrator [of the newsreel] hadn’t informed me that theaction takes place in Prague, Danzig or Bucharest, I would think that the footage wasshot in our country, the USSR.’86 Under the premise of cosmopolitanism, Svilova’s
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foreign-themed newsreels provided an opportunity for the Central Committee toproject Sovietness back onto itself, which allowed little room for state filmmakers to
expose audiences to anything genuinely foreign. Dissecting foreignness in this way,on a semantic level, reiterates my primary argument: Khrushchev’s commitment toeducating the Soviet masses on global affairs was driven by a need to legitimise
Central Committee policy and secure the population’s support.

Documenting the East and WestMy analysis of Svilova’s stories from China, India and Cambodia suggests that, evenwhen the scenes are to an extent foreign, the decision to document them was still apolitical one, and I have described the relations between the Soviet Union and theserespective countries to make clear why each story was considered newsworthy by theCentral Committee. Svilova also documents Chinese Labour Day celebrations in
Foreign Newsreel no.6, and by once again drawing on the concept of familiarity – in thisinstance, images that would have felt largely unfamiliar to Soviet audiences – it isevident that depicting otherness, and the consequential effect this had on thecontinual shaping of national identity, was a complex process. The scene begins witha high-angle shot of the procession moving left to right along a bank of the Chaobai
River in Peking. The procession is far more elaborate than those held in Warsaw or
Prague, comprising ornamented floats, decorated billboards and a greater number ofpeople. The people walking in the procession are captured in a side-angle shot; theyturn their heads and look into the camera, smiling and waving. The sequence isedited in such a way as to suggest that the smiles are directed at Mao who is watching
the procession from an elevated platform. The concluding segment of the story
communicates an inherently Chinese aspect of the proceedings. A series of shots
captured from a handheld camera positioned inside the procession imparts a carnival229

atmosphere that is heightened by medium close-up shots of women performing a
traditional Chinese dance routine, swivelling in their oriental clothing and dancing to
the beat of a drum. Wearing identical white outfits and captured in close-up, asecond dance group makes patterns using body movement to create a visual
spectacle. In contrast to the European celebrations, here Svilova documents an eventthat is steeped in foreign traditions, representative of a distant, outside world: an
exhibition of otherness comprising music, costume and dance.

Svilova’s objective for this story is to strengthen in the viewer’s mind the Sino-Soviet
allegiance, and the imparting of cultural awareness is an integral part of this process.
The Central Committee wanted audiences to appreciate and understand the nuancesof Chinese traditions, but only as a means of serving the political affiliation of bothcountries. The celebration of exoticism, particularly through the close-up shots of thecostumes, corresponds with the celebration of Central Asia in News of the Day no.60(1954). This is an important comparison because it suggests that, by this historicaljuncture, China had been initiated into the Soviet family, represented as a kind of
pseudo republic. Yet, while Svilova celebrates difference, the scene can also be readas a tribute to the progress China had made. It had matured from a primitive andbackward country existing in its own history, as seen in Yangtze River, to one withhistory. Svilova appears to acknowledge China’s break from history as well as thehistory itself. In this respect, the commemoration of China’s progress is not so muchindebted to the efforts of the Chinese population as it is to the effectiveness ofSoviet guidance since 1949. The sequence does not only use the festivities as a way ofrecognising China’s development – and in turn congratulating the ingenuity of theSoviet centralised system – a second possible reading is that it also serves to honour
the unifying power of socialism. It is important to remember that the sequence was230

shot on Labour Day, an appropriate time to mark China’s initiation into the Soviet
empire. The scenes in Peking reminded audiences that socialism draws people
together; differences in culture or ethnicity, though worth observing, pale incomparison to the strength of ideological congruence. So much was said to be shared
between the older and wiser Soviet Union and China that any significant expressionof ethnic or national difference is often eclipsed in favour of a socialist identity.

Once again, this reading supports Edward Said’s view that producers of knowledge
can extricate themselves from Orientalist discourse by acknowledging the
inextricable interdependence of East and West.87 As Xiaojia Hou argues, to maintainthe pretext of the Soviet Union’s guiding of less-developed countries, socialist
discourse proclaimed sameness.88 Although China was a foreign land with a distinct
culture and history, socialism negated the traits that afforded the country its
individuality. Mao’s ‘On People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ article written in June
1949, which outlined to the world China’s special relationship with the Soviet Union,suggested that socialism’s power to disavow the characteristics that provided China
its unique identity was a decisive selling point. 89 Mao was willing to sacrifice hiscountry’s distinctiveness as a preventative measure against ‘military intervention fromimperialist countries’, namely the United States.90

By situating China as a central figure in the socialist family, Svilova’s story remained
consonant with Khrushchev’s need to pacify Mao’s concerns about de-Stalinisation.
Despite Stalin’s ‘mistakes’, Mao still regarded him as a ‘great Marxist-Leninist
revolutionary leader’;91 to say otherwise would only have repudiated his grandenterprise of continuous revolution and undermined the centralised economic system
he had implemented.92 One of Stalin’s mistakes, in Mao’s opinion, was his failure to231treat China as equal. The representation depicted in Yangtze River, for example, wasoffensive to Mao, and through his criticism he served a reminder to Khrushchev thatsuch transgressions would no longer be tolerated. The formal elements of theprocession sequence, which appear to locate Mao as a deity looking down on his
subjects, reaffirms for Soviet audiences Mao’s status, and, though indirectly,
massaged the inflated sense of self-importance that had burgeoned since Stalin’s
death. Mao believed that he should have had a greater voice on questions concerning
the Sino-Soviet relationship and also on the fate of the entire communist movement.
As Chen Jian argues, when Mao criticised Stalin’s mistakes he was asserting that henow occupied the morally paramount position to dictate the direction of the worldproletarian revolution.93 Another reading of Svilova’s story, therefore, might interpret
it as a visual response to Mao’s haughtiness, a means of humouring his ego without
surrendering any significant ground in what was, even at its most cordial, aprecarious relationship.

The need of the Central Committee to appear resilient to the socialist world while
simultaneously attempting to reconcile with nations of the West resulted in acomplex rhetoric that is not only evident within Svilova’s Foreign Newsreel episodes
but in many ways defined the overall purpose of the series. Foreign Newsreel no.9, forexample, depicts five Chinese women using a photograph of the Empire State
Building as a guide to stitch the image onto a huge piece of canvas. The use of an
American icon, one that symbolised the profits of capitalism and was at the time theworld’s tallest building, cannot be overlooked. As Gordon Chang has argued,
relations between China and the United States were considerably hostile during thisperiod; events in Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea had contributed to a state ofpermanent aggression between the two countries.94 It is difficult, therefore, to fathom232

a scenario whereby Mao would sanction the production of American-inspired
artwork. It is more logical to interpret the artwork as a Soviet initiative. Despite thetempestuous relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in the
post-war period, the mid-1950s witnessed efforts for reconciliation. At the Geneva
Summit in July 1955 Khrushchev outlined a future of peaceful coexistence withcapitalism, also meeting with Eisenhower personally to discuss the Central
Committee’s concerns about the Soviet economy.95 In the following year
Khrushchev used his secret speech as the platform for a number of peace treaties,
mostly pertaining to arms reduction, trade agreements and general steps toward deStalinisation. In light of these surrounding events, I interpret Svilova’s story as one
designed to inform Soviet audiences that, along with the Soviet Union, China wasalso thawing its relationship with the United States. Documenting these Chinese
women is for Svilova a process of legitimisation, an attempt to silence any concerns
from inside Soviet borders that Khrushchev was abandoning his communist allies toconspire with the enemy.

As part of Khrushchev’s efforts to appease Soviet relations with the United States,
Svilova documents a story about oncological research being undertaken at the
University of San Francisco. Beginning in 1954, Central Committee files include
descriptions of trips by Soviet scientists to capitalist countries.96 Svilova’s story
suggests to audiences that the Soviet-imagined West was not intended as a site fordeveloping individualism but was for learning and affirming officially approved
aspects of Western civilisation. The Central Committee determined which aspects ofAmerican modernisation and technological innovations could be adopted, tolerated
or forcibly suppressed. In this case, advancements in ontological research werebreakthroughs from which the Soviet Union hoped to benefit. The story was233

included as part of Foreign Newsreel no.6. Svilova establishes the medical institute, abuilding with modern architecture, in a mid-shot at street level. Two male doctors
stand together in a two-shot inspecting their medical equipment. A montage of closeups captures the laboratory’s revolutionary equipment and machinery. A low-angle
mid-shot depicts a female patient seated inside a CT scanner. One of the doctors,
now seated near the patient in front of his equipment, presses a series of buttons.
Framed in close-up, the scanner begins to function and lights appear near thepatient’s neck. Shot from the previous low-angle, the chair in which the patient sits
begins to rotate. The doctor is depicted controlling a dial with his hand, shot fromhis point of view. A slight movement of the dial slows the patient’s chair to a halt,
which is captured in a closing mid-shot. By focusing on the technology, Svilova
glorifies the scientific abilities of the United States and identifies the country as theleading authority on cancer detection.

Despite the Soviet Union’s admiration for the contribution of the United States tothe fight against global diseases, the relationship between the two countries remainedlargely belligerent. Disagreements over relations in the Far East – namely Soviet
investments in Chinese, North Korean and Indian development – ultimately negatedany progress. This investment was communicated to Soviet audiences through thevariety of stories I have already discussed, as well as through sequences shot within
Soviet borders. Svilova’s foreign stories worked in conjunction with the documentingof domestic events, forming together a rhetoric of legitimisation. For example, Newsof the Day no.49 (1955) documents the visit of Homi Bhabha to the University of
Moscow.97 Bhabha was an esteemed Indian physician and the director of India’s
nuclear weapons programme. Khrushchev spoke openly against nuclear weapons,
but his willingness to support Bhabha’s research – corroborated by his and234

Bulganin’s visit to Bhabha’s nuclear research institute in Mumbai during their tour of
India in November 1955 – highlighted the complex position he occupied on thesubject. Although Bhabha’s visit was not shot overseas, and by definition was notforeign to the Soviet Union, it reflected the tentative and contradictory nature ofSoviet foreign policy, shaped by Khrushchev’s need to reassure audiences that his
stance of peaceful coexistence was not symptomatic of weakness.98

Cultural exchanges might not have succeeded in thawing relations between the Soviet
Union and the United States but minor progress was made in other establishedcapitalist countries. Foreign Newsreel no.4, for example, contains two stories shot inGreat Britain. The first concerns the visit of Georgy Malenkov to Calder Hall in
Cumbria, Britain’s first nuclear power plant, on 26 March, 1956.99 His trip was
followed by Khrushchev’s tour of Britain between 18 and 27 April. The report from
Calder Hall was directly linked to the arms race. The story cast a positive light on
Great Britain and suggests that any unity between developments in British and Soviet
industry would prove fruitful for both economies. The story begins with a wide-angle
shot of the plant. A handheld tracking shot of the delegation approaching theentrance is followed by an extreme low-angle shot capturing the inside of the plant.
Its vast height renders the open roof barely detectable on the horizon of the shot.
The delegation’s reaction to the magnitude and innovation of the plant is captured ina series of facial close-up shots. While the delegation is taken on a tour of the plant,
the head of each official turns in a different direction as they absorb theirsurroundings. The story concludes with two wide-angle shots of the plant, allowing
the audience to appreciate fully its size and scale. Svilova’s second story from GreatBritain is coverage of the Boat Race. This story might have been intended as a
gesture of goodwill: if Britain were to share its nuclear power facility with the Soviet
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Union then, in return, the Soviet Union would show interest in quintessential British
culture. Svilova commences the sequence with an establishing shot of the boat
house, before selecting a mid-shot of a rowing boat being lowered into the water.
Once the teams start rowing, Svilova assembles a montage of shots captured from acamera positioned on the bow of an engine-driven boat shooting the teams rowing
away from the camera. The Oxford team’s synchronised rowing is portrayed in midshot, the camera capturing the effort exerted by each member through medium
close-ups. Conflicting with the previous camera position, Svilova selects shot fromthe stern of a boat sailing ahead of the racing boats. The concluding shot, captured
from a position on Chiswick Bridge, depicts the Cambridge team crossing the finish
line in first place.

The sequence depicts Great Britain as strong, determined and spirited. The boat raceis an important choice of event as it allows Svilova to highlight the scholarly
reputation of the country – Soviet audiences could enjoy observing a physicalcompetition between two of the world’s most illustrious universities – and, as with
Soviet discourse, underscore the perfect combination of human strength, courage
and intelligence. Svilova had documented quintessential Britishness for the final timein Foreign Newsreel no.6, editing shots of the 1956 F.A. Cup Final between Manchester
City and Birmingham City. The sequence begins with a high-angle establishing shotof Wembley Stadium, followed by a wide-angle shot of cheering fans. The players
warm up on the pitch, captured in a high-angle shot. Svilova then selects an eye-level
shot tracking backwards of the players walking onto the field; the camera stops toallow the teams to walk either side of the camera. The match itself is documented
from numerous camera positions in the stands and pitchside. A number of shots ofthe crowd cheering and dignitaries in the royal box are juxtaposed with the action on236

the pitch. Often Svilova selects shots that do not offer a comprehensible account of
the action; for example, she selects shots of players who are not involved in thematch at that moment. Also, although the result was three goals to one in
Manchester City’s favour, only two goals appear in the sequence.

Svilova’s chaotic and unmethodical handling of the footage cannot be attributed to alack of usable shots. A comparison with British Pathé’s coverage of the event, whichcontains all the important action in chronological order, confirms that the necessary
stock footage was available to document the match in full.100 Therefore, if Svilova’s
inability to collate the footage in a traditional manner cannot be explained by a dearthof usable footage, it might instead be attributed to her lack of experience
documenting an event of this nature, a point her filmography supports. There is apossibility that she is simply unsure of the etiquette; i.e. what constitutes the‘highlights’ of a football match. The popularity of football in the Soviet Union in the
1950s, however, renders this scenario somewhat unconvincing. The only remaining
viable likelihood is that there is a motivation on Svilova’s part to impose her own
style on the proceedings. Cutting between cameras positioned on both sides of thepitch, Svilova challenges the audience to keep up with the action: both teams appear
to attack both goals simultaneously, a pattern complicated further by the teams’changing of ends at half time. Eliciting conflict from the footage is in this instanceunnecessary and in fact detrimental to the viewer’s comprehension of the event.
Criticism aside, Svilova succeeds in creating a dramatic and energetic sequence that
not only complements the thrill and spectacle of the occasion but also the talent andathleticism of the footballers involved. Relations between the Soviet Union andGreat Britain deteriorated in July 1956, two months after the football match, when
Britain, France and Israel declared war on Egypt, a Soviet ally.
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Conclusion
This chapter has argued that Svilova’s foreign stories were part of Khrushchev’s
efforts to re-image the Soviet Union as a modern and progressive country, and thetiming of Foreign Newsreel’s introduction supports this premise. On the surface, its
creation implied that the Central Committee wanted to educate Soviet citizens on
global events and international customs. However, Svilova’s documenting of othersocialist countries did not necessarily signify a foreign point of view; their common
interests evoke almost self-representation. There is a sense of elasticity in the waythat Svilova controls the distance between the ‘here’ and ‘there’, pulling countries
closer in an attempt to negate difference, or to push them further away, underlining
cultural disparity and repositioning the Other as unfamiliar through a lens ofimperialism – what can be understood as a regression back to the Orientalist
portrayals of the Stalin era. The Central Committee used foreign lands as a means ofcommunicating rhetoric to Soviet audiences under the pretext of cosmopolitanism.
This pretext was important because it fitted in with Khrushchev’s long-term plan to
re-image the country by gradually loosening the control imposed on the population
during Stalin’s dictatorship while, in reality, mobilising cinema as the same tool oflegitimisation that was used so effectively by Stalin to establish his cult of personality.
Svilova’s films of the 1953 to 1956 era coalesce cautious optimism about permitting a
now Sovietised ‘difference’ with profound anxiety about the threats too much of thismight pose. As Anne Gorsuch has argued, exposure to capitalist societies was a
crucial step in legitimising foreign policy, an ideologically charged topic at the heartof Central Committee discussions throughout the Cold War.101

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The benefits of documenting capitalist societies were understood to outweigh therisks. As the masses learned about new places and people, exposure to the capitalist
Other was supposed to help the Soviet population become more Soviet by shaping
its collective identity in terms of what it knew it was not. This relates to the ultimate
purpose of Svilova’s foreign-themed films: to reassert in audiences passion for andcommitment to the building of the utopian socialist empire. The way in which
Svilova documents other socialist countries, using them as a platform for the Central
Committee to express itself and in the process eliciting a fraternal socialist bond,reminds us of socialism’s perceived attractiveness. To impoverished people struggling
to improve their lives, the Soviet promise of economic equality and rapid
development had a strong allure, while its idealistic vision of shared burdens andbrotherhood held a deeply spiritual attraction, particularly, as Christina Klein argues,
to populations in the East.102

My initial objective for this chapter was to read Svilova’s foreign stories as signposts
for a country in a state of transition. The stories represent Khrushchev’s attempts torenew the image of the Soviet Union in a global context: they mark the repercussionsof the Warsaw Pact, efforts to spread communism to the Far East and the Central
Committee’s taut relationship with the capitalist world. However, this chapter has
not only acknowledged a reshaping of Soviet identity but has, from a Soviet
perspective, observed similar transformations in the countries Svilova documents:
India’s early period of independence, Great Britain’s first experimentations with
nuclear power and King Suramarit’s coronation, for example, point to a widerreaching scope of national redefinition. Moreover, the stories can be used to map
variations in the policies of countries indirectly referenced. Pakistan’s growing
relationship with the United States in a story from India, increasingly cold relations
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between Taiwan and China in a story from Danzig, and the enduring Sino-Soviet
partnership in a story from Cambodia provide an insight into the 1950s on aninternational scale, a period defined by changes in leadership, the gaining of national
autonomy and insecurities about armament. Yet, while the brief nature of newsreel
made it an effective medium to disseminate ideology to the masses, opportunities tolearn more about Svilova as a director-editor are limited; delivered in short packages,
analysing the films is a difficult task. Nevertheless, their importance should not be
underestimated. If my conclusions are accurate, in that the films explored in thischapter can be interpreted as an insight into global relations during a highly
politicised period of the twentieth century, then Svilova occupies a significant
position. The films allow for our recognition of Svilova as a major contributor to thepreservation of modern history, not least a vital constituent of documentary cinema.

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Chapter 5:Conclusion

By highlighting the Central Committee’s deployment of cinema as a tool oflegitimisation, I have made clear the purpose of Svilova’s films and assessed how
they fitted into the agenda ascribed to the medium. Svilova puts to use her artistic
prowess to prompt the viewer to make the cognitive leap between the images onscreen – of sporting events, cultural ceremonies and distant lands – and Central
Committee policy. Through shot selection and montage assembly, she encourages
audiences to perceive the images as rhetoric and, in turn, shape their emotional
response. I have linked Svilova’s use of shot juxtaposition to the semiotic theories
associated with the Soviet montage school of the 1920s, which has allowed for an
identification of the catalysts that trigger the generation of meaning. Svilova’s atrocity
films are exceptions to this pattern in that they do not only comply with the state’s
use of cinema as a tool of legitimisation but are constructed according to Allied
strategy and the indictments that catalogued the crimes of the Nazis – Svilova
designed Oświęcim and Atrocities to fit into the post-war rhetoric that did not
acknowledge Jewish suffering. Beyond omitting visual imagery connected to Jews,
Svilova organises the remaining footage to emphasise the pain inflicted by the Nazis
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in their pursuit of global domination. For example, she elicits the audience’s
emotional response by contravening established patterns of editing and, particularly
in Atrocities, focuses on visceral shots with the force to wound the spectator. The
film’s grievability – its power to engage the audience in pathos – is measured by anumber of scenes that augment one’s sensory response to the horrors depicted. In
prioritising images with visceral impact, it can be argued that Svilova consciously
stresses the atrocities audiences could comprehend, those that each viewer could
picture and recreate in his or her mind.

Svilova’s mobilisation of the female population is arguably the most prominent traitof her films. By drawing on Lilya Kaganovsky, Anne Eakin Moss and Jackie Stacey, I
have been able to link the representation of Svilova’s ‘celluloid heroines’ to wider
discussions of gender representation and engage theoretically with the desires of thefemale spectator. Svilova constructs a complex interplay of similarity and difference
between the female spectator and the female ideal – their need to be inspired in theirreal-life pursuits while simultaneously escaping from them. Although this interplay
legitimises the policies of the Central Committee, the proliferation of women’s
stories, and the unwaveringly positive depiction of the new Soviet woman resonatingfrom each one, together imply that this mode of representation was not forced upon
Svilova but instead might reveal an agenda on her part to support and encourage her
fellow Soviet sisters in a time of gender upheaval and insecurity.

Juxtaposition plays a featured role in Svilova’s handling of gender policy, particularlyin the construction of the socialist fantasy, allowing women to escape the drudgery of
their lives and dream of a safe, peaceful working environment. By highlighting the
dress and hair of the feminine ideal, Svilova assembles the shots to inform the female242

viewer that certain occupations will allow them to overcome the masculinity ofindustrialisation and retain their femininity. Promotion from blue-collar labour was
not only a means to financial independence and an escape from the exhausting workof construction sites and coal mines, it enabled women to be women, to preserve
their feminine characteristics and refined qualities. Preserving their feminine
characteristics is perceived as a victory, an act of patriotism equal to that of thewomen who have sacrificed their femininity on the path to the socialist utopia.
Svilova’s montage arrangements, then, serve to empower and unify women. In the
post-war era, she constructs from the images of liberation and solidarity cinematic
icons of femininity. International Democratic Federation of Women focuses on Nina
Popova, a signifier for the Soviet Union’s growing influence in the Eastern bloc,
while the closing shot of the following year’s conference in Paris features Vera
Mukhina’s statue, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, which reasserts to the spectator thepivotal role of women in the reconstruction of the Soviet Union. A timepiece offemale inspiration, creativity and vision, the artwork underpins the central message ofthe federation and the Soviet influence within its ranks.

My analysis of Svilova’s foreign stories discussed the evolving representation ofotherness, from the insular Soviet Union of the Stalin era, where Eastern
backwardness is not only highlighted as different to the advanced Soviet Union but
also where this difference is simultaneously seen to be steadily eroding in order torender Soviet willingness to guide countries such as China and Kazakhstan aphilanthropic gesture – Svilova’s socialist discourse proclaims sameness while
reinforcing a hierarchy of power. Beyond legitimising Stalin’s decision to adopt China
as an ally and integrate countries in Central Asia as Soviet republics, Svilova’s films of243this period are ultimately self-congratulatory, designed to encourage in Soviet
audiences a sense of pride in their country’s charitable nature.
The gradual change in the representation of China – from a feminised, submissive
country with a penchant for outdated spirituality explored in Yangtze River, to thestronger and more resourceful nation observed in News of the Day no.1 (1956) –reflects clearly how Svilova’s films are tools of legitimisation. The evolution of theEastern ally, which mapped the nuances of the relationship between the twocountries, guided the perception of Soviet audiences. Acknowledging China as acentral figure in the socialist family was consonant with Khrushchev’s need to pacify
Mao’s concerns about de-Stalinisation; it was a means of humouring Mao’s ego
without surrendering any significant ground in what was, even at its most cordial, aprecarious affiliation. Svilova’s newsreels also inform us how the Central Committee
went as far as to use China as a pawn in its plans to build a relationship with theUnited States, legitimising its decision to initiate peaceful coexistence by intimatingthat China too was keen to improve relations with the capitalist superpower. While
the News of the Day films are often regarded as stale and void of artistry, my analysis
suggests that they include important traits of Svilova’s editorial repertoire and, just as
importantly, can be used ‘as a source for the study of the possibilities of ideologicalinfluence on the everyday consciousness of Soviet citizens’.1 With knowledge ofhistory broadened, Svilova’s newsreels help to fill in the blank spots of Soviet film by
allowing us today to create a socio-psychological profile of her audience.

Exploring Svilova’s evolving depiction of otherness has been crucial to a study of her
films because it helps to connect the various facets of her contribution to Soviet
cinema. The transformation of the Other that takes place in her films – from astrange and primitive being to one with whom Svilova positively engages – is most244

explicitly read through her representation of women: the feminine ideal of the postwar era incorporates Eastern ethnicity, redefining for the female spectator the objectof her desire and the parameters of national identity. The agricultural clothing wornby the traktoristka in Soviet Kazakhstan, captured in a montage of close-ups, disguises
any notion of the exotic. Her androgynous protective clothing demonstrates, alongwith the tractor itself, the successful Sovietisation of Kazakhstan. Differences incorresponding ethnicity are hidden behind agricultural clothing on a literal level andSovietness on a more abstract level, for ultimately it is the Sovietisation ofagricultural methods that renders any distinctions imperceptible to audiences. Yet,these efforts to nullify, or at least disguise, the differences between the Western andEastern populations of the Soviet empire eventually cease after Stalin’s death. The
story narrating Tajik fruit-pickers in News of the Day no.60 (1954) implies that Eastern
Soviet women are free to be Soviet while remaining loyal to their traditions.

By focusing on the aesthetic details of the women, their strikingly colourful dresses,
highly decorated with patterns of gold, and their exotic headwear, Svilova celebrates
the women’s distinctiveness. Close-up shots of the dress are juxtaposed with shots of
the agricultural produce, the latter serving as a metaphor for the workers themselves.
The women are crops in as much the same way as the fruit they yield – a product ofcare and cultivation – assuming them the same parental role as the party: they are thecaregivers and life-providers. The attention paid to their femininity suggests that,
despite their dedication to the state, they have retained the customs of their heritage,and Svilova wants audiences to acknowledge its beauty and value in a worldcommitted to modernism and industrialisation.

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My analysis of the Eastern ideal concludes, first, that Svilova’s handling of Self andOther, and the means of expressing – or separating – the two, are deeply problematic,
and, second, that feminism is a key category for exploring assimilation into andexclusion from the Soviet community. Jane Miller has argued that, in laying thefoundations of Orientalism, Edward Said largely ignored women as participants inimperial power relations.2 Applying this notion to Svilova, her role in determining theformal stylistic and thematic markers used to construct a relationship between thesubjects and the audience – or the East and West – point to the hand of a female
editor. It is important to note that including Eastern women into the model of theideal served above all to highlight the Soviet Union’s adoption of cosmopolitanism,
an outlook Svilova documents throughout her films of the mid-1950s, particularly inher construction of the ‘Soviet abroad’.

The guise of cosmopolitanism was crucial because it fitted in with Khrushchev’s
long-term strategy to re-image the Soviet Union by gradually loosening the control
imposed on the population during Stalin’s dictatorship while, in reality, using cinema
as the same tool of legitimisation and mobilisation that was used so effectively by
Stalin to establish his cult of personality. Revolving around a type of local difference,
the Soviet abroad sought to position Eastern Europe as a domestic, yet exotic, land.
This was an intentional contradiction, a means of drawing attention to the region’sshared socialist identity. Audiences were encouraged to collude in the fantasy ofdifference by acknowledging other regions in Eastern Europe as remote territory andallowing themselves to believe that the revolution was having a greater and farreaching global impact than it perhaps was. A form of patriotic redress, Svilova’s
depiction of ‘otherness’ engages audiences in a ritual of public self-admiration onwhich the prestige of the Soviet Union is perpetually reaffirmed.
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My analysis of Svilova’s editorial techniques has identified her contribution. The
acknowledgement of her contribution is important for two main reasons: it confirmsthat Svilova was an artist whose creativity was the result of a conscious decisionmaking process and, despite its unifying objective, it argues that the Soviet industry
comprised creative and industrious artists whose individual voices can be locatedthrough rigorous analysis. This last point suggests that a film read with anappreciation of its maker and creative abilities offers more valuable results than a film
read in isolation. It is far more fruitful, and enjoyable, to read them as a whole bodyof work and connect them according to what we know about their common
denominator. Therefore, the methodologies I have employed to identify theprevailing traits of Svilova’s editorial repertoire have pedagogical appeal, in that they
represent a model for other researchers dedicated to distinguishing a voice withinsimilarly elusive production processes.

Beyond recognising Svilova’s contribution, my thesis has highlighted the snares thathave beset her legacy. In doing so, I have argued that Svilova’s work is worthy ofgreater and, more importantly, of a different type of attention than it has received
until now. Inconsistencies in filmographies, biographies and archive catalogues haveresulted in a disjointed and ambiguous picture of Svilova’s contribution.
Characterised by numerous collaborations and various production roles (mostnotably alongside a film pioneer) and by her gender, her films have not until now
been deemed compatible with traditional texts of film history. This perceived
incompatibility effaced Svilova’s body of work, and the same can be said forcountless other women filmmakers who have been suppressed, disregarded andforgotten, so that in terms of film scholarship, classification and canonisation they
are nowhere, or only somewhere peripheral, to be found. As one can gather from the247many catalogues, compilations, and histories in which early women filmmakers are
scarcely mentioned, filmographies and archive catalogues do not tell us as muchabout films and filmmakers as they do about the status of our knowledge on thesubject. The inconsistencies in records dealing with Svilova’s legacy inform us that,
unlike conventional resources which undermine the need for discussion bypresenting their findings as fact, as Radha Vatsal argues, we need sources that
foreground their research procedures, thereby accounting for and underlining thecontingency and limits of their knowledge, and in turn encouraging further
investigations and multiple conclusions.3 In this respect, my project represents aprocess of analysis and close reading, but also an opportunity to rethink early film
history and the modes through which historiographic and filmographic knowledge
are transmitted.

Researching Svilova’s contribution to Soviet documentary film practice has
broadened my horizons to future studies. The most pressing issue is to continue
uncovering the women filmmakers who were prominent in the Soviet industry. I
have mentioned numerous other directors who have up to now received little to no
critical attention. Detailed analysis of the films of Olga Preobrazhenskaya,
Aleksandra Khokhlova and Yulia Solntseva, for example, would, first, allow for awider appreciation of the contribution women made to the industry, and, second,
prevent the risk of my research becoming isolated. My interest in uncovering further
female influences within Soviet cinema and, more specifically, the relationshipbetween the gender of a filmmaker and modes of representation, alludes to a second
interest directly related to my studies. On a number of occasions, Svilova’s
representation of women was designed either to celebrate or denigrate an Eastern
Other. My analysis of stories from China, India, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan suggests
248

that gender can be used to explore how and why the populations of these countries
were included into – or excluded from – the Soviet family. I would like to develop
this thread beyond Soviet contexts. While Svilova’s films edify our knowledge of theconstruction of national identity in the formative post-war years of the Soviet Union,
when the borders and socialist fraternity were subject to interminable growth andreduction, comparative studies might determine to what extent colonial women in,for example, British newsreels were constructed as ‘British’. This analysis would
allow us to understand further the common points of identity certain civilisations in
specific periods of history deemed themselves to have. Moreover, it would be
essential to map how these points were shaped according to external influences orinterventions, such as the threat of military attack or technological innovation.

Comparing newsreel representations across international borders is an exercise I haveto an extent already undertaken. The way in which Svilova edits the highlights of the1956 F.A. Cup Final has drawn my attention to the sharing of footage and its
consequent re-editing by individual newsreel studios. Any research that attempts totrace how source footage of an event is reassembled to accommodate audiences indifferent countries and across varying time periods would not only encourage fresh
insight into our awareness of editorial practices but could also allow for a stronger
comprehension of the event in question. As my analysis of Svilova’s atrocity footage
has demonstrated, the policies to which she complies provide more of a lesson on
the political climate during the aftermath of World War II than it does on the war
itself. Throughout my research it has been crucial I understood, or at least tried tounderstand, the thought processes behind Svilova’s organisation of the footage andhow these processes relate to, and comply with, the overarching policies of theCentral Committee. My point above indicates that this was a particularly complex
249

task in my analysis of war footage, especially Atrocities. I would like to use this film as
a departure point for a more detailed study of cinema and law, exploring footage
employed to provide evidence of a crime and also footage that documents trials, thelatter of which can be assembled to determine whether audiences believe the trial was
conducted fairly and, more importantly, whether the defendant(s) is/are guilty.
Footage of this nature is endowed with a power that eludes most, if not all, others.
Since Nuremberg, cameras have become a feature of courtrooms, particularly in the
United States where the creation of Court TV in 1991 rose in popularity after thehigh-profile case of O.J. Simpson four years later. The presentation of courtroom
footage for television and film audiences is a relatively undiscovered field, researchedin only a handful of books and articles such as Marjorie Cohn and David Dow’s
Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice (2002) and Jennifer L.
Mnookin’s ‘Reproducing a Trial: Evidence and Its Assessment in Paradise Lost’.
Documentaries such as the Paradise Lost trilogy (Berlinger, 1996-2012), Murder on a
Sunday Morning (de Lastrade, 2003), The Staircase (de Lastrade, 2004), Witch Hunt
(Hardy Jr. and Nachman, 2008) and Presumed Guilty (Hernández and Smith, 2008)
constitute a genre that encourages a theoretical engagement with the techniques
employed to assemble such sensitive and commanding footage.

My analysis of Svilova’s films has come as part of a general effort in film studies torewrite history by empowering female subjects, texts and readings. As long asfilmmakers such as Svilova remain marginalised, projects of this nature are critical.
The subject of my thesis arose from the premise that mapping a history of women’s
engagement in cinema meant being willing to explore the range of techniques inwhich women produced, consumed and performed in the growing industry. Insofar
as Svilova was somewhat exceptional in her early and productive engagement in the250male-dominated field of filmmaking, giving room to this specific subject has been along overdue but culturally vital gesture. Kay Armatage makes a strong claim for thevalue of research into women filmmakers: ‘Besides the fact that we [Western culture]
do not know much about them, they enlighten our understanding of the industry andwomen’s position within it.’4 Armatage alludes to the notion that Shipman’s
authorship is worth going back to, not because she was unjustly ignored in theconstruction of film history, or because she was unique and ahead of her time
(Armatage admits that this was the original premise of her research), but because her
work ‘welcomes a variety of readings and unfolds issues of modernity, genericconventions and cinematic practice’.5 Likewise, my thesis has sought to identify
important threads within the films of a female director-editor, one who can help us
to address issues of national identity (its construction and defence), politicallegitimacy and mass mobilisation. The power bestowed on cinema by the Soviet
authorities is not a new discovery, but my analysis of Svilova’s films has provided
original insight into the exact nature of this power and a fresh appreciation of its
force.

251

252

NotesIntroduction
1 Julia Wright, ‘Making the Cut: Female Editors and Representation in the Film and Media

Industry’, http://www.csa/publications/newsletters/academic-year-2008-09, accessed 28
November, 2011.
2 Lynne Attwood, ‘The Stalin Era’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver Screen(London: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 54.
3 Tom Gunning, ‘The Whole World Within Reach: Travel Images Without Borders’, inJeffrey Ruoff (ed.), Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel (London: Duke University Press, 2006),
p. 25.

Chapter One
1 All the autobiographies are stored on one roll of microfilm, archived under the label

2091/2/483.
2 Annette Michelson (ed.), Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov (London: Pluto, 1984), p. 12.
3 Masha Enzenberger, ‘Elizaveta Svilova’, in Annette Kuhn and Susannah Radstone (eds.),

The Woman’s Companion to International Film (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p.
390.
4 Gwendolyn Foster, Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary (Westport:

Greenwood Press, 1995), pp. 349-350.
5 Peter Rollberg, The Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema (Plymouth: Scarecrow

Press, 2009), p. 675.
6 Translated and reprinted in Yuri Tsivian (ed.), Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties(Pordenone: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2004), pp. 87-89.
7 Enzenberger, The Woman’s Companion to International Film, p. 390.
8 Rollberg, The Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, p. 675.

253

9 Peter Waldron, The End of Imperial Russia, 1855-1917 (London: St Martin’s Press, 1997), p.

97.
10 Peter Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 43.
11 Richard Taylor and Ian Christie (eds.), The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema inDocuments 1896-1939 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988), p. 57.
12 Ibid.
13 Rashit Yangirov, ‘Onwards and Upwards: The Origins of the Lenin Cult in Soviet Cinema’,in Richard Taylor and Derek Spring (eds.), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (Routledge: London,1993), p. 30.
14 Yangirov, Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, p. 30.
15 Ibid, p. 31.
16 Elizaveta Vertova-Svilova and Anna Vinogradova (eds.), Dziga Vertov in the Memories of his

Contemporaries (Moscow, 1976), p. 6.
17 Cited in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 88.
18 Birgit Beumers, A History of Russian Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2009), p. 40.
19 Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, p. 43.
20 Ibid, p. 40.
21 Ibid, p. 102.
22 Ibid, p. 105.
23 Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 253.
24 Mezhrabpom was originally named Rus. Rus was established in 1915 under the financial

backing of Michael Trofimov and the artistic guidance of Alexander Sanin, an establishedtheatre director. The change from Rus to Mezhrabpom came in 1923 when the Worker’s
International Relief (WIR) acquired Rus as an investment. WIR had been established toprovide aid to victims of the Russian famine. From its offices in Berlin, the organisation
solicited relief funds from various leftist organisations in Europe and the United States. WIR
promptly turned to film as a means of advancing relief efforts. In the course of supplying
materials to several Soviet industries from 1922 to 1924, WIR supplied Goskino and other
Soviet film companies with celluloid and equipment; this advance was to be redeemed when
WIR received distribution rights for future Soviet feature productions. See Vance Kepley Jr,‘The Origins of Soviet Cinema: A Study in Industrial Development’, in Richard Taylor and
Ian Christie (eds.), Inside the Film Factory (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 70.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Cited in J. Hoberman, ‘A Face to the Shtetl: Soviet Yiddish Cinema 1924-36’, in Richard

Taylor and Ian Christie (eds.), Inside the Film Factory (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 149.
28 Michelson, Kino-Eye, pp. 172-189.

254

29 John MacKay, ‘Dziga Vertov’, http://www.yale.edu/slavic/resources/download/Dziga-

Vertov-Short-Biography-MacKay-1.doc, accessed 3 July, 2009.
30 Cited in Michelson, Kino-Eye, pp. 214-220.
31 Ibid, p. 190.
32 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 122.
33 D.W. Spring suggests that the Central Committee called for Soiuzkinokhronika to bedisbanded. The studio temporarily existed as the Moscow Central Newsreel before becoming
the Central Studio for Documentary Film. The Central Committee was also dissatisfied with
the Moscow Central Newsreel, due mainly to the studio’s apparent failure to record
important incidences during World War II. The management at the studio defended its
methods and claimed that a higher degree of organisation had been sacrificed to improve theworking conditions for the camera operators. The Central Committee did not share thestudio’s concern for its workers, nor did it acknowledge the heroic efforts the workers had
made to portray the country at war. See D.W. Spring, ‘Soviet Newsreel and the Great
Patriotic War’, in Nicholas Pronay and D.W. Spring (eds.), Propaganda, Politics and Film 191845, second edition (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1986), p. 286.
34 Leonid Kozlov, ‘The Artist and the Shadow of Ivan’, in Richard Taylor and Derek Spring(eds.), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 172. The directors of thelocal camera divisions, who until 1944 had focused on the human interest aspect of war,
were instructed by the management of the Central Studio for Documentary Film (thendirected by established theatre and film director, Sergei Gerasimov) to concentrate the cruxof their newsreels on the Red Army’s strategic operations. The images of war – the bloodied
bandages, weary soldiers and the myriad of corpses – all captured from real life battlefields
rather than reconstructed on a film set, were considered too candid for the general
population. Peter Kenez summarises the tone of the later Soviet war films in that ‘during theStalinist years artists did not dare to touch upon any genuine issue facing society. Directors
either turned to the past for subject matter, or depicted a never-never land of smiling andsinging collective farmworkers.’34 Berlin (Raizman/Svilova, 1945) is an example of thedepersonalised approach to narration the studio adopted. Post-produced graphics map theadvancement of the Red Army from Stalingrad to Berlin, while the voiceover details eachindividual strategy that led Marshal Zhukov and the Red Army to victory.
35 All the Pumpyanskaya references are taken from ‘I Dreamed of Working in a Studio’,Kinozapiski 62 (October 2002).
36

John MacKay, ‘Dziga Vertov’, in Stephen Norris and William Sunderland (eds.), Russia’s

People of Empire (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 291.
37 After the revolution, the Bolshevik faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic

Labour Party became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Central Committee255

was then absorbed into the Communist Party. I do not refer to Bolsheviks or Bolshevism
because these terms are deemed incompatible with Stalin’s rule of government. Instead, toprovide continuity from the revolution to the Khrushchev era, I refer to the governing bodyas the Central Committee.
38 Cited in Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (Michigan: University of Michigan, 2005), p.

157.
39 Jamie Miller, Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion under Stalin (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), p.

8.
40 Ibid.
41 Richard Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema 1917-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1979), p. 43.
42 A. Voronsky, Iskusstvo ekrana. Rukovodstvo dlya kino-akterov I rezhisserov (1924). Translated in

Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, p. 33.
43 Boris Eichenbaum, Poetika Kino (1917). Translated in Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema,

p. 35.
44 Miller, Soviet Cinema, p. 9.
45 Cited in Ted Parry, Masterpieces in Modernist Cinema (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006),

p. 103.
46 Valeriya Selunskaya and Maria Zezina, ‘Documentary Film – A Soviet Source’, in Richard

Taylor and Derek Spring (eds.), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 178.
47 Cited in Lynne Attwood, ‘The Stalin Era’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver

Screen (London: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 54.
48 Cited in Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, p. 108.
49 Ibid, p. 112.
50 Peter Kenez, ‘Soviet Cinema in the Age of Stalin’, in Richard Taylor and Derek Spring(eds.), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 55.
51 R. Pikel, Zhizn Iskusstva (April 1928). Translated in Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, p.

118.
52 Miller, Soviet Cinema, p. 93.
53 Ibid, p. 94.
54 Ibid, pp. 92-93.
55 Ibid, p. 100.
56 Ibid.
57 The GRK (State Repertoire Committee) was established in 1923 as a means to uphold theCentral Committee’s policy of legitimisation. In 1936 it was absorbed into the All-Union
Committee for the Arts, before becoming part of the Cinema Committee structure in 1938.
See Miller, Soviet Cinema, pp. 53-55.

256

58 Ibid, p. 55.
59 Cited in Miller, Soviet Cinema, p. 61.
60 Miller, Soviet Cinema, p. 62.
61 Ibid, p. 102.
62 Kenez, Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, p. 61.
63 Miller, p. 94.
64 Ibid, p. 100.
65 Ibid.
66 Ivan Bolshakov, Sovetskoe Iskusstvo (20 March, 1951). Translated in Ian Christie, ‘The

Director in Soviet Cinema’, in Richard Taylor and Derek Spring (eds.), Stalinism and Soviet
Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 166.
67 Kenez, Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, p. 55.
68 Ibid, p. 63.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid, p. 66.
71 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 116.
72 ‘The Foundation of the Museum’, http://www.orientmuseum.ru, accessed 23 October,2010.
73 Kathleen Cioffi, Alternative Theatre in Poland 1954-1989 (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 24.
74 Christie, Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, p. 167.
75 Alison McMahan, Alice Guy Blaché: The Lost Visionary of the Cinema (London: Continuum

International Publishing, 2002), p. 21.
76 Paisley Livingston, ‘Cinematic Authorship’, in Richard Allen and Murray Smith (eds.), Film

Theory and Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 300.
77 Cited in Linda Seger & Edward Whetmore, From Script to Screen: The Collaborative Art ofFilmmaking (Hollywood: Lone Eagle, 2004), p. 174.
78 Ibid, p. 67.
79 Graham Roberts, The Man with a Movie Camera (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), preface.
80 Beumers, A History of Russian Cinema, p. 52.
81 Ibid, p. 53.
82 Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 24.
83 Cited in Michelson, Kino-Eye, p. 12.
84 Ibid, p. 88.
85 Ibid, p. 8.
86 Ibid, p. 72.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid, p. 90.

257

89 Jeremy Hicks, Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), p. 40.
90 Mikhail Bleiman, ‘Shagai, Sovet!’, Leningradskaia pravda (26 August, 1926). Translated in

Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 166.
91 Aleksandr Fevralsky, ‘Shagai, Sovet!’, Pravda (12 March, 1926). Translated in Tsivian, Linesof Resistance, p. 161.
92 Ibid, p. 41.
93 N. Makovskaia, ‘2000 metrov v strane bolshevikov’, Trud (17 March, 1926). Translated in

Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 162.
94 Izmail Urazov, ‘Shagai, Sovet!’ (source unknown). Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance,

p. 164.
95 Vladimir Korolevich, ‘O pervykh slovakhi’, Zhenshchina v kino (Moscow: Teakinopechat,1928), pp. 90-93. Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 203.
96 Michelson, Kino-Eye, p. 194.
97 Ibid, p. 211.
98 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 46.
99 Ibid, p. 48.
100 Nikolai Aseev, ‘Shestaia chast … vozmozhnostei’, Kino (26 October, 1926). Translated in

Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 200.
101 Ibid, p. 56.
102 Ibid, p. 60.
103 Ibid, p. 61.
104 Vladimir Fefer, ‘Odinnadtsatyi Dziga Vertova’, Ezhenedelnik literatury i iskusstva 4 (1928).

Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 304.
105 D. B., ‘Odinnadtsatyi, Tambovskaia pravda (7 June, 1928). Translated in Tsivian, Lines ofResistance, p. 306.
106 ‘Rabochie ob Odinnadtsatom’ (author unknown). Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance,

p. 307.
107 Elizaveta Svilova, ‘Gde Odinnadtsatyi’, Kino (17 April, 1928). Translated in Tsivian, Linesof Resistance, p. 294.
108 For example, see Vlada Petrić, Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera: A

Cinematic Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and Roberts, The Man witha Movie Camera.
109 Konstantin Feldman, ‘Kino i Aristotel’, Sovertskii ekran 5 (1929). Translated in Tsivian,Lines of Resistance, p. 323.
110 Petrić, Constructivism in Film, p. 107.
111 Ibid, p. 80.

258

112 Kazimir Malevich, ‘Zhivopisnye zakony v problemakh kino’, Kino i kultura 7-8 (1929).

Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 344.
113 Judith Mayne, Kino and the Woman Question: Feminism and Soviet Silent Film (Ohio: Ohio State

University Press, 1989), pp. 166-170.
114 Ibid, p. 169.
115 Ibid, p. 169.
116 Vlada Petrić, ‘Cinematic Abstraction as a Means of Conveying Ideological Messages in The

Man with the Movie Camera’, in Anna Lawton (ed.), The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet
Cinema (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 107.
117 Ibid, p. 162.
118 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 91.
119 Cited in Michelson, Kino-Eye, p. 122.
120 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 93.
121 Ibid, p. 194.
122 Jeremy Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012),

p. 201.
123 Mayne, Kino and the Woman Question, p. 31.
124 David Bordwell, ‘The Idea of Montage in Soviet Art and Film’, Cinema Journal 11.2 (Spring1972), p. 16.
125 Apart from Eisenstein, who Svilova described meeting in her introduction to Dziga Vertov

in the Memories of his Contemporaries, I have been unable to ascertain whether Svilova personallyknew Pudovkin or Kuleshov.
126 David Bordwell, The Cinema of Eisenstein (London: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 129.
127 Ibid.
128 Cited in Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of

Stalin (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 79.
129 Petrone, Life has Become More Joyous, p. 78.
130 Ibid, p. 80.
131 Ibid.
132 Having gained his first experience in the late 1910s as a filmmaker directing agit films

during the Civil War, Pudovkin was mentored by Vladimir Gardin (for whom Svilova edited
films in the mid-1910s) at VGIK where he was taught a conservative, logistical-driven styleof filmmaking. He left this classical approach behind to experiment with Kuleshov, before
departing again to create a symbolic, narrative-based structure. See David Gillespie, Early
Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda (London: Wallflower, 2000), pp. 57-58.
133 The experiment consisted of intercutting a shot of the face of Ivan Mozhukhin, an actorof the Tsarist era, with shots of a bowl of soup, a dead woman lying in a coffin and a young

259

girl playing with a doll. When the sequence was shown to audiences, Kuleshov claimed thatthey believed Mozhukhin’s face changed to portray the emotion appropriate to each of thethree objects, even though Kuleshov had simply intercut the same facial shot three times.
134 Vertova-Svilova and Vinogradova, Dziga Vertov in the Memories of his Contemporaries, p. 66.
135 Cited in Sarah Davies, Popular Opinions in Stalin’s Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1997), p. 124.
136 Ibid.
137 Ibid, p. 51.
138 Ibid, p. 53.
139 Ibid, p. 134.
140 Wright, ‘Making the Cut: Female Editors and Representation in the Film and Media

Industry’.
141 Ibid.
142 Ibid.
143 Ibid.
144 Patricia Zimmerman, ‘Flaherty’s Midwives’, in Diane Waldman and Janet Walker (eds.),

Feminism and Documentary (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), p. 4.
145 Wright, ‘Making the Cut: Female Editors and Representation in the Film and Media

Industry’.
146 Hicks, Dziga Vertov, p. 108.
147 Michelson, Kino-Eye, p. 12.
148 Enzensberger, The Woman’s Companion to International Film, p. 390.
149 Kay Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema (London:

University of Toronto Press, 2003), p. 75.
150 Wright, ‘Making the Cut: Female Editors and Representation in the Film and Media

Industry’.
151 Cited in Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early

Years at Biograph (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), p. 32.
152 Dudley Nichols, John Ford’s accredited collaborator, directly addresses Ford’s status ofauthorship in Twenty Best Film Plays (New York: Crown Publishers, 1943), preface.
153 Kay Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema (London:

University of Toronto Press, 2003), p. 41.
154 Cited in Michelson, Kino-Eye, p. 190.
155 The women included here are not the full extent of early Soviet women filmmakers. I

have identified a number of others on film credits for whom no biography or existing
research exists. Irina Setkina, for example, is one News of the Day director-editor who, despite260

her prolific output from the 1930s to the 1950s, including a documentary film about
Majdanek in 1945, is now forgotten.
156 Rollberg, The Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, p. 543.
157 Ibid, p. 544.
158 Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country, p. 76.
159 Maya Turovskaya, ‘Woman and the Woman Question’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red

Women on the Silver Screen (London: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 145.
160 Cited in Efim Levin, ‘Yulia Solntseva’, in Kuhn and Radstone (eds.), The Woman’s

Companion to International Film (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 374.
161 Levin, The Woman’s Companion to International Film, p. 374.
162 Ibid.
163 Ibid.
164 Lynne Attwood, ‘Women, Cinema and Society’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on theSilver Screen (London: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 43.
165 Cited in Attwood, Red Women on the Silver Screen, p. 43.
166 Aleksandra Khokhlova, Lev Kuleshov: Fifty Years in Film (Moscow: Raduga, 1987), p. 213.
167 Ulrich Gregor and Svenja Simon, Amazons of the Avant-Garde in Film (Berlin: Kinemathek

and Deutsche Guggenheim, 1999), p. 38.
168 Cited in Dziga Vertov’s diary. Translated in Tsivian, Lines of Resistance, p. 281.
169 Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (London: The MacMillan Company,

1960), p. 224.
170 Maya Turovskaya, Red Women on the Silver Screen, p. 144.
171 Graham Roberts, Forward Soviet! History and Non-fiction Film in the USSR (London: I.B.

Tauris, 1999), p. 51.
172 Judith Mayne, Kino and the Woman Question: Feminism and Soviet Silent Film (Columbus: Ohio

State University Press, 1989), pp. 28-29.
173 Attwood, Red Women on the Silver Screen, p. 30.
174 Renee Baigell and Matthew Baigell, Peeling Potatoes, Painting Pictures: Women Artists in Post-

Soviet Russia, Estonia and Latvia (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001), p. 4.
175 Gail Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society (London: University of California Press, 1978), p. 6.
176 Mayne, Kino and the Woman Question, p. 29.
177 See Judith Mayne, ‘On the Edge of the Dialectic: Women’s Space in Soviet Film

Narrative’, Jump Cut 23 (October 1980), pp. 26-29. I use the silent era to contextualise
Svilova because there were very few women directing films between the 1930s and 1950s. E.
Ann Kaplan goes as far as to describe this period as one where ‘women were silenced’, that is
before they began to speak again in the 1960s. See E. Ann Kaplan, ‘Women, Film, Resistance:
Changing Paradigms’, in Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis and Valerie Raoul (eds.), Women

261

Filmmakers: Refocusing (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003), pp. 17-18. For this reason, my thesis
defines ‘early’ as any filmmaker active in the industry prior to 1950.
178 Angela Martin, ‘Refocusing Authorship in Women’s Filmmaking’, in Jacqueline Levitin,

Judith Plessis and Valerie Raoul (eds.), Women Filmmakers: Refocusing (Vancouver: UBC Press,
2003), p. 29.
179 See, for example, The Girl from God’s Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema (Armatage,2003), Women in Polish Cinema (Mazierska and Ostrowska, 2006) and Women Filmmakers in
Early Hollywood (Ward Mahar, 2006).

Chapter Two
1 A production document signed by Svilova on 20 May, 1945, suggests that she had some, if

not all, control over the direction of Oświęcim. Svilova lists the main scenes and the order inwhich she plans to cut them together. This order is identical to the narrative of the final cut.
RGALI 2091/2/642.
2 Genadii Kostyrchenko, Tainaia politika Stalina: Vlast’ i antisemitizm (Moscow:

Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2003), p. 200.
3 Jeremy Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), p.

191.
4 Ibid, p. 174.
5 Vorontsov is interviewed in The Liberation of Auschwitz (von zur Mühlen, 1985).
6 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, pp. 181-182.
7 ‘Osventsim: Stsenarii i stenarnyi’, signed by Svilova, 20 May, 1945. RGALI 2487/1/509,

sheet 13.
8 Judith Doneson gives a brief overview of the history of ‘Holocaust Film’ in the

introduction to her book, The Holocaust in American Film, second edition (New York: Syracuse
University Press, 2002), pp. 6-10.
9 Since 1992, ten Holocaust-themed films have been nominated for an Academy Award.
10 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 184.
11 A. Krol, ‘Oswentsim: Novyi dokumental’nyi fil’m’, Pravda Ukrainy (7 June, 1945), p. 3.
12 Correspondence between G. Fradkin, Soiuzintorgkino representative in Berlin, and P.

Brigadnov, manager of Soiuzintorgkino, on 4 October. ‘Otchet o finansovom sostoianii
predstavitel´stva ‘Soiuzintorgkino’ v Germanii po sostoainiiu na 1 oktiabria 1945 goda.’
RGALI 2918/1/142, sheet 10.
13 Thomas Tode, ‘KZ Film in Vienna Cinemas: Considering two Atrocity Films 1945/46’, in

Karin Moser (ed.), Occupied Images: Film, Culture and Propaganda in Austria 1945-1955 (Vienna:
Filmarchiv, 2005), p. 363.

262

14 Tode gives more details about this screening in Moser, Occupied Images, pp. 357-374.
15Febiofest 2005, ‘Documentaries on the Second World War: Auschwitz’,

http://www.febiofest.cz/12 _ archive/detail_filmu.php, accessed 4 May, 2009.
16 Thomas Tode, ‘Of Course, One Could Have Closed the Dead Person’s Eyes’, Kolik Film 4(October 2005), p. 100.
17 Ibid, p. 101.
18 John MacKay, ‘Dziga Vertov: 1896-1954’, http://www.yale.edu/slavic/resources/

download/Dziga-Vertov-Short-Biography-MacKay-1.doc, accessed 23 May, 2010.
19 Jeremy Hicks, ‘Confronting the Holocaust: Mark Donskoi’s The Unvanquished’, Studies in

Russian and Soviet Cinema 3.1 (2009), p. 35.
20 Bordwell, The Cinema of Eisenstein, p. 146.
21 Cited in Beumers, A History of Russian Cinema, p. 55.
22 The children belong to the group of ninety sets of Jewish twins who were kept alive forthe purpose of genetic experimentation.
23 Janina Struck, Photographing the Holocaust (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 194.
24 André Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 1, second edition, trans. H. Gray (London: Universityof California Press, 2005), p. 10.
25 Ibid, p. 14.
26 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, trans. R. Howard (London: Hill and Wang, 1982), p. 92.
27 Ibid, p. 79.
28 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, 2003), p. 87.
29 Ibid, p. 84.
30 Cited in Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 84.
31 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 85.
32 Correspondence with the film group of the 1st Ukrainian front, 2 January to 29 June, 1945.

RGALI 2487/1/1021.8/7, sheet 55.
33 Auschwitz protocol of inspections, GARF R7021/I08/17, sheet 156.
34 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 11.
35 See Yitshak Arad, ‘The Holocaust as Reflected in the Soviet Russian Language

Newspapers in the Years 1941-1945’, in Robert Shapino (ed.), Why Didn’t the Press Shout?
American and International Journalism During the Holocaust (New York: Yeshiva University Press,
2003), pp. 199-220.
36 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 12.
37 Zvi Gitelman, ‘Politics and the Historiography of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union’, in

Zvi Gitelman (ed.), Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1997), p. 20.

263

38 Genadii Kostyrchenko, Tainaia politika Stalina: Vlast’ i antisemitizm (Moscow:

Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2003), pp. 242-249.
39 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 179.
40 Ibid, p. 45.
41 Ibid, p. 50.
42 The pigeon was likely viewed as a threat to the Nazis due to its potential use as acommunication device.
43 Valerii Fomin (ed.), Kino na voine: Dokumenty i svidetel’stva (Moscow: Materik, 2005), pp. 141-42.
44 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 7.
45 Ibid, p. 11.
46 Karel Berkhoff, ‘Total Annihilation of the Jewish Population: The Holocaust in the Soviet

Media, 1941-1945’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 10.1 (Winter 2009), p.
96.
47 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 60.
48 Ibid, p. 187.
49 Ibid, p. 186.
50 Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgement: Making Law and History in the Trials of the

Holocaust (London: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 42-3.
51 Ibid.
52 Lawrence Douglas, ‘Film as Witness: Screening Nazi Concentration Camp before theNuremberg Tribunal’, Yale Law Journal 105.2 (November 1995), p. 462.
53 Ibid.
54 Robert Jackson, Volume II, International Military Tribunal: Trial of the Major War Criminals

before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1October 1946, in 42
Volumes (Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal, 1947), p. 118.
55 Ibid, p. 462.
56 Douglas, Yale Law Journal, p. 462.
57 Elizabeth Sussex, ‘The Fate of F3080’, Sight and Sound (April 1984), p. 92.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid, p. 93.
60 Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination (London: Blackwell, 1994), p. 216.
61 Frontline, ‘Memory of the Camps’, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/faqs.html, accessed 10 February, 2010.
62 Sussex, Sight and Sound, p. 92.
63 Frontline, ‘Memory of the Camps’.
64 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 214.

264

65 Jo Fox, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema (Oxford: Berg,2007), p. 143.
66 Tony Kushner, ‘Different Worlds: British Perceptions of the Final Solution During theSecond World War’, in David Cesarani (ed.), The Final Solution (London: Routledge, 1994), p.
261.
67 Ibid.
68 Tony Kushner, ‘The Memory of Belsen’, in Joanne Reilly et al (eds.), Belsen in History andMemory (London: Frank Cass, 1997), p. 187.
69 Ibid, p. 191.
70 Cited in Kushner, Belsen in History and Memory, p. 187.
71 Kushner, Belsen in History and Memory, p. 187.
72 Reilly, Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp, p. 61.
73 Ibid, p. 61.
74 Ibid.
75 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 228.
76 Ibid, p. 214.
77 Tode, Occupied Images, p. 372.
78 Susan Carruthers, ‘Compulsory Viewing: Concentration Camp Film and German Re-

education’, Millennium Journal of International Studies 30.3 (2001), p. 742.
79 Ibid, p. 742.
80 Ibid, p. 743.
81 Tode, Occupied Images, p. 367.
82 Ibid, p. 372.
83 Ibid.
84 Heide Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 58.
85 Carruthers, Millennium, p. 744.
86 André Pierre Colombat, The Holocaust in French Film (London: The Scarecrow Press, 1993),

p. 14.
87 Tode, ‘KZ Film in Vienna Cinemas: Considering two Atrocity Films 1945/46’, p. 361.
88 Ibid, p. 363.
89 Colombat, The Holocaust in French Film, p. x.
90 Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews (London: Bantam, 1986), p. 403.
91 French cinema during and after the occupation displays a similar lack of concern about thedestiny of Jews. No French film was entirely dedicated to the subject of Jewish persecution
until Frédéric Rossif’s Le Temps du Ghetto in 1961. Until then, French films about World War
II either omitted the Holocaust or mentioned it only within general representations of the265deportations, the concentration camps or the history of the war. Even the acclaimed ‘retour
au reel’ and the aesthetic revolution instigated by the New Wave did not alter this general
attitude. See Colombat, The Holocaust in French Film, p. 367.
92 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 13.
93 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 273.
94 Ibid.
95 Peter Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory: The American Experience (London:

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001), pp. 65-66.
96 Fomin, Kino na voine, p. 142.
97 Nina Markovna, Nina’s Journey: A Memoir of Stalin’s Russia and the Second World War(Washington D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1989), pp. 230-31.
98 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 191.
99 Gwendolyn Foster, Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary (Westport:

Greenwood Press, 1995), p. 350; Peter Rollberg, Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet
Cinema (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2009), p. 675; Masha Enzenberger, ‘Elizaveta Svilova’, inAnnette Kuhn and Susannah Radstone (eds.), The Women’s Companion to International Film
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 390.
100 The archive can be viewed online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/findaid/russian.html.
101 Michael Marrus, ‘The Holocaust at Nuremberg’, Yad Vashem Studies 26 (1998), p. 41.
102 Roland Barthes, ‘The Rhetoric of the Image (1964)’, reprinted in Liz Wells (ed.), The

Photography Reader (Oxen: Routledge, 2003), p. 120.
103 Christian Metz, ‘Photography and Fetish’, October 34 (Autumn 1985), p. 84.
104 Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (London: Verso, 2010), p. 97.
105 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 69.
106 Walter Lippman, Public Opinion, second edition (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997),

p. 90.
107 Colonel Pokrovsky, ‘Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 7: Fifty-Ninth Day’,

http://avalon. law.yale.edu/imt/02-14-46.asp, accessed August 2010.
108 Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin, 1977), p. 19.
109 L.M. Smirnov, ‘Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 7: Fifty-Ninth Day’,

http://avalon.law.yale. edu/imt/02-19-46.asp, accessed August 2010.
110 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 65.
111 L.M. Smirnov, ‘Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 7: Fifty-Seventh Day’,

http://avalon.law. yale.edu/imt/02-19-46.asp, accessed August 2010.
112 Smirnov, ‘Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 7: Fifty-Ninth Day’.
113 Wolfram Wette, The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality (United States: First Harvard

University Press, 2006), p. 182.

266

114 L.M. Smirnov, ‘Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 7: Sixty-Second Day’,

http://avalon.law.yale. edu/imt/02-19-46.asp, accessed August 2010.
115 Ibid.
116 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 192.
117 Ibid.
118 Michael Shermer and Alex Grobham, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust NeverHappened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 117.
119 Ewa Mazierska, ‘Wanda Jakubowska: The Communist Fighter’, in Ewa Mazierska andElżbieta Ostrowska (eds.), Women in Polish Cinema (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), p. 153.
120 Ibid.
121 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 125.
122 Hicks, First Films of the Holocaust, p. 17.

Chapter Three
1 Lynne Attwood, ‘The Stalin Era’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver Screen:

Soviet Women and Cinema from the Beginning to the End of the Communist Era (London: Pandora
Press, 1993), p. 54. I use the term ‘feminine ideal’ to refer to cinematic depictions of the ‘newSoviet woman’, the perfected model of industriousness and dedication the female population
was encouraged by Stalin to emulate.
2 Kristen Whissel, ‘The Gender of Empire: American Modernity, Masculinity and Edison’s

War Actualities’, in Jennifer M. Bean and Diana Negra (eds.), A Feminist Reader in Early
Cinema (London: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 159.
3 Teresa de Lauretis, ‘Aesthetic and Feminist Theory: Rethinking Women’s Cinema’, in E.

Deidre Pribram (ed.), Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television (London: Verso, 1988), p.
181.
4 Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver Screen, p. 30.
5 Barbara Engel, Women in Russia 1700-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),

p. 164.
6 Barbara Clements, Bolshevik Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 250.
7 Choi Chatterjee, Celebrating Women: Gender, Festival Culture and Bolshevik Ideology 1910-1939(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), p. 63.
8 Beatrice Farnsworth, Aleksandra Kollontai: Socialism, Feminism, and the Bolshevik Revolution(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980), p. xiii.
9 Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver Screen, p. 53.

267

10 Denise Youngblood and Maria Enzensberger, ‘Soviet Union’, in Annette Kuhn and

Susannah Radstone (eds.), The Women’s Companion to International Film (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1994), p. 379.
11 Maya Turovskaya, ‘Women’s Cinema in the USSR’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on

the Silver Screen (Michigan: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 144.
12 Chatterjee, Celebrating Women, p. 71.
13 Norma Noonan and Carol Nechemias, Encyclopaedia of Russian Women’s Movements (Westport:

Greenwood Press, 2001), p. 133.
14 Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 67.
15 Ibid, p. 43.
16 Ibid, p. 68.
17 Engel, Women in Russia, p. 177.
18 Jeremy Hicks, Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), p. 108.
19 These three films derived from a project in 1933 carrying the generic title, She. See Annette

Michelson (ed.), Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov (London: Pluto Press, 1984), p. 296.
20 Elżbieta Ostrowska, ‘Polish “Superwoman”: A Liberation or Victimisation?’, in Ewa

Mazierska and Elżbieta Ostrowska (eds.), Women in Polish Cinema (Oxford: Berghahn Books,
2006), p. 56.
21 Ewa Mazierska, ‘Wanda Jakubowska: The Communist Fighter’, in Ewa Mazierska andElżbieta Ostrowska (eds.), Women in Polish Cinema (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), p. 162.
22 Oksana Bulgakova, ‘The Hydra of the Soviet Cinema: The Metamorphoses of the Soviet

Film Heroine’, in Lynne Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the Silver Screen: Soviet Women and Cinemafrom the Beginning to the End of the Communist Era (London: Pandora Press, 1993), p. 157.
23 Ibid, p. 158.
24 Françoise Navailh, ‘The Emancipated Woman: Stalinist Propaganda in Soviet Feature

Films 1930-1950’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 12.3 (1992), p. 206.
25 Ibid, p. 162.
26 Bulgakova, Red Women on the Silver Screen , p. 161.
27 Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia, p. 60.
28 Cited in Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia, p. 61.
29 Stacey, Star Gazing, p. 36.
30 Jennifer M. Bean, ‘Towards a Feminist Historiography of Early Cinema’, in Jennifer M.

Bean and Diana Negra (eds.), A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema (London: Duke University
Press, 2002), p. 10.

268

31 See Chapter 4 of Lilya Kaganovsky, How the Soviet Man was Unmade: Cultural Fantasy andMale Subjectivity under Stalin (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008) titled‘Heterosexual Panic’, pp. 67-118.
32 See Anne Eakin Moss, ‘Stalin’s Harem: The Spectator’s Dilemma in Late 1930s Soviet

Film’, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 3.2 (2009).
33 Ibid, p. 158.
34 Stacey, Star Gazing, pp. 126-175.
35 Ibid, p. 130.
36 Ibid, p. 136.
37 Karen Hollinger, In the Company of Women: Contemporary Female Friendship Films (London:

University of Minnesota Press, 1998), p. 22.
38 Moss, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, p. 167.
39 Gillian Frith, The Intimacy which is Knowledge: Female Friendship in the Novels of Women Writers(unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1998), p. 3.
40 Ostrowska, Women in Polish Cinema, p. 62.
41 Stacey, Star Gazing, p. 151.
42 Ibid, p. 152.
43 Ibid, p. 159.
44 Ibid, p. 136.
45 Antonia Lant, Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema (New Jersey: Princeton

University Press, 1991), p. 113.
46 Ibid, p. 11.
47 In 1939 Svilova also directed Greater Force (1939), a film committed entirely to eulogising

the efforts of Soviet women. Greater Force is now unwatchable due to the film’s nitric basebut its synopsis indicates that it documented women’s indispensability in industries such as
agriculture, transport, public health and culture. Greater Force served not only to celebrate
female liberation but also to remind women of the burgeoning responsibilities attached tothis freedom.
48 Nancy Huston, ‘The Matrix of War: Mothers and Heroes’, Poetics Today 6 (1985), pp. 154-

55.
49 Lant, Blackout, p. 79.
50 Ibid, p. 102.
51 Ibid.
52 This is also evident in one of Svilova’s later newsreels, News of the Day no.43 (1948). In thevillage of Mstera in the Vladimir region, a woman artist, set up in a studio in her kitchen,paints intricate details on a miniature, an art form that has since made the village famousthroughout Russia.

269

53 Lant, Blackout, p. 61.
54 Ibid.
55 ‘Metro’, signed by Svilova. RGALI 2091/2/642.
56 Chatterjee, Celebrating Women, p. 143.
57 Lant, Blackout, p. 107.
58 Ibid, p. 93.
59 Charles Drazin, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), p.

18.
60 Janet Thumin, ‘The Female Audience: Mobile Women and Married Ladies’, in Christine

Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds.), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British
Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 249.
61 See Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen 16.3 (1975), pp. 6-18.
62 Chatterjee, Celebrating Women, p. 213.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid, p. 215.
65 Paul Virilio, Open Sky, trans. J. Rose (London: Verso, 2007), p. 128.
66 Ibid, p. 216.
67 Ibid, p. 78.
68 Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, p. 83.
69 Catherine Gourley, Rosie and Mrs America: Perceptions of Women in the 1930s and 1940s(Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing, 2008), p. 4.
70 Ibid, p. 4.
71 Ibid.
72 Philip C. DiMare, Movies in American History (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Santa Barbara, 2011),

p. 1087.
73 Thumin, Nationalising Femininity, p. 246.
74 Lant, Blackout, p. 85.
75 Ibid.
76 R. W. Davies, Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1998), p. 65.
77 Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society, p. 143.
78 Ostrowska, Women in Polish Cinema, p. 56.
79 Bradley Abrams, The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism(Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004), p. 57. Czechoslovakia was identified as apivotal country in determining the future of Europe. George Marshall, U.S. Secretary of State,
proposed a plan to stabilise the socio-political situation in Western Europe, incorporatingWest Germany into the Western bloc and reducing the level of Soviet influence in Eastern

270

Europe. A meeting held on 28 May, 1947, negotiated Eastern Europe’s participation in the
programme of European rehabilitation, but only if countries rejected the near exclusive
orientation of their economies toward the Soviet Union in favour of broad European
integration. Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, sanctioned theprovision of aid to Czechoslovakia but rejected any form of American control over its
economy. Under guidance from Soviet economist, Evgeni Varga, Molotov deemed the
Marshall Plan manipulative, a programme that was not designed to assist the helpless wartorn nations of Eastern Europe but one that was in fact self-serving, needed by the UnitedStates, first, to alleviate the anticipated threat of overproduction, and, second, to establish a
bloc of bourgeois countries under American domination. Nikolai Novikov, Soviet
Ambassador to the United States, increased Molotov’s wariness by suggesting that the
Marshall Plan amounted to ‘the establishment of a Western European bloc as a tool of U.S.
policy’. See Mikhail Narinsky, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cold War’, inGabriel Gorodetsky (ed.), Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1991: A Retrospective (London: Frank Cass,
1994), p. 107.
80 Jackie Stacey, Star Gazing, p. 136.
81 Gay Gullickson, Unruly Women of Paris (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 125.
82 Untitled document. RGALI 2091/2/643.
83 Svilova documents two similar stories in 1950. News of the Day no.28 (1950) features an Ural

automobile factory in which a female supervisor teaches a room full of male and female
workers. She uses a diagram to explain a new production method. The workers thencommence production, putting into practice what they have been taught. News of the Day
no.32 (1950) documents a female supervisor delivering a motivational speech to her female
workforce in a Moscow electro-lamp factory. They are encouraged to increase production
for the good of the revolution. Svilova includes a sequence of close-ups of the women’s
faces as they listen. Their joyful expressions suggest that they are receptive to the message.
The close-ups also reveal the ethnic variety within the workforce, as both Western andEastern Soviet women are seen on the factory floor.
84 Ibid, p. 172.
85 Liubov Denisova, Rural Women in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia, trans. I. Mukhina(Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 144-145.
86 Engel, Women in Russia, p. 168.
87 Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, p. 47.
88 Greta Bucher, ‘Struggling to Survive: Soviet Women in the Post-War Years’, Journal of

Women’s History 12.1 (2000), p. 139.

271

89 E. Ann Kaplan, ‘Women, Film, Resistance: Changing Paradigms’, in Jacqueline Levitin,

Judith Plessis and Valerie Raoul (eds.), Women Filmmakers: Refocusing (Vancouver: UBC Press,
2003), p. 25.
90 Untitled document. RGALI 2091/2/643.

Chapter Four
1 Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie (eds.), Cinema and Nation (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 4.
2 Julian Graffy, ‘Scant Sign of Thaw: Fear and Anxiety in the Representation of Foreigners in

the Soviet Films of the Khrushchev Years’, in Stephen Hutchings (ed.), Russia and its Other(s)on Film (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), p. 42.
3 See Martin Stollery, Alternative Empires: European Modernist Cinemas and Cultures of Imperialism(Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).
4 Ibid, pp. 100-139.
5 Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Vintage Books, 1979), p. 6.
6 Mica Nava, Visceral Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Culture and the Normalisation of Difference (Oxford:

Berg Publishers, 2007), p. 7.
7 I use ‘empire’ here to refer to the Soviet Union’s influence over satellite nations. Although

the Soviet Union was not ruled by an emperor and defined itself as anti-imperialist, somescholars have argued that it shared a number of characteristics with the rise and fall of othermore easily defined empires. See Mark Beissenger, ‘Soviet Empire as ‘Family Resemblance’’,Slavic Review 65.2 (2006), pp. 294-303.
8 Nava, Visceral Cosmopolitanism, p. 17.
9 Ibid, p. 18.
10 Ibid.
11 Anne Gorsuch, All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad after Stalin (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 50.
12 Tim Bergfelder, ‘Love Beyond the Nation: Cosmopolitanism and Transnational Desire in

Cinema’, in Luisa Passerini, Jo Labanyi and Karen Diehl (eds.), Europe and Love in Cinema(Bristol: Intellect, 2012), p. 78.
13 All of Svilova’s foreign stories are described in Appendix One of my thesis.
14 Gorsuch, All This is Your World, p. 79.
15 Engel, Women in Russia, p. 205.
16 Ibid.
17 Cited in Engel, Women in Russia, p. 205.
18 J. Otto Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR 1937-1949 (Connecticut: Greenwood Press,

1999), p. 2.

272

19 Melanie Ilič, ‘Traktoristka: Representations and Realities’, in Melanie Ilič (ed.), Women in the

Stalin Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 121.
20 Ibid, p. 123.
21 Kay Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema (London:

University of Toronto Press, 2003), p. 43.
22 Cited in Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country, p. 43.
23 Virginia Scharff, Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York:

Macmillan, 1999), p. 79.
24 Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country, p. 136.
25 Ibid, p. 126.
26 Emma Widdis, ‘Dressing the Part: Clothing Otherness in Soviet Cinema’, in Stephen

Morris and Zara Torlone (eds.), Insiders and Outsiders in Russian Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2008), p. 49.
27 Ibid, p. 127.
28 Louis Menashe, Moscow Believes in Tears: Russians and their Movies (Washington D.C: New

Academia Publishing, 2010), p. 167.
29 Engel, Women in Russia, p. 206.
30 Ibid, p. 207.
31 Ella Shohat, ‘Gender and Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the

Cinema’, in Matthew Bernstein and Gaylyn Studlar (eds.), Visions of the East: Orientalism in
Film (London: I.B. Tauris, 1997), p. 39.
32 Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (London: The University of North Carolina Press,

2001), pp. 52-53.
33 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge,1992), p. 7.
34 Judith Mayne, Kino and the Woman Question: Feminism and Soviet Silent Film (Columbus: Ohio

State University Press, 1989), p. 160.
35 The term ‘panorama’ originates with Wolfgang Schivelbusch who, in his account of theway in which the landscape was viewed from a rapidly moving train, described it asemblematic of modern perception, calling this new mode ‘panoramic’. Panoramic perception
involves a separation between the viewer and the spectacle observed: in contrast to
traditional perception, it no longer belongs to the same space as the perceived objects. See
Tom Gunning, ‘The Whole World Within Reach: Travel Images Without Borders’, in Jeffrey
Ruoff (ed.), Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel (London: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 37.
36 Cited in Gunning, Virtual Voyages, p. 36.

273

37 Tom Gunning, ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Cinema, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Thomas Elsaesser (ed.), Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative (London: BFI, 1990), p.
56.
38 Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination 1945-61 (London:

University of California Press, 2003), p. 53.
39 Xiaojia Hou, ‘Get Organised: The Impact of Two Soviet Models on the CCP’s Rural

Strategy, 1949-1953’, in Thomas Bernstein and Hua-Yu Li (eds.), China Learns From the Soviet
Union: 1949 to Present (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 167-196.
40 Ibid, p. 76.
41 Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, p. 75.
42 Donald Filtzer, The Khrushchev Era: De-Stalinisation and the Limits of Reform in the USSR 1953-

1964 (London: The Macmillan Press, 1993), p. 12.
43 Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War, From Stalin to Gorbachev(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 95.
44 Ibid, p. 172.
45 Ibid, p. 103.
46 Ibid.
47 Filtzer, The Khrushchev Era, p. 14. After Stalin’s death, Georgy Malenkov took the earlyreins of leadership, assuming the role of chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Molotov(also foreign minister), Lavrentiy Beria, Nikolai Bulganin and Lazar Kaganovich named as his
deputies. On 14 March, 1953, Malenkov’s request to resign was granted by the Central
Committee and he was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who had stepped down as first
secretary of the Moscow party organisation. In July 1953 Beria, whose alliance with
Malenkov threatened Khrushchev, was arrested and shot. In the following September aCentral Committee plenum established the post of new party first secretary and awarded it to
Khrushchev. In August 1954, during a vacation in the Crimea, Khrushchev met informallywith other high-ranking members of the Central Committee and gained their support totransfer authority from the office of the Presidium, then under the direction of Malenkov, tothe General Department of the Central Committee, placing it under Khrushchev’s absolutecontrol. Therefore, although a number of influential figures contributed to the Soviet
Union’s early years of rebuilding, the need to update the country’s image and build
communist allies in the East while maintaining a strong defence policy against the threat ofcapitalism and future war was agreed by all in the Central Committee, particularly
Khrushchev, and it is this notion that provides the basis for my analysis of Svilova’s foreignthemed films.
48 My quantitative data can be articulated in the following terms: During the Stalin era,

Svilova documented fifteen episodes of News of the Day and five separate documentaries,274

spanning an eight year period. These films contain twenty-nine individual foreign stories
from twelve different countries, two of which are non-European. Between 1953 and 1956
she directed fourteen episodes of News of the Day, comprising twenty-seven individual stories
shot in seventeen countries, four of which are non-European. Including her three Foreign
Newsreel episodes, the figures increase to forty-five stories shot in twenty-four countries,
seven of which are non-European. These statistics confirm that, while Svilova’s News of the
Day episodes did not witness an increase in foreign news after Stalin’s death, the number ofcountries from which the stories originated did increase, as did the number from outside
Europe.
49 Nava, Visceral Cosmopolitanism, p. 4.
50 Ibid, p. 5.
51 Lisle Rose, Power at Sea: A Violent Peace, 1946-2006 (Missouri: University of Missouri Press,

2007), p. 83.
52 The seizing of the tanker is described in John Garver, The Sino-American Alliance: Nationalist

China and American Cold War Strategy (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), p. 121.
53 Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War, pp. 62-63. The mid-1950s represented the golden age of

the Sino-Soviet alliance. In 1954, Khrushchev led a delegation to China to celebrate the fifth
anniversary of the People’s Republic, which prompted a number of negotiations, including
the return of the Port Arthur military base to Chinese control, industrial support for China’s
first five-year-plan and, in April 1955, assistance with China’s nuclear technology.
Khrushchev, who had only recently emerged as Stalin’s successor, perceived Mao’s
cooperation as indispensable.
54 Charles Musser, ‘The Early Cinema of Edwin Porter’, Cinema Journal 19 (Fall 1979), pp. 1-

38.
55 Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company(Oxford: University of California Press, 1991), p. 225.
56 André Gaudreault, ‘Temporality and Narrativity in Early Cinema, 1895-1908’, in John Fell(ed.), Film Before Griffith (London: University of California Press, 1983), p. 316.
57 Noël Burch, ‘Porter or Ambivalence’, Screen 19 (Winter 1978-79), p. 104.
58 This story was produced to coincide with the latest developments in the Sino-Soviet Treatyof Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Friendship. While Chinese industry was modernised, in
return, China and the Soviet Union signed a cooperation agreement that initiated themigration of Chinese labourers to rural parts of the Soviet empire. In the summer of 1955
1000 workers were introduced into the Soviet workforce and Soviet media was mobilised toencourage communities to welcome their Eastern allies. See Sun Jianlin, ‘The Soviet Union
Once Planned to Import Millions of Chinese Workers’, Cultural and Historical Vision (July
2009), p. 4.

275

59 Martin McCauley, The Soviet Union 1917-1991, second edition (London: Longman, 1993), p.

277.
60 Jerome Conley, Indo-Russian Military and Nuclear Cooperation: Lessons and Options for U.S. Policyin South Asia (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2001), p. 11.
61 Cited in Klein, Cold War Orientalism, p. 15.
62 Emil Draitser, Shush! Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin (California: University of California

Press, 2008), pp. 77-78.
63 Soviet steps toward peaceful co-existence were not made until the very end of 1954, timed

to coincide with the deadline for the San Francisco Treaty. See Kimie Hara, JapaneseSoviet/Russian Relations Since 1945: A Difficult Peace (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 210.
64 Mark Steinberg, Moral Communities: The Culture and Class Relations in the Russian Printing

Industry 1867-1907 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 234.
65 By the mid-1950s strains in Soviet-Japanese relations were long established, going back to

the competition between the Japanese and Russian empires for dominance in Northeast Asia.
During the first half of the 1950s other unsettled problems included Japanese fishing rights
in the Sea of Okhotsk and repatriation of the Japanese prisoners-of-war still being held
captive in the Soviet Union. The two countries agreed to continue negotiations for a peace
treaty, including territorial issues. The Soviet Union pledged to support Japan in its pursuit ofUnited Nations membership and to waive all World War II reparations claims. The Joint
Declaration was accompanied by a trade protocol that granted reciprocal most-favourednation treatment and provided for the development of trade. In 1956 the two countries
signed a Joint Declaration, providing for the continued restoration of diplomatic relations.
66 Nava, Visceral Cosmopolitanism, p. 9.
67 Ibid, p. 30.
68 Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society, p. 249.
69 Cited in David MacDougall, The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses (New

Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 21.
70 David MacDougall, The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses, p. 22.
71 Jane Gaines, ‘Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body’, in Jane Gaines and Charlotte

Herzog (eds.), Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 3.
72 Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society, p. 249.
73 Lynne Attwood, Creating the New Soviet Woman: Women’s Magazines as Engineers of Female

Identity 1922-1953 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999), p. 166.
74 Meyda Yeğenoğlu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 133.
75 Ted Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow 1955

and 1999 (London: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 92.

276

76 Ibid, p. 95.
77 Gorsuch, All This is Your World, p. 16.
78 A selection of Pathé’s newsreels can be viewed online at www.britishpathe.com.
79 Zhai Qiang, ‘China and the Cambodian Conflict’, in Priscilla Roberts (ed.), Behind the

Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam and the World Beyond Asia (Chicago: Stanford University Press,
2006), pp. 370-373.
80 Michael Kau and John Leung (eds.), The Writings of Mao Zedong: 1949-1976 (London: M. E.

Sharpe, 1992), p. 27.
81 Once the Soviet-Cambodian alliance was made public in May 1956, Cambodia, like China

and the Soviet Union’s other Eastern allies, became a staple of Soviet newsreels for theremainder of 1956. Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia (Babushkin, 1956) documented Prince
Sihanouk, the son of Suramarit, visiting the Kremlin to agree on the negotiations of theallegiance. He and his delegation are given a tour of Moscow, visiting the city’s university, the
All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and the Moscow Hippodrome. Following his stay in
Moscow, Prince Sihanouk travelled to Saint Petersburg where he visited the Smolny Institute,
the Saint Peter and Paul Fortress Stadium and the Leningrad Mechanical Plant. News of the
Day no.24 (Katanian, 1956) and News of the Day no.27 (Solovyov, 1956), released in June andJuly respectively, incorporated additional shots from Sihanouk’s visit. News of the Day no.27
documented his meeting with Klim Voroshilov, the chairman of the Central Committee,
during which, according to the voiceover, Sihanouk was presented with the Order ofSuvorov, for his role in ‘promoting peace, neutrality, non-alignment and cooperation among
nations’.
82 Gorsuch, All This is Your World, p. 50.
83 Ibid, p. 49.
84 Ibid, p. 79.
85 Richard Sawka, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 135.
86 Draitser, Shush!, pp. 77-78.
87 Cited in Klein, Cold War Orientalism, p. 15.
88 Hou, China Learns From the Soviet Union: 1949 to Present, p. 76.
89 Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War, p. 50.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
92 Mao Zedong, ‘On the Historical Experience of Proletarian Dictatorship’, People’s Daily (5April, 1956). The article was published to coincide with the arrival in Peking of a highranking Soviet delegation.
93 Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War, p. 68.

277

94 Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China and the Soviet Union 1948-1972(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 160.
95 Vladislav Zubok, ‘Soviet Policy Aims at the Geneva Conference’, in Gunter Bischof andSaki Dockrill (eds.), Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955 (Louisiana: Louisiana State
Press, 2000), p. 64.
96 Gorsuch, All This is Your World, p. 59.
97 Homi Bhabha is not related to philosopher, Homi K. Bhabha.
98 The complex stance Khrushchev took on rearmament is documented a number of times

by Svilova. News of the Day no.17 (1955), for example, features a story from Budapest in whicha group of Hungarian workers sign the ‘Vienna Appeal of the World Council of Peace
Against Preparation of Atomic War’, one of the many protests organised by World Councilof Peace, an organisation that had, since 1949, chaired international peace conferences tocondemn Western armaments and weapons testing but, importantly, refrained fromcriticising communist and other non-capitalist activities. The passive aims of the Councilaligned with the self-image Khrushchev wanted to project back onto the Soviet people, onethat depicted the Central Committee as the altruistic government portrayed in films such as
Yangtze River. As an elderly male worker approaches to sign the book, Svilova cuts to a
medium close-up shot of a young woman signing it. The transition is continuous in space
and time, in that the woman replicates the man’s position on-screen, literally replacing him.
This editorial technique gives the impression that, first, the workforce was united and,second, the World Council of Peace upheld the interests of every demographic. The story isimportant because it not only highlights the complex stance the Central Committee took on
policies of rearmament – speaking out against the prospect of future war while legitimisingdecisions to build its own arsenal of weapons and assist its allies in developing their nuclear
technology – it also drew on the protective traits within Stalin’s cult of personality as a meansof reassuring the masses. The Council was initiated by Stalin and any steps it made toappease nuclear war were attributed to his memory. This theme largely continued until
Khrushchev’s secret speech on 25 February, 1956, when Stalin’s regime was officiallydenounced.
99 By 1956 Malenkov had been demoted to the Ministry of Electric Power Stations.
100 British Pathé, http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=40510, accessed 3 July, 2011.
101 Gorsuch, All This is Your World, p. 60.
102 Klein, Cold War Orientalism, p. 53.

278

Chapter Five
1 Valeriya Selunskaya and Maria Zezina, ‘Documentary Film – A Soviet Source’, in Richard

Taylor and Derek Spring (eds.), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 178.
2 Jane Miller, Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (Seattle: University of Washington Press),

p.156.
3 Radha Vatsal, ‘Re-evaluating Footnotes: Women Directors of the Silent Era’, in Jennifer

Bean and Diane Negra (eds.), A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema (London: Duke University
Press, 2002), p. 122.
4 Kay Armatage, The Girl from God’s Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema (London:

University of Toronto Press, 2003), p. 26.
5 Ibid.

279

280

Appendix 1:
Svilova and foreign stories
Svilova’s first experience of editing footage shot outside the Soviet Union occurred
during World War II. News of the Day no.6 (1945) includes a story from Warsaw,
where a cargo of trolley-buses arrives by train – a gift from the Soviet Union.
Svilova’s following newsreel, News of the Day no.9 (1945) contains shots of a Soviet
delegation visiting Stuttgart and American troops entering Strasbourg. News of the Day
no.28 (1945) features footage shot in Sofia, where a meeting is held to discuss
diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, and also footage shot in
Bucharest, where a military parade celebrates the anniversary of Romania’s
democratic government. Svilova directed two films in the aftermath of Germany’ssurrender: Oświęcim and Atrocities, both produced in 1945. These films include footage
shot in a number of European locations outside the Soviet Union, including Poland,
Germany, France and Czechoslovakia. News of the Day no.14 (1946) comprises a story
concerning the construction of a power plant in Latvia and the opening of areconstructed bridge – rebuilt by a Soviet workforce – on the Danube. Latvia
featured again in News of the Day no.28 (1946), where a new tram is unveiled
transporting citizens through the streets of Riga. This episode also documented May
Day celebrations in Paris. The first of Svilova’s documentaries filmed entirely outside281

the Soviet Union was The General Assembly of the United Nations (1946), in which shotsof New York’s iconic sights provide the content for the opening montage. News of the
Day no.39 (1947) documents the production of beer in a Riga brewery, followed by
the coverage of an international fair in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in News of the Day no.58(1947).

The next two examples of foreign stories occurred in The International Democratic
Federation of Women (1947) and The International Democratic Federation of Women in Paris(1948). News of the Day no.27 (1948) features two foreign stories: Soviet Ambassador
Pushkin delivers a speech in Budapest, and Greek refugees, having fled the Greek
Civil War, arrive in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia also features in Svilova’s next
foreign story. In News of the Day no.7 (1949) a conference is held in Prague tocommemorate the 25th anniversary of Lenin’s death. In Vilnius, Lithuania, theRepublican Congress of Collective Farmers meets with Prime Minister Gedvilas todiscuss women’s rights in the workplace. This story, featured in News of the Day no.32(1949), is accompanied in the same episode by a story from Warsaw where a new
housing project is in development. In 1950 Svilova directed Yangtze River. In contrast
to the concise delivery of foreign stories contained within News of the Day, Yangtze
River is a twenty-minute documentary that captures the lives of Chinese people
residing along the river’s banks. News of the Day no.28 (1950) features a story from
Soviet-occupied Berlin, where a demonstration is held in honour of the Soviet YouthArmy. News of the Day no.9 (1951) concludes with two foreign stories, the first from
Latvia, where a symphonic orchestra performs in the House of Culture, and thesecond from Poland, in which a montage of Warsaw’s streets, buildings, transportand pedestrians is accompanied by the voices of a singing choir. The opening of apolygraph centre in Bucharest is recorded in News of the Day no.29 (1951), followed by282

coverage of a crop festival in Poznan, Poland, in News of the Day no.46 (1951). Pioneer
11 (1952) documents the travels of Young Pioneers (a Communist Scout
organisation) as they hike from Bulgaria to Poland. Last, a two-shot story depicting a
train entering and leaving Changchun railway station in China appears in News of the
Day no.9 (1953).

News of the Day no.38 (1953) documents the opening of a hydroelectric power stationon Lake Drūkšiai, situated on the border between Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia.
Shots of the air-traffic control tower and aeroplanes of Soviet design at Bucharest’sBăneasa Airport are featured in News of the Day no.53 (1953). News of the Day no.46(1954) includes a story from Danzig Airport where Polish sailors arrive having beenreleased from captivity in Taiwan. The destruction caused by Japan’s typhoon season
is reported in News of the Day no.60 (1954), followed by shots of the Trans-Mongolian
railway’s construction in News of the Day no.2 (1955). The Sovietisation of the North
Korean textile industry features in News of the Day no.11 (1955), while News of the Day
no.17 (1955) comprises three foreign stories: workers in Bucharest signing a petition
for improved conditions; workers picketing their office building in Osaka, Japan; anda ship heading for Romania on the Danube departing from Bratislava. News of the Day
no.22 (1955) documents an Estonian collective farm, a Budapest automobile factory,
and a group of students leaving Prague to visit sites of agricultural importance in the
Czech countryside.

News of the Day no.33 (1955) captures the manufacturing of two-storied train carriages
in East Germany and Warsaw, as well as an Indian delegation’s visit to a West
Bengali cable factory and measures taken to prevent flooding along the banks of theBrahmaputra River. The testing of a railway bridge crossing the Danube, a festival of283

twins in an unnamed Dutch village, and a gymnastics competition in Brno,
Czechoslovakia are all featured in News of the Day no.39 (1955). News of the Day no.45(1955) captures the Allies’ declaration of Austria’s independence in Vienna andevents at the Fifth World Festival of Youth and Students in Warsaw. The inventor ofa spring device used in telephones oversees his product being manufactured in a Riga
factory in News of the Day no.49 (1955), while News of the Day no.60 (1955) features four
foreign stories: Khrushchev and Bulganin visiting New Delhi; miners digging for coalin Czechoslovakia; English and Polish motorcyclists competing in Warsaw Stadium;and a hairdressing competition taking place in Paris. News of the Day no.1 (1956),
Svilova’s last episode of the newsreel, documents the construction of a cement works
near Datong, China, and the extraction of salt from sea water on the Japanese islandof Shikoku.

Svilova commenced her work on Foreign Newsreel in time to direct the fourth episode.
Foreign Newsreel no.4 (1956) features Malenkov’s visit to Calder Hall, Britain’s firstnuclear power plant; events following Tunisia’s gaining of independence from France;
oil storage in the north of Italy; boar hunting in Bulgaria; coverage of the 1956
University Boat Race; Norodom Suramarit’s coronation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia;
an equestrian competition in West Germany; and a performance by the Slovak
National Theatre in Prague. Svilova’s next episode, Foreign Newsreel no.6 (1956)
features May Day celebrations in Prague, East Berlin, Peking and Warsaw; Romanianpeasants being introduced to collectivisation; research into ontological diseases at the
University of San Francisco; the extracting of ore in the An Lushan mountain range
in northern China; celebrations in Rajasthan to commemorate India’s gaining of
independence from Britain; the construction of a hydroelectric power station inAustria; bat research carried out in the south of France; and highlights from the F.A.
284

Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in London. Foreign Newsreel no.9 (1956), Svilova’s lastnewsreel before her semi-retirement, documents Kim Il-Sung’s visit to an East
German metal works; celebrations in Rome to commemorate the anniversary of the
Italian Republic; the introduction of television to a Budapest audience; sturgeon
fishing in Romania and Bulgaria; the Festival of Dance and Music in Bombay;
Chinese women stitching an image of the Empire State Building onto canvas; a beer
festival in Belgium; a German ‘motoball’ competition; and Bulgarian tourists enjoying
the sights of Belgrade.

285

286

Appendix 2:
Filmography of Elizaveta Svilova

Year
1918

Title of
Production(English)Kinonedelia
No.1

Title of
Production(Russian)Кинонеделя
No.1

Production
StudioRole in
Production

Archive/
CreditNarkompros

Editor(Directed
by Dziga
Vertov)

RGAKFD/
AustrianFilm
Museum (nocredit ineither)

Editor(Directed
by Dziga
Vertov)

No Print
Exists

Editor(Directed
by Dziga
Vertov)

No Print
ExistsSynopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1919
Battle ofБой под
The
TsaritsynЦарицыным Revolutionary(Оборона
MilitaryЦарицына;Council andЦарицынский
the Filmфронт)
Committee of
the People’s
Commissariatof Public
Education
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1920
War of WarВойна войне
All-Russia
Photo-Cine
Department
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.

287

1922

Trial of theRight Socialist
RevolutionariesПроцесс
эсеров
(Процесс
правых
эсеров)All-Russia
Photo-Cine
Department

Editor,RGAKFD
Assistant(no credit)
Director(Directed
by Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: 8 June, 1922. The House of Unions in Moscow. Defendants, defenders,members of the tribunal and the accused sit in the court. Lunacharsky and Pokrovsky
are the accused, and Kona represents their defence. 20 June, 1922. A demonstrationis held in memory of Volodarsky (a Russian Marxist revolutionary). People
demonstrate in the streets and at the House of Unions. A group of Red Army men
demonstrate at Paraskeva Pyatnitsa church. A boy sells newspapers in the street.
People read the newspapers on trams and in their cars.
1922
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
EditorRGAKFD
No.7
No.7(Directed(no credit)by Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: The city of Moscow. A Session of the Supreme Tribunal on the subject ofbusiness. Pyatakov and Lunacharsky are both present. Cut to the village of Taseevo
in Siberia. The houses in the village have been burnt down by Kоlchak’s army. Cut to
Lake Baikal. Cut to Slyudyanka Railway Station. Cut to a botanical garden in
Khudyakov Park in the city of Sochi. The trees are in blossom. Cut to the city ofTuapse. People rest and sunbathe on the beach. Cut to the city of Enzeli in Persia.
Silk is loaded onto boats in preparation for the Baku Fair. Cut to a marketplace in thecity of Kabul. Celebrations unfold in honour of the religious holiday, Ashura. Cut toa Soviet settlement in the Caucasus.
1922
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
Editor
Open Society
No.13
No.13
(Directed
Archive (noby Dziga
credit)Vertov)
Synopsis: A peasant ploughs the ground. Cut to a meeting of the German delegationin Moscow and a Session of Country Congress with Krupsk and Voroshilov. Cut tothe Session of First Congress of Trade Unions. Cut to machinery workers in afactory. Cut to a demonstration in Leningrad. Cut to scenes in a textile factory, alibrary and an apiary. Cut to construction workers erecting a building.
1922
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
EditorRGAKFD
No.14
No.14(Directed(no credit)by Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: United States. A montage of American urban life: transport, steamships,
and skyscrapers. Cut to the Kremlin in Moscow and a scene from the Session of
Fourth Congress with Trotsky. Cut to a Session of Congress in the House of Unionswith Lozovsky and Tsetkin. Cut to a May Day demonstration in Moscow. Cut toagricultural workers preparing the soil with ploughs and by tractor. Cut to theSession of Second Congress with the participation of the Petrograd Council. Lenin isamong the delegates of the Congress.

288

1923

Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
EditorRGAKFDNo.17 – For the
No.17(Directed(credited asFirst
by Dziga
Editor)Agricultural andVertov)
Cottage
Industries
Exhibition in
the USSR
Synopsis: Developments of agricultural life in rural Soviet Union. Farmers reap
crops and handle livestock. Cut to starving peasants. Cut to the construction of arailway station named after Kanatchikov. A freight train is loaded with construction
materials. Cut to scenes from the first agricultural exhibition in the Soviet Union.
1925
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
Editor
Open Society
No.20 –
No.20
(Directed
Archive (noPioneer’s Pravda
by Dziga
credit)Vertov)
Synopsis: The pioneer group, Red Defence, and a wind band marches through arural street. Pioneers collect wheat, knit sheaves, weed vegetables and readnewspapers with peasants. The pioneer group, Young Lenins, visits a zoo. Some
pioneers stay behind at the village to prepare fire wood for the local school.
1925
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
Editor
Open Society
No.21 –
No.21
(Directed
Archive (noLeninistby Dziga
credit)Kinopravda
Vertov)
Synopsis: Lenin oversees the parade for the opening of a Karl Marx monument. Cut
to a meeting of the Second Congress. Cut to a demonstration of workers in various
cities across the Soviet Union. Cut to scenes taken from the funeral of Lenin.
1925
Cine-EyeКино-Глаз
Goskino
EditorRGAKFD/(Directed
Printsby Dziga available in
Vertov)
the West(credited as
Editor in
RGAKFD)
Synopsis: Pioneers camp on the edge of a lake. They hike, rest, reap crops and dogymnastics. The pioneers march with a Soviet banner.
1925
Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
Editor
Open
No.22 –
No.22
(Directed
Society
Lenin Lives inby Dziga Archive (nothe Peasant’s
Vertov)credit)Heart
Synopsis: Participants talk at the opening of Congress. Cut to the opening night in a
local theatre, where a season of productions is underway celebrating Moscow life.
Cut to a demonstration of the American movie camera in the ВFKО (the All-Russia
Film and Photo Department at Narkompros). People of Moscow gather around toobserve a demonstration of the new movie camera. Yaroslavl performs for thepeasants. Cut to the arrival of a delegation of peasants in Moscow. People enter theHouse of Councils. Cut to people visiting the body of Lenin. Cut to shots of the
Kremlin.

289

1925

Kinopravda
Киноправда
Goskino
Editor
Open
No.23 –
No.23
(Directed
Society
Radioby Dziga Archive (noKinopravda
Vertov)credit)Synopsis: Shoppers crowd around a shop counter to buy radios. The shopkeeper
packs a radio receiver. Komsomolets (members of the Communist Youth League)
are sent to a wood to cut trees. Cut to the same wood in the future - all of the trees
have been cut down. Cut to the installation of an aerial above a log hut reading room.
Cut to an animated sequence of people listening to their radios. Cut to radio
operators working with aerials. Cut to scenes in a radio station. The DJ speaks;
employees of the radio station work around him. Cut to shoppers buying radio
receivers in a shop.
1925
The FirstПервый
Goskino
Editor,RGAKFD
OctoberОктябрь без
Assistant (no credit)
without Il’ichИльича
Director(Directed
by Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: The C-80, a steam locomotive given as a gift to the Komintern, is repaired
after-hours in a depot at the site of the Northern Railway Exchange. Cut to theconstruction of a building by the housing organisation, Red Bogatyr (a Russian folk
warrior). Cut to the production of cars at the Moscow automobile factory, АМО.
Cut to an Agitprop demonstration at a railway station on the Moscow-Aleksandrov
line. Cut to people celebrating the 7 November holiday (the anniversary of thesocialist revolution) in Leningrad and Moscow.
1926 Stride, Soviet! Шагай, Совет!
Goskino
EditorRGAKFD/(Directed
Printsby Dziga available in
Vertov)
the West(no credit)
Synopsis: A montage of people’s lives in the twentieth century Soviet Union
through a comparison of famine and misery before and after the revolution. Cut to
May Day celebrations, including a military parade. Cut to scenes emphasising theParty’s determination to overcome social diseases such as unemployment,
homelessness and illiteracy. The struggle to overcome crime is also referenced, inparticular the rise of gangster culture.
1926 One Sixth ofШестая часть
Goskino &EditorRGAKFD/the World
мираSovkino(Directed
Printsby Dziga available in
Vertov)
the West(no credit)
Synopsis: The lives of the rich are shown in parallel to the lives of poor plantation
workers in capitalist countries. Cut to scenes taken from all parts and industries of
the Soviet Union: agriculture, factory work and shop work, etc. Cut to a steamshipentering an unidentified harbour of the Soviet Union. Cut to a second montage
emphasising the diversity of the Soviet Union’s different countries: the lives of
peasants, city life, life with amenities and life without them.

290

1927

Gut
Обработка
GoskinoDirector,
No Print
Productionкишок
EditorExistsSynopsis: Content of the film is unknown, although it can be assumed that it
documents the reusable uses of animal guts as seen in Bukhara (see next item).
1927
BukharaБухара
Goskino
Editor,RGAKFD
Assistant (credited as
Director
Director)(Directed
by YakovTolchan)Synopsis: The city of Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Shots of the streets, the architecture andthe transport links. Cut to the inside of a mosque; Muslims kneel and pray. Cut toworkers on an Astrakhan cotton plantation; sheep are sheared and fur coats are
manufactured. Cut to an Astrakhan market. Skins are manufactured and animal guts
are processed for food and oil, etc. Cut to productions on a weaving mill. Cut toanother market to see a hairdresser cutting hair in the street. Cut to a montage of thecity’s life.
1927
TungusТунгусы
GoskinoDirector,
No Print
EditorExistsSynopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1928 The EleventhОдиннадцатый
Ukrainian Film
Editor,RGAKFD/Year& Photography AssistantPrintsAdministration
Director available in(Kiev)(Directed
the West
by Dziga (no credit in
Vertov) RGAKFD)
Synopsis: Assembled from 1920s Soviet newsreels documenting the construction ofsocialism in the Ukraine during the eleventh year of Soviet power; the period ofindustrialisation, the construction of the Dnepr Dam and other marvels of Soviet
industry. Cut to a parade for the public and Party officials.
1929 Man with aЧеловек с
Ukrainian Film
Editor,RGAKFD/
Movie Camera киноаппаратом
& Photography AssistantWidelyAdministration
Director
Available(Kiev)(Directed (no credit inby Dziga RGAKFD)
Vertov)
Synopsis: An audience enters a movie theatre to see the film we are also about tosee. Morning time. People, machines, things, all sleep. The audience watch thecameraman shooting the film we are now watching. The city awakes. Commuters go
to work; factories, shops, marketplaces all come to life. Weddings, funerals, the birthof a child, all take place. Cut to the cameraman in the steel mine of the Donbass.
Cut to the end of the working day. The workers of the Soviet Union relax bydrinking alcohol, watching sport, visiting the countryside and playing music.
1930 EnthusiasmСимфония
Ukrainfilm
Editor,RGAKFD/(Symphony ofДонбасса
AssistantWidelythe Donbass)(Энтузиазм)Director
Available(Directed (no credit inby Dziga RGAKFD)
Vertov)
Synopsis: The labour of the Komsomolets in the coal mining region of the Donbass
is celebrated through the use of original noises and sounds recorded in the mines.
291

1934

Three Songs ofLeninТри песни оЛенине

Mezhrabpomfilm

Editor,RGAKFD/
AssistantOpen
DirectorSociety(Directed Archive (noby Dziga
credit in
Vertov)either)Synopsis: The museum of the life of Lenin. Muslim women, some wearing a veil,
some without, enter a mosque to pray. Cut to workers teaching adults to read andwrite. Cut to Uzbek women studying, working in shops, in factories and on collective
farms. Cut to archive material of Lenin’s life recorded between 1918 and 1920. Cut
to the funeral of Lenin at the House of Unions. Kalinin and Ordzhonikidze stand ina guard of honour. A funeral procession begins. The coffin containing Lenin’s bodyis brought into the Mausoleum. A salute from the rifles. Workers in turn enter the
Mausoleum. Cut to a montage of Lenin’s achievements: a parade of Soviet athletes;
industrial enterprises; and the mine in Magnitogorsk by the Ural River. The Heads of
the VKP and other Soviet officials visit Lenin’s body. Cut to Stalin on his election
campaign, which includes meeting Moscow workers.
1937
LullabyКолыбельная
Soiuzkino
CoRGAKFD
Director, (credited as
Editor
Editor),(Directed
Openwith
Society
Dziga
Archive (noVertov)credit)Synopsis: Mothers play with their children. Cut to pioneers engaged in military
preparation. Children perform music and ballet, women work in factories andmothers feed their new-born babies. Cut to the participation of girls in sporting
activities across the Soviet Union. Party officials and their wives meet with eachother. Stalin meets members of his party at the Kremlin. Cut to groups of girls ofdifferent nationalities and from different republics. Cut to women in a maternity
hospital breastfeeding their children. Cut to members of the Spanish delegation
marching across Red Square during a parade. Party officials welcome communist
Spaniards.
Памяти Серго
1937 In Memory ofSoiuzkino
CoRGAKFD/Орджоникидзе
SergioDirector,
AustrianOrdzhonikidze
EditorFilm(Directed
Museumwith(no credit inDziga
either)Vertov)
Synopsis: Moscow. 23 February, 1937, the day of Ordzhonikidze’s funeral. Amongthe present at the funeral are Zhdanov, Yezhov, Schmidt, Tchkalov, Мolotov, Stalin,
Voroshilov and Kaganovich. Visitors wish farewell to Ordzhonikidze’s body in the
Columned Hall of the House of Unions. A funeral procession takes place. The urn
containing Ordzhonikidze’s ashes is buried within the Kremlin’s walls.

292

1937

SergioOrdzhonikidzeСергоОрджоникидзе

Soiuzkino

CoRGAKFD/
Director,
Austrian
EditorFilm(Directed
Museumwith(no credit inDziga
either)Vertov)
Synopsis: Archive material from the Civil War. Ordzhonikidze and Tukhachevsky
organise their troops in Baku. Ordzhonikidze, on the day of Stalin’s 50th birthday, is
at war on the Black Sea. Also fighting are Kalinin and Voroshilov. Cut to a meeting
held by Tchkalov at the Gorki automobile factory. Cut to material from
Ordzhonikidze’s funeral used in In Memory of Sergio Ordzhonikidze (1937).
1938 Hail the Soviet Слава советским
Soiuzkino
CoRGAKFD/
Heroines!
героиням
Director,
Austrian
EditorFilm(Directed
Museumwith(no credit inDziga
either)Vertov)
Synopsis: Moscow. People welcome Grizodobova, Osilenko and Raskova, the threefemale pilots of the aeroplane, Native Land, at Belarus train station. The pilots exit thecarriage of a train and meet people on the platform of the station.
1938 Three HeroinesТри героини
Soiuzkino
CoRGAKFD/
Director,
Austrian
EditorFilm(Directed
Museumwith(credited as
Dziga
Co-Director
Vertov)in both)Synopsis: Radio operators accept messages from the aeroplane, Native Land. The
plane glides through the sky. The radio operator transfers the radio signal from thepilots. Cut to the pilots meeting sailors on a ship. Cut to the pilots meeting withother pilots in Khabarovsk. The pilots meet with local residents at railway stations
along the line trains. Cut to a passenger train approaching the platform of Moscow
station. Yaroslavl meets the pilots on the platform. Grizodubova and his son pass thehouse of Osilenko in their car, which is decorated with colours. Raskova addresses
the pupils of the school where her daughter studies. Kalinin hands over government
awards to the three pilots at the Kremlin.
1939 Greater ForceБольшая силаMoscow
Director, RGAKFD
Newsreel
Editor(credited as
Director)
Synopsis: Women of the Soviet Union work in the industries of agriculture,transport, public health services and culture. Stalin hands out awards at the Kremlin.
1939 House in GoriДомик в ГориMoscow
Director, RGAKFD
Newsreel/Tbilisi
Editor(credited as
Director)
Synopsis: Georgia. Landscape shots of the Caucasian mountains, rivers and gardens.
Cut to the railway station. A passenger train arrives. Cut to the museum converted
from Stalin’s childhood home. Cut to shots inside the museum. Cut to pioneers on
an excursion. Cut to Gori’s streets, buildings, landscapes and fortress.
293

1939

Roof of theWorldКрыша мираMoscow
Newsreel

Director,
EditorRGAKFD(credited as
Director)
Synopsis: Landscapes of the Pamir mountains in Central Asia. Cars pass onmountain roads. Cut to the construction of a hydroelectric station. Cut to the city of
Khorog. A geological expedition is taking place in the mountains. A herd of yaks
graze on a pasture. Collective farmers reap a crop of vegetables and measure thegrowth of the wheat. A boundary patrol on horses surveys the border.
О транспорте
1939 In Transport
Soiuzkino
Director,
No Print
EditorExistsSynopsis: Shots from the transport trade exhibition.
1939
ZIS
ЗИС
Soiuzkino
Director, RGAKFD
Editor(credited as
Director)
Synopsis: Production at the Stalin automobile factory. Motor vehicles, with the markof the Stalin factory, are transported as cargo on a highway. The Stalin motor
vehicles drive through the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow.
1940 Learn aboutВ колхозе все
Soiuzkino
Director, RGAKFD
Collectiveучатся
Editor(credited as
Farms
Director)
Synopsis: Children of different nationalities travel to school. Teachers teach thechildren the Constitution of the Soviet Union. Collective farmers, of different ages
and from different countries of the Soviet Union, teach adults the nature of theirwork. They teach in primary schools, in laboratories, in universities, in fields, in highschools and on the radio.
1940
Metro
Метро
Central Studio of Director, RGAKFD
Documentary
Editor(credited as
Film
Director)
Synopsis: Landscapes of Moscow. The Kremlin. Cut to shots of the undergroundstation, Mayakovskaya, a station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line of the metro andBelorusskaya, a station on the Koltseveya Line. Trains travel through tunnels deep
underground. For the few hours when the metro stations are closed, cleaners get towork emptying bins and sweeping rubbish.
1940
River
Река Чусовая
Central Studio of Director,
No Print
Chusovaya
Documentary
EditorExistsFilm
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown
1941 Union FilmСоюзкиножур- Central Newsreel Assistant RGAKFDJournal No.77
нал No.77
StudioDirector (credited as– Newsreel(Directed
Assistant
Cameraman inby Dziga
Director)
the Line of
Vertov)Fire
Synopsis: Pilots help collective farmers to harvest. Cut to aeroplanes in battle. Soviet
bombers shoot down German planes. German and Romanian pilots are captured by
the Red Army. The enemy’s planes are kept as trophies.

294

1941

Union Film Союзкиножурнал Central Newsreel
Editor
No Print
Journal No.87
No.87
Studio(Directed
Exists– In theby Dziga
Region of the
Vertov)‘A’ Heights
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown
1941 The USSR on СССР на экране Central Newsreel Director RGAKFD
the screen
No.11
Studio(credited as
No.11 (the(Английский
CoEnglishвариант)Director)variant)
Synopsis: A military air station. Soviet bombers are prepared for battle. Aerial
bombardment commences. Fighting also takes place between soldiers on the ground.
Cut to aeroplanes assisting collective farmers to harvest. Cut to tanks engaged in
warfare. A proficient tank operation results in the surrendering and capturing of a
German army.
1941
Blood forКровь за кровь Central Newsreel
EditorRGAKFD
Blood
Studio(Directed (no credit)by Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: The destruction of German offences in the Soviet Union’s cities andvillages. The victims of the German bombers, who are maimed and homeless, share
their stories. Cut to the Red Army launching its retaliation.
1942
SovietСоветский
Central Studio
Director RGAKFD
KazakhstanКазахстан
for Documentary(Credited as
Film
Director)
Synopsis: Combine harvesters thrash crops. Women work on the fields; they rake
behind the combines and also load bags with grain in preparation for sale. Trucks
transport bread. ‘Bread – for the Front’ is inscribed on the side of the trucks. Grain is
stacked in bags in a storehouse. Cut to a collective farm in Kazakhstan producing
cotton. Cut to the loading of bags of grain onto the steamship, Proletarka, docked in
an Aral port. Cut to members of tank crews receiving instructions from theircommanders. The crews prepare the tanks. Cut to tanks battling in warfare. Infantry
battles the Germans in rivers and on land. Cut to destroyed German tanks andartillery lying with the bodies of the dead German soldiers.
1943
Banner ofЗнамя победы
Central Studio
Director
No Print
Victory
for Documentary
ExistsFilm
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1943 Atrocities ofЗверства
Central Studio
Director RGAKFD
Fascists on theфашистов над for Documentary(no credit)
Soviet Soldiersсоветскими
Filmвоинами
Synopsis: Shots of the bodies of the Soviet soldiers murdered by German soldiers ina prisoner of war camp in the Stalingrad and Gorodischenska region.

295

1944 For You at the
Front!

Тебе, фронт

Alma-Ata Film
StudioCoRGAKFD
Director, (credited as
EditorCo(Directed
Director)
with
Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: A wife sees off her husband on his trip to the front. He works in a coalmine in the Karaganda region. Cut to the extraction and processing of a fish at a
floating factory in the Caspian Sea. Cut to a collective farmer as he looks after a bird
and harvests wheat, sugar beet and rice. Cattle breeders and sheep breeders work.
Cut to nurses looking after wounded men in hospital. Cut to cavalry passing throughthe streets of a city.
1944
In theВ предгорьях
Alma-Ata Film
CoNo Print
Mountains ofАла-Тау (ВStudioDirector,
ExistsAla-Tauгорах Ала-Тау)Editor(Directed
with
Dziga
Vertov)
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1944
The Oath ofКлятва
Central Studio for Director, RGAKFD
Youthмолодых
Documentary Film
Editor(credited as
Co-Director
with
Vertov)
Synopsis: Stalin talks to the citizens of a destroyed city. Komsomolets restore
Stalingrad; they work in mines, harvest crops and work in factories. Foreman
Shashkov describes his role working in a Moscow factory. The Komsomolets fish on
the Caspian Sea, work on a cattle-breeding and poultry farm and cut trees. Younggirls work in a laundrette. The Komsomolets compete in sporting activities and sew
in a sewing workshop. They also prepare for military duties.
1944
Soviet ArtСоветское
Central Studio for Director,
No PrintИскусство Documentary Film
EditorExistsSynopsis: Content of the film is unknown
1944 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio for Director, RGAKFD
No.10
дня No.10 Documentary Film
Editor(credited as
Director)
Synopsis: The capture and interrogation of General Franek. Cut to the delivery ofawards to the soldiers who captured Franek. Cut to the extraction of ore in the leadmines of Sikhote-Alin in the Far East of Russia. Cut to the delivery of bread to the
Front. Cut to the cleaning of hemp in Mordovia. Cut to the harvesting of peaches. A
pasture of goats grazes in the mountains of Uzbekistan. Cut to a train arriving from
Teheran with ammunition brought for the Red Army. Cut to the departure of theFinnish governmental delegation from Moscow Airport. Among the people there to
see the departure is Senior State Diplomat Dekanozov.

296

1945

News of the Day
No.6Новости
дня No.6

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: People congregate at Moscow Airport. Cut to a funeral at Novodevichy
church. A cemetery of urns with ashes of the Ambassador of the Soviet Union
Umansk, his wife and three of his employees of the embassy. Cut to Soviet tanks inthe streets. Cut to a train being loaded with trolley buses which are a gift to the
inhabitants of Warsaw. Cut to restoration of the railway bridge which passes throughDnepr into Kiev. Cut to woodcutters in Georgia cutting trees. Cut to an exhibition in
Tashkent for the Soviet Union’s 20th anniversary, which attracts visitors from allover the world. Cut to agricultural scientists working in the state farm, Kizyl-Artek.
1945 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.9
дня No.9
for
Editor(Credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Soviet armies in the German city of Stuttgart. Cut to the American
armies entering Strasbourg. Cut to the aviation hero, Valentina Grizodubova,
accepting the Soviet Hero Star medal in Moscow. Cut to workers in factories
collecting motors for tanks and engines for planes. Cut to miners extracting
manganese from the mines of the Northern Urals Mountains. Collective farmers
receive an award and a round of applause. In a small Soviet theatre, a celebration isheld for the 75th birthday of actress, Evdokiya Turchaninova.
1945 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.28
дня No.28
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: A Romanian government delegation arrives in Moscow. A meeting is held.
Cut to a celebration in Bucharest to commemorate the anniversary of its democratic
government. Cut to a meeting in Sofia held to discuss diplomatic relations between
the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. Cut to a radio chess match between the Soviet Unionand the USA. Cut to children in Leningrad arriving at school. Cut to the installationof the Saratov-Moscow pipeline which runs through the Oka River. Cut to acompetition between different fire-fighting crews organised by the People’s
Commissariat of Internal Affairs and held in Dynamo Stadium, Moscow.
1945
AuschwitzОсвенцим
Central Studio
Director
Open SocietyforArchive (noDocumentary
credit)Film
Synopsis: The Red Army liberates Auschwitz. The released prisoners leave thecamp. Injured prisoners are assisted by other prisoners and Red Army soldiers. A
Soviet delegation of generals inspects the camp. The generals inspect the mountainsof hair, clothes dentures and suitcases. A funeral is held for the victims of Auschwitz.
Soviet doctors examine prisoners and reveal the results of the doctors’ gruesome
experiments, including prisoners subject to plastic surgery and sterilisation.
Photographs of the Nazis responsible for the tragedy of Auschwitz are shown.

297

1945

BerlinБерлин

Central Studiofor
Documentary
Film

Editor(Directed
by YuliRaizman)Open Society
Archive(credited as
Co-Director
withRaizman)Synopsis: Marshall Zhukov organises the Red Army at the River Oder. An
unprecedented force of attack is launched to push the Germans back to Berlin.
Intense fighting on land and sea ensues. The Red Army enters Berlin. They feed thestarving Berliners and uphold the moral law by preventing crimes such as looting andraping. A Soviet flag is hoisted over the Reichstag. Field Marshal Keitel signs the Act
of Unconditional Surrender on Germany’s behalf. A victory parade is held in Red
Square.
1945 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.21
дня No.21
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: A train from Berlin is welcomed at Belarus Station in Moscow. Cut to the
Kemerovo region. A montage of workers in shops, factories, metal works andaviation factories. Workers drill into pipes at the gas mains of Saratov-Moscow. Cut
to Kalinin presenting an award to the maximum command structure of the Sovietnavies. Celebration Day of the navy fleet on Himkinska, a water basin near Moscow.
1945 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.26
дня No.26
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The signing of the agreement between the Soviet Union and Poland
concerning the indemnification caused by Germany. Molotov signs the agreement onbehalf of the Soviet Union and Prime Minister Morawski signs on behalf of Poland.
Present at the signing are Stalin and President Craiova. Vice-President Vares awards
Star medals to the heroic pilots of the Red Army. Cut to the departure of General
Eisenhower from Moscow. Marshal Zhukov and General Antonov are all at Moscow
Airport. Cut to the restoration of the Kharkov tractor factory. Cut to a collective
farm. Flocks of sheep graze on pastures; Altai horses and camels are herded withthoroughbred Siberian cows. Cut to the Arshan Tunka valley at the foot of the Sayan
Mountains. Some people relax while others walk peacefully around the valley. Cut toa parade of Allied armies marching with the Red Army. Included in the parade areGeneral Konev and other generals representing the American, English and Frenchcommand.
1945 Born By a Storm Рожденные Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD(Young Guards)бурей.
for
Editor(credited as(Молодая
Documentary
Director)Гвардия)Film
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.

298

1945

News of the Day
No.14Новости
дня No.14

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Prime Minister of Iran arrives in Moscow. The Delegation of
Leningrad offers Kalinin the Certificate of the Deputy of the Supreme Body of theSoviet Union. Cut to the construction of the Kegums Power Plant in Latvia. Cut toworkers in the Red October metal works in Stalingrad. Cut to production in
Leningrad steelworks. Cut to stories told by the tankmen of the Kantemirovskaya
division. Cut to the opening of the bridge across the River Danube, restored in
Bratislava by the Soviet Union. Cut to children in a music school.
1946 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.23
дня No.23
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Hungarian governmental delegation, led by Prime Minister Nagy,
arrives in Moscow. Molotov, representing the Soviet Union, arrives to meet them.
Cut to the production of firm alloys, and then to the Moscow knitting factory, The
New Dawn. Cut to a train crossing the restored bridge at Dnepr. Cut to Doctor
Shahurdin, a doctor of agricultural sciences, discussing experiments he has carriedout with Albidium 43, a high-yielding wheat extract using incubators in
Turkmenistan. Cut to students at the Zakarpattia University in Uzhgorod listening toProfessor Sinitsyn of the Gorki Medical Institute. Sinitsyn lectures on animal hearttransplants. Cut to performers entertaining at the Moscow circus.
1946
Session of theCессии
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
ExecutiveИсполкома
for
Editor(credited asCommittee of the Всемирной
Documentary
Director)WorldФедерации в
Film
Federation inМоскве
Moscow
Synopsis: Content of the film is unknown.
1946 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.28
дня No.28
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Enterprises of the Soviet Union meet in honour of the new state loan. Cut
to the production of cement at Novorossiysk, the centre of the cement industry in
the Soviet Union. Cut to Kharkov tractor factory. Cut to a Sulphur factory in the
Karakum desert. Cut to Latvia. A new tram transports people through the streets ofRiga. Cut to the production of tea on a plantation in Armenia. Cut to May Day
demonstrations in Paris.
1946 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.30
дня No.30
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Polish governmental delegation arrives in Moscow. Cut to cotton
production in the Ordzhonikidze factory in Chelyabinsk. Cut to rice growing in a
Kazak collective farm. Cut to production in a metal design factory in Orsk. Cut toproduction on collective farms in Tadjik and Kirghiz. Cut to Abkhazia, on theeastern coast of the Black Sea. Cut to an international chess match between
Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.
299

1946

News of the Day
No.47Новости
дня No.47

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Following its restoration the Belarus-Moscow Baltic channel opens. The
delegation of Britain’s Labour Party leaves Moscow. Cut to the Finnish Exhibition to
Moscow. Cut to harvesting in collective farms in Moscow. Cut to the restoration of
the Tbilisi railway workshops in Georgia. Cut to the gathering of sulphate on the
Caspian Sea. Snake charmers work in the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan. Cut to
Republican competitions of motorcyclists in Ashkhabad. Cut to the commencementof a new project at the Central Aeronautics Observatory in Moscow.
1946
The Session ofНа сессии
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
the GeneralГенеральной
for
Editor(credited as
Assembly of theАссамблеи
Documentary
Director)
United Nations
ООН
Film
Synopsis: The city of New York: the streets, traffic, port and harbour. Cut tomembers of the Soviet delegation at the Session of General Assembly of the United
Nations. Molotov and Vyshinsky travel on a steamship. Cut to a building displaying
the fifty-one flags of the countries participating at the Session. Participants of theSession listen to the speakers. Among the speakers are Paul Spaak, the Chairman ofGeneral Assembly of United Nations, Harry Truman and Мolotov.
1946
Parade ofПарадCentral Studio
Director
RGAKFD
Youth/Youngмолодости
for(credited as
Guard
Documentary
Co-DirectorFilmwith Boikov)
Synopsis: Dynamo Stadium is filled with spectators for a parade. Stalin, Моlotov,
Voroshilov and Malenkov are on the governmental tribune. Secretary Mikhailov andChairman Romanov observe the athletes. Participants of the parade march throughthe stadium. Schoolboys compete. Children present bouquets of flowers to party
officials. Athletes from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia perform. Students from
Moscow’s high schools perform. Athletes from Moldova, Finland and students fromthe Leningrad Institute of Physical Culture also compete. Sportsmen from Tajikistan,
Kirghizia and sportsmen representing the sports society, Dynamo, perform. Young
footballers from Dynamo play. Sportsmen from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, from the society, Manpower Reserves, athletes from Armenia, Georgia
and Azerbaijan all compete. Performances also take place by boxers, the Trade
Unions Motorcycle Club, gymnasts, runners and weightlifters. Stalin addresses thestadium.
1946 Judgement of the Суд народов Central Studio
CoRGAKFD
NationsforDirector(credited asDocumentary(Directed
Co-Director
Film
with
with
Roman
Karmen), no
Karmen)Credit in
OSA
Synopsis: Nazi war criminals are trialled in a Nuremberg court.

300

1947

News of the Day
No.12Новости
дня No.12

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The final Session of the Central Selective Commission’s elections. Cut tothe work of the famous Latvian weaver, Savelyev. Cut to the work of Kirghizia
Konzhekazneva on a pasture in the mountains of Tian-Shan. Cut to scenes from
Giant, the state farm in the Rostov region, where workers are preparing for harvest.
Komsomolets work in a mechanical repair factory in Zapolarya. Cut to mechanics
working on the motorcycle, Moscow, on the factory conveyor belt. Cut to weavers
making Gobelin tapestries in the Alma-Ata workshop. Cut to collective farmers
competing as equestrian sportsmen in the Lithuania.
1947 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.26
дня No.26
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Hashkovski, the Ambassador of Poland for the Soviet Union, addresses
the Kremlin. Cut to a delegation of coal miners in Karaganda observing the work ofminers in a Moscow coal basin. Cut to the manufacturing of agricultural machines in
Lyuberetsky. Cut to the gas distribution station in Karachev and then to a gas boilerhouse in Moscow. Cut to an exhibition of new fiction books written about the city of
Moscow. Cut to workers in the Voroshilov state fruit farm. Cut to the manufactureof astrakhan skins in the state farm, Plain, in the Karakum desert. Cut to Dynamo
Stadium where sportsmen and sportswomen train in preparation for the new sports
season.
1947
News of theНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Day No.32
No.32
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Representatives of the collective farms in the Altay region experimentwith grain in a laboratory. Cut to shepherds in the Altay region. Shepherds work in
the collective farm, Siberian Merino. Cut to shepherds resting during the hot summer
in the collective farm, Red Hero. Cut to the manufacture of automobile bearings in
the first state bearing plant. Cut to Ivanov, an engineer in his laboratory in the Ural
Mountains. Cut to the Statesmen of Yugoslavia at the Session of the National
Assembly as it passes the law on the five year plans for the development of a national
economy. Cut to passenger ships in the port of Odessa.
1947
News of theНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Day No.39
No.39
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Beet production in the collective farm, Red Plowman, in the Kursk region.
Cut to Moscow. The meeting of the representatives of different countries at the
Fourth Session of the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Democratic
Youth. Cut to Ukraine. The construction of a new plant in a Nikopol. Cut to theassembly line of automobiles in the fourth largest car factory in Gorki. Cut to the
production of beer in a Riga brewery.

301

1947

News of the
Day No.44Новости дня
No.44

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Work on the restored metal works, Red October, in Stalingrad. Cut to a
tractor factory. Cut to the preparation and transportation of wood from Bryansk
Forest. Cut to new medical buildings in Kursk. Cut to collective farmers harvesting
the fields of Red Dawn in the Saratov region and Family Red in the Kiev region. Cut
to a supervisor spot-checking the alloy work on rafts on the river Kama. Cut toexhibits in the museum of the Kremlin. Cut to Leningrad. Exhibits of the Soviet furs
in the auction house, Sojuzpushnina.
1947
News of theНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Day No.58
No.58
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Spassky monastery in Kiev. Cut to the Dolgorukov family tomb. Cut toUkrainian farmers harvesting grain, beet and sugar. Cut to a mountain landscape in
Abkhazia. Cut to the construction of the Sukhum hydroelectric power station. Cut tonorthern Ossetia. Climbers of the sports society, Petrel, make an ascent. Cut to a
Spartak Moscow match in Dynamo Stadium. Cut to Plovdiv in Bulgaria. Theinternational fair is taking place. President Kolarov examines an exhibition.
1947 InternationalМеждународная Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Democraticдемократическая
for
Editor(credited asFederation ofфедерация
Documentary
Director)
Womenженщин
Film
Synopsis: The city of Prague. A delegation from each of the participating countries
listens to a speech by Nina Popova. The delegation visits the newly opened Lenin
Museum. Popova delivers a speech to a female workforce.
1947
All-UnionВсесоюзный
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Parade ofпарадfor
Editor(credited as
Athletes 1947 физкультурников Documentary
Director)
1947
Film
Synopsis: A parade of sport societies in Dynamo Stadium. Stalin, Malenkov, Hodja,
Мolotov, Kosygin and Zhdanov watch the parade from their box.
1948 InternationalВыставка
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Democraticмеждународной
for
Editor(credited asFederation ofдемократической Documentary
Director)
Women inфедерации
Film
Paris
женщин вПариже
Synopsis: Panoramic shots of Paris from the Eiffel Tower. The Soviet delegation
visits a house in Mary Rose Street to see a memorial of Lenin. Cut to ademonstration of Parisians to celebrate Bastille Day. Cut to scenes from theexhibition. France, Vietnam, USA, England, Greece, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,
Hungary, Albania, Romania and the Soviet Union all participate. Тоrez, Kazan,
Ibarrudi, Joliot-Curie, Kotton and Triole visit the Soviet display.

302

1948

News of the
Day No.9Новости дня No.
9

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Romanian governmental delegation, led by chairman Sovmina,
departs from Moscow. Molotov and Vyshinsky see off the delegation. Cut toconstruction of the Mingechaur hydroelectric power station. Cut to the opening of
the Mossovet theatre. Cut to the construction of a multi-storey house in Dagestan.
Cut to Stalin speaking on the subject of the construction of a collective farmhydroelectric station. Cut to the draw of the first circulation of the three per centinternal loan in the House of Culture. Cut to a meeting of the Moscow Club ofWriters, devoted to the 70th birthday of the writer, Prishvin. Prishvin reads from his
latest work about a walk in a wood.
1948
News of theНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Day No.21
No.21
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Finnish government delegation, led by prime minister Pekkaloj,
arrives at Leningrad Station. Molotov and Vyshinsky are at the station to meet them.
Cut to assemblers in the Moscow electrolamp factory at work. Cut to the World
Chess Championship in the House of Unions. Playing in the competition are
Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky and Euwe. Cut to a visit to Moscow State
University by a Professor Gavronin of Prague University. Cut to students of the
Tashkent Agricultural Institute on work placements. They prepare beet seeds forsowing on the Uzbek collective farm, Stalin. Cut to house building in the Molotov
region. Cut to the restoration of houses in the city of Pskov which were destroyed
during the war. Cut to an audience watching Victory in a Pskov cinema.
1948 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.27
дня No.27
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Uzbek Academic Theatre in Tashkent. The foreign visitors, who havearrived to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Ali-Sher Navoi (a fifteenth-century poetof the Medieval East), enjoy the exhibition. Cut to a group of Soviet Heads
examining the first tractors constructed at the Moscow factory, VARZ. One of the
tractors passes through Moscow streets. Cut to the city of Budapest. Soviet
Ambassador Pushkin delivers a speech in the presidential residence of the Hungarian
Republic. Cut to the arrival of Czechoslovakian refugees in Greece. Cut to thebuilding of houses in Sevastopol which were destroyed during the war. Cut to the
preparation of fire wood by woodcutters in Zakarpattia. Cut to the processing andpollination of plants in the Rostov area.

303

1948

News of the Day
No.31Новости
дня No.31

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Assembly of automobiles at the Moscow factory, Vladimir Ilyich. Cut tothe manufacturing of bulbs at a Moscow glass factory. Cut to the oil derricks of a
Turkmen craft and the drilling of chinks. Cut to workers in a Voronezh collective
farm digging irrigation canals. Cut to the opening of an irrigation system in a
Chapaev collective farm. Cut to Marfino, a collective farm near Moscow, to see thehotbed facilities and the cultivation of tomato bushes using synthetic acids. Cut tothe reconstruction of houses in Minsk that were destroyed during the war. Cut tolandscapes of Crimea: a sanatorium on the seacoast; the pioneer camp, Artek; people
sunbathing, playing chess and walking on Ah-Petri (a famous hill). Cut to a steamshipon the Black Sea.
1948 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.38
дня No.38
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Kuznetsk Metallurgy Laboratory. Cut to the Kubano Black Sea oil fields.
Cut to the city of Tallinn. Workers at the hydroelectric power station, Volta. Cut to
Ural collective farm, Dawn. A tractor ploughs the earth. Cut to the maiden voyage ofthe first river vessel designed from building berths at the Gorki factory, Russian
Sormovo. Cut to the Kostroma dairy-breeding state farm, Karavaevo. Cows graze ina pasture. Cut to the Moscow elevator-mill. Cut to Tsyurupa and the arrival of breadfrom Kuban. Cut to Belovezhskaya, a dense forest in Belarus. Zebras and lynxes are
kept in a territory reserve.
1948 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.43
дня No.43
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The restored Kharkov tractor factory and the completion of the 15,000th
tractor. Cut to the restored mine, Cheluskintsev. Workers extract and transport coalin the Donbass. Cut to collective farmers on the Voronezh farm, New Life,
harvesting grain. Cut to farmers on the collective farm, Ilyich, growing sunflowers,
herding horses and farming sheep, pigs and cows. Butter and sausages are produced.
Cut to Kuznetsk Metallurgy Laboratory. Cut to a skating rink. Cut to the village of
Mstera in the Vladimir region. Artists create wax miniatures. Cut to Lake Teletsky in
the Altay mountain range. Scientists study the lake and wildlife reserve.
1948 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.47
дня No.47
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The meeting of Moscow industry workers in the Columned Hall of theHouse of Unions. Cut to the building of the first state bearing plant. Cut to a skating
rink. Cut to a metal works. Workers operate the grinding machinery. Cut to the Stalin
Medical Institute. Cut to Tartussky University. Students collect their student cards
and attend lectures. Cut to shots of a self-propelled ferry. Cut to the construction ofa highway in Kalinin-Kashin. Cut to the cleaning of tobacco leaves in Alma-Ata state
farm, Tobacco. Cut to the gathering of grapes on vineyards in Zakarpattia. Cut towood landscapes in Bulgaria. Cut to the construction of a dam in the mountains ofRodopski.
304

1948

News of the Day
No.52Новости
дня No.52

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Moscow. A speech is delivered by the Ambassador of Hungary, Моlnar.
Cut to a factory in Magnitogorsk. Cut to students working in the Metallurgical
Institute. Cut to oil developments in Tuymaza. Cut to cotton-picking machines in the
cotton fields of the Lower Chirchik region. Cut to the manufacturing of paper in
Rahovschina. Cut to an assembly of collective farmers on one of the advanced
collective farms preparing wood. Cut to Budapest. Visitors examine an exhibition ofSoviet literature.
1948 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.56
дня No.56
forEditor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: A Voronezh stone steppe surrounded by a wood. Workers at the
Dokuchayev Institute discuss beet growth. Cut to corn fields and the streams createdin drought areas. Cut to the opening of a garden in the Penza collective farm, FifteenYears of October. Cut to a Moscow rubber factory and a meeting to discuss
performance in relation to the annual plan. Cut to a metal works in the city of
Rustavi. Cut to the Republican Agricultural Exhibition in the city of Frunze. Visitors
view cattle-breeding and cotton-growing stands. Cut to Paranayska, a paper factory insouthern Sakhalin. Cut to the headquarters of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet
Union in the town of Michurinska in southern Sakhalin. Cut to the cropping ofvegetables in hothouses and on fields. Cut to the Sakhalin mines. Miners work in acoal face. Coal is transported along a conveyor belt.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.7
дня No.7
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Ambassador of the Korean People’s Democratic Republic in theSoviet Union, Du En-Xa, hands over the accrediting letter to the Chairman of theSoviet Union, Shvernik, in the Kremlin. Cut to the Session of the Academy of Arts.
The artists present include Gerasims, Fedorovsky and Grabar, and sculptors Manizev
and Mukhina. Cut to the metal works factory, Hammer and Sickle. Cut toafforestation collective farmers in Stalingrad as they become acquainted with samplesof various bushes. Cut to the Leningrad orchestra under the direction of conductor,
Mravinsk. Stalin addresses workers in the Kirov factory, Electric Power. Cut to a
Prague conference devoted to the 25th anniversary of Lenin’s death.

305

1949

News of the Day
No.12Новости
дня No.12

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: A meeting of the governmental delegation of the Korean People’s
Democratic Republic in Moscow. Present are the Chairman of the Cabinet of Korea,
Kim Il-Sung, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pak Khen-En, and the Vice-President of
Cabinet, Khon Man-Хi, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gromyko, and the VicePresident of the Ministerial Council of the Soviet Union, Mikoyan. Cut to a meetingof workers in the Moscow factory, Ordzhonikidze, to discuss the Ministerial Council
and the Party Central Committee’s decision to reduce wages. Cut to the Proletarka
factory in Kalinin. Cut to a new physiotherapist table and x-ray machine at a hospitalin the village of Belovezhskaya in Chuvashia. Cut to an exhibition of home
appliances in Moscow. Cut to Officers of the Artillery Academy visiting a Moscow
children’s home.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.24
дня No.24
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Construction of new houses in Moscow. Cut to a model of the south-west
area of Moscow. The architect, Rudnev, acquaints students with the building project.
Cut to Dr Bakhtadze working in the laboratory of the All-Union Scientific ResearchInstitute of Tea and Subtropical Cultures. Cut to fishing in the delta of the River
Volga. Fishermen fish for sevruga (a type of caviar) and sturgeon. Cut to an
exhibition of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s work in the Moscow House of Engineering andTechnology. Cut to the opening of a monument in Treptower Park in memory of theSoviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.32
дня No.32
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The automobile factory, Uralzis. Lorries leave a gate of the factory. Cut tothe city of Vilnius. The Republican Congress of Collective Farmers meets in a
Lithuanian theatre with Prime Minister Gedvilas of the Ministerial Council of
Lithuania to discuss women’s rights at work. Cut to Tajikistan. Tractors drive along
the mountain roads. A mechanic checks tractor engines at a tractor station in themountains. The collective farm, Parent Glory, is awarded a medal for its productivity.
Cut to house building projects in Warsaw.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.34
дня No.34
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Wheat is cleaned by self-propelled combines in Zernosovhoz, southern
Russia. Grain is loaded into machines. Cut to the construction of the Kurganskayadam; builders work with shovels. Cut to Moscow. Members of a selection committee
from the Moscow tool factory, Calibre, talk with children about their vocation. Cut
to the state farm, Gzhelka, in Moscow which specialises in the cultivation of
ducklings. Ducklings are fed and weighed after hatching. Cut to scenes from theCzechoslovakian Mechanical Engineering and Textile Exhibition in Moscow’s
Central Park. Cut to Gdansk in Poland for the Day of the Sea celebrations. The
steamship, Peter, arrives in the port.
306

1949

News of the Day
No.36Новости
дня No.36

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The collective farm, Molotov, in Kuban. Wheat is harvested by combines.
Cut to workers in the boiler factory, Red Sormovo. Cut to children on a hike duringa pioneer camp for the children of the UFA locomotive repair factory’s workers. Cut
to cadets of the Baku Navy School getting acquainted with navigating devices on an
educational vessel. Cut to the city of Vilnius in Lithuania. Architect Mikuchanis, theHead of the General Plan of Restoration and Reconstruction of Vilnius, talks toarchitects in a workshop. Masons work on a building site. Cut to Hungary. The
Ambassador of the Soviet Union for Hungary, Tishkov, meets with the President of
the Hungarian Republic, Sakashicho.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.50
дня No.50
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: An oak nursery in Kalinin, in the Tambov region. Cut to a knitting factoryon Vitebsk Street. Cut to the Molotov collective farm, where rice and figs are
harvested. Cut to the Moscow factory, Hammer and Sickle, and the collective farm,
Red Banner in Chuvash. Cut to a ceremonial meeting in the Moscow Conservatory
devoted to the centenary of Shopena’s birth. Cut to the elections of the GDR
president in Berlin.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.54
дня No.54
forEditor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: A conference for the leaders in the field of animal experimentation. Cut to
Moscow State University. Students study military defence strategies. Cut to workers
moulding steel in the Chelyabinsk metal works. Cut to the construction of a dam in
the Tambov region. Cut to the construction of a dam on the Arzhenka River and acollective farm power station. Cut to cotton fields in Uzbekistan. Raw clap isgathered and packed in the collective farm, Aydin. Cut to a demonstration in Sofia inhonour of the 32nd anniversary of the October Revolution.
1949 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.58
дня No.58
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Workers meet in a Moscow electronics factory in honour of Stalin’s 70thbirthday. Cut to the Dzerzhinsky steel works in Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine. Cut tothe assembly of electronic devices in a second Moscow factory. Cut to the harvestingof citrus fruits in a Georgian collective farm. Workers pack the fruit into boxes. Cut
to participants in the Republican Olympiad in Kiev. Cut to the work of Kostorezy,
an artist from the village of Lomonosov in the Arkhangelsk area. Cut to the repair ofsteam locomotives in the Parovoz factory in Sofia, Bulgaria.

307

1949

The World Will
Win the WarМирпобедит
войну

Central Studiofor
Documentary
Film

CoRGAKFD
Director(credited as(Directed
Co-Director)
with Bubrik
andGerasimov)
Synopsis: The All-Union Conference of Supporters of the World held in the Houseof Unions in Moscow. Among the delegates of the conference are Lysenko, Fadeev,
Vavilov and Nikolay. The conference is in support of peace in Leningrad and otherdemocratic capital cities. Different topics of political, cultural and economic
significance are discussed relating to both the Soviet Union and foreign countries.
1949 For a High Crop За высокий Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDурожай
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Salskaya Forest, Georgia. Citrus fruits are harvested. Cut to thestrengthening of sand in the Bukhara Oasis. Saxaul seeds are sown. Cut to the
preparation of seeds for sowing in collective farms in the Ukraine and Kuban.
1950
Yangtze RiverПо реке
Central Studio
Director
RGAKFDЯнцзыfor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film/Peking
Studio of theChineseNational
Republic
Synopsis: The Yangtze River. Cut to different settlements along the banks of theriver: Chongqing; Wuhan; Shanghai; Nanking; and Hankow. Chinese people work infields. Cargo is transported along the river. Fisherman cast nets. Builders mix cement
in a shipyard. Cut to the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking. Cut to the
Mausoleum of Sun Yat-Hay. Cut to the construction of domestic and commercial
city buildings.
1950 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.28
дня No.28
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Stalin speaks at the First Session of the Supreme Body of the Soviet
Union. Present are Kaganovich, Bulganin, Andreev and Моlotov. Cut to the Prime
Minister of Finland, Kekkonena. Cut to the cleaning of grain in the Turkmen
collective farm, Komsomol. Cut to workers in Stalin, the Ural automobile factory.
Cut to a demonstration in Berlin in honour of the youth army, with the participationof Khonekkera.

308

1950

News of the Day
No.5Новости
дня No.5

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Memorial evening for Lenin held at the Bolshoi. Present are Stalin, Beria,
Svernika, Khruschev, Malenkov and Kosygina. Pospelov performs for the audience.
Wreaths are hung in Lenin’s Mausoleum by chosen diplomatic representatives of anumber of socialist countries. Cut to the operation of a propaganda centre before thegeneral secretarial elections. Cut to the metal works, Azovstal. Cut to a meeting inhonour of the pre-schedule completion of the repair of a steam locomotive, KitayskoSoviet Friendship.
1950 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.12
дня No.12
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Production in a pulp and paper factory in the Kaluga region. Cut to the
Penza watch factory. Cut to Tarasova acting in a theatre production. Cut to the
Rybnovsk tractor factory in the Ryazan region. Cut to the production of vegetableoils at the Chimkent factory in Kazakhstan. Cut to a weaving workhouse in Moscow.
Cut to the production of cotton in a Romanian cotton mill.
1950 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.32
No.28
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The first session of the meeting halls of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
to attend the session of Stalin. Kaganovich, Bulganin, Andreev, Molotov and Beria
are all in attendance. Zverev gives a speech. Cut to a meeting in Moscow with Prime
Minister Kekkonen of Finland. Cut to the harvesting of grain in the fields of the
Turkmen farm, Komsomol. Cut to labourers working in the Ural Automobile Plant
named after Stalin. Cut to a demonstration in Berlin to honour the German youth
rally.
1950 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.32
No.32
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: 4 July, 1950. The Fourth Session of the Supreme Body of the Soviet
Union in the Kremlin. Present are Molotov, Shvernik, Malenkov, Kaganovich,
Bulganin, Andreev, Suslov and Mikoyan. Cut to a meeting in the Moscow
electrolamp factory, Ordzhonikidze. Cut to a meeting in the Riga VEF factory toorganise a petition to uphold the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Cut to the city of
Minsk and a montage of Minsk’s streets, buildings and work places. Cut to theharvesting of grain in the state farm, May Day in the Crimea. Cut to the city of
Yaroslavl. Montage of Yaroslavl’s streets and landscapes. Cut to the Volkova theatre.
People gather in the foyer to see Virty’s play, Plot Doomed. Cut to Beijing. A meetingis held to sign the Stockholm Appeal, a petition to uphold the prohibition of nuclear
weapons.

309

1950 News of the Day
No.36Новости дня
No.36

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Moscow. A ceremonial meeting is held devoted to the Day of theRailwayman in an open-air theatre in Central Recreation Park. Cut to a railway
station. Railwaymen work with the trains. A steam locomotive passes through thestation. Cut to production at the factory, Red Proletarian. Cut to the meteorologicalstation at the Academy of Sciences in Kazakhstan in the Tyan-Shan mountains. Cut
to sheep grazing in a field. Cut to an architectural project in the city of Karaganda
and shots of residential buildings under construction and roads being asphalted. Cut
to the meeting of the Third Congress of the Socialist Uniform Party of Germany(SEPG) in Berlin.
1950 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.50
No.50
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The second All-Union Conference at the factory, Commune of Paris. Cut
to production at the Kharkov tractor factory. Cut to the drainage of the marshy
grounds in Estonia. Cut to the movement of freight trains through the Ural Ridge.
Cut to elections in the National Chamber in East Germany. Cut to a landscape of thegrounds in the Dresden village of Dalevits.
1950 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.53
No.53
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The government elections in Moscow. Stalin holds a pre-election meetingat the electro-factory. Demonstrations are held on 7 November in Red Square,
Leningrad, Kiev, Baku, Stalingrad and Kakhovka. A festival is held on the bank of
the Dnepr River. Cut to a demonstration in Sofia.
1951 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.9
No.9
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The city of Leningrad. Elections of officials of the Supreme Body of theSoviet Union. Cut to the city of Moscow. General meeting of the Academy of
Sciences of the Soviet Union devoted to presidential elections. Present are
Vyshinsky, Grekov and Nesmeyanov. Cut to the extraction of manganese ore in thecity of Chiatura, Georgia. Cut to the performance of a symphonic orchestra in theHouse of Culture in the city of Cesis, Lativa. A choir performs in Warsaw, Poland.
Cut to shots of Warsaw’s streets, buildings, transport and pedestrians.

310

1951

Visit of the
IndianDelegation ofFilmmakers to
the USSR

Пребывание
Central Studioиндийской
forделегации
Documentaryкиноработников
Filmв СССРCoRGAKFD
Director,(credited as
Editor
Co-Director(Directed
with A.
with A.
Varlamov)Varlamov)
Synopsis: A group of Indian cinematographers arrives at Vnukovo Airport.
Delegations also arrive from Tbilisi, Bern, Leningrad and Kiev. Cut to meetings withworkers of the Moscow factories, Three Mountain Manufacturing and Red October.
Cut to events at the film studios and theatres, Mosfilm, TSDRI, Moscow House ofCinema, TSSDF and the Bolshoi. Cut to the Leningrad factory, Fast Walker, then to
the House of Pioneers, a pre-school in Kiev. Cut to a sanatorium on the Black Sea
coast and to a collective farm in Georgia.
1951 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.20
No.20
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Moscow. Construction of a skyscraper in Kotelnicheskaya Quay. Cut tothe arrival of the International Union of Students. Cut to greenhouses in amechanical engineering factory in Ural. Fruits and flowers blossom in the gardens of
the state farm, Agriculturist, in the Krasnodar region. Cut to a performance ofTchaikovsky by the Hungarian National Army Orchestra. Cut to Austria for thesigning of a petition to coalesce working industrial enterprises.
1951 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.29
No.29
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Delivery of the International Stalin Award in Korea. Cut to Uzbekistan. A
coal mine in the basin of Angren. Wood is collected near the Kama River. Cut to
Moscow and to the celebration of a decade of Ukrainian art and literature. Cut to the
opening of a polygraph centre in Bucharest, Romania.
1951 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.46
No.46
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Opening of a dam across the Don. The river flows in its new channel. Cut
to productions at the Dnepropetrovsk metal works. Cut to the growing of vegetablesat the New Life collective farm in Yakutsk. Farmers display the crops they havemanaged to grow on permafrost. Cut to a montage of the city of Baku; shots of thestreets, buildings and stadium. The stadium is opened for a football match. Cut toPoznan in Poland for a crop festival. Among the present is Marshal Rokossovky of
Poland.
1951 News of the DayНовости дня
Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.54
No.54
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The ceremonial meeting to celebrate the 34th anniversary of the ВОСР atthe Bolshoi. Among the present are Kaganovich, Malenkov and Khrushchev. Cut toa demonstration in Red Square to mark the 7 November anniversary. Cut to agovernment tribunal. Present are Beriya, Khrushchev, Mikoyan and Bulganin. The
34th anniversary of the ВОСР is also celebrated in Romania and Bulgaria.
311

1952

1 May 1952

1 Мая
1952

Central Studiofor
Documentary
Film

CoRGAKFD
Director(credited as(Directed
Co-Director)
with V.
Belyev)
Synopsis: 1 May. Streets are decorated; the military parade in Red Square. Heads of
the Soviet Union visit the Mausoleum of Lenin.
1952 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.3
дня No.3
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Production at Rustavsky, a metal works. Cut to Turkmenistan’s centre ofculture, Nebit Dag. Cut to the testing of an elevating crane in a Kaliningrad factory.
Cut to the hunting of muskrats in the Buryat region of Mongolia. Cut to a concert
performed by the Chinese actors of Moscow. Cut to the collective farm, 30
December, in Romania.
1952 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.36
дня No.36
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Moscow. A ceremonial meeting in the open-air theatre of the Central
Recreation Park in celebration of All-Union Day. Cut to the construction of theIvanovo pump station in the Zaporozhye area. Cut to the town of Tkvarcheli in
Abkhazia. Schools and a hospital are in construction. Cut to the Stalin coal basin in
the Tkvarchelska region. Cut to a miners’ rest home in Abkhazia. Miners from the
Donbass, Arhipov and Mishin regions all rest. Cut to a fishing vessel on the Baltic
sea. The cadets of the Riga Seaworthy School work as cabin mates, in the engine
room and on deck. Fish are caught in nets. Cut to the suburb of Lianozovo in thenorth of Moscow. Amateur actors perform. Cut to a demonstration of workers in
Poland meeting to mark the 8th anniversary of victory over fascism.
1952
Pioneer No.11
Пионерия
Central Studio
Director
RGAKFD
No.11
for(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The international pioneers hike from the edge of the Black Sea in Bulgaria
to Czechoslovakia. They camp in the village of Sobeshan, Belgium. They travel to
Hungary and finally to Poland, where the pioneers meet other groups of travelling
pioneers in Warsaw. The pioneers visit a monument dedicated to Soviet soldiers.
1952
Pioneer No.13
Пионерия
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.13
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Moscow. The delivery of gold and silver medals to schoolgirls of the494th school. A nature reserve is built at the school. Cut to Yerevan, Armenia.
Pioneers work at Yerevan Palace. Cut to sports day at a Riga school.

312

1953

News of the Day
No.9Новости
дня No.9

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Retraining collective farmers through agricultural lecturing by teachers,
doctors of science and academics. Cut to pipe-rolling production at the Chelyabinsk
factory. Cut to an amateur fine arts exhibition. Artists paint in a studio. Cut to the
opening of a railway in Chungking in China. A train enters and leaves the station. Cut
to the National Assembly building in Prague. A Session is held for the World
Federation of Democratic Youth.
1953 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.38
дня
for
Editor(credited as
No.38
Documentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: The Kremlin. The Ambassador of Austria in the Soviet Union, Norbert
Bishoff, meets with Voroshilov, a member of the Presidium of the Central
Committee. Cut to an open-air theatre in Gorki Park for a celebration of Navy Fleet
the Day. Cut to an opening of a monument dedicated to writer, Chernyshevsky, inSaratov. Present are the grand daughters of the writer. Cut to the opening of ahydroelectric power station on Lake Drisvyaty, which lies on the borders of Belarus,
Lithuania and Latvia. Cut to Moscow railway station to see the departure of the
Korean delegation which is heading to Bucharest for the Festival of Youth. Cut tothe House of Unions. An evening of celebration is held to build Soviet and Chinese
relations. Young Chinese dancers perform.
1953 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.53
дня No.53
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Celebrations for the fourth anniversary of the Chinese National Republic.
Present are the Chinese Ambassador, composer Glier, artist Efanov and writer
Surkov. Cut to workers in a dairy cannery in Belarus. Milk is condensed in awarehouse. Cut to the manufacturing of grand pianos in a Tallinn factory. Pianist
Bruno Lukk plays a grand piano. Cut to an exhibition of the Chinese fine arts in a
museum dedicated to Eastern cultures. Cut to Beneasa Airport near Bucharest. Shotsof the pilots’ room, the dispatching office and aeroplanes of Soviet design andmanufacture.
1953 Under a BannerПодCentral Studio
Director,
RGAKFDof Unityзнаменем
for
Editor(credited asединства
Documentary
Director)
Film
Synopsis: Vienna. The Third World Congress of Trade Unions called under the
initiative of the World Federation of Trade Unions. Delegates vote for the statementof the resolution of the Congress.
1954 Soviet HungarianКрепнет
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
Friendshipсоветскоfor
Editor(credited as
Becomes Strongerвенгерская
Documentary
Director – E.
дружба
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Celebrations in the Columned Hall of the House of Unions, Cut to
Moscow State University for a photo exhibition, then to the Udarnik and Colloseum
cinemas for the screenings of Hungarian films. Cut to tours of a Budapest opera
theatre.
313

1954

News of the Day
No.31Новости
дня No.31

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Celebrating the 300th anniversary of the reunion between the Ukraine andRussia. Cut to demonstrations and a sports parade in Kiev. Moscow buildings aredecorated with posters. Birds fly in Izmaylovo Park. A parade is held in Dynamo
Stadium. Cut to evening time in Moscow.
1954
The 11th11-ый съезд Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
Congress of Trade профсоюзов
for
Editor(credited asUnionsDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Opening of the 11th Congress of Trade Unions of the Soviet Union in the
Kremlin Palace. Among the present are Shvernika and Suslov. Closing of Congress.
A concert of amateur performances is held at the Bolshoi in honour of the Congress.
1954 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.46
дня No.46
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Moscow. The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. The New Soviet Village
farm exhibits its cattle-breeding industry. Cut to the arrival of a Finnish delegation at
Leningrad station. Cut to farmers from China working in a field. Cut to production
in a Gorki car factory. Cut to the Norkskoi children’s sanatorium near Yerevan. Cut
to seals on the island of Sakhalin. Cut to Danzig Airport where a group of Polishseamen return from their captivity in Taiwan.
1954 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.60
дня No.60
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: The construction of the Kuybyshev hydroelectric power station on theVolga River. Cut to a wood-cutting factory in Sverdlovsk. In a laboratory next to thefactory, the cutter’s work is inspected. Cut to agriculturist, Maltsev, at the All-Union
Agricultural Exhibition. Maltsev’s delivers a speech titled, ‘New Systems of Ground
Processing’. Cut to the gathering of grapes in the Georgian village of Mukuzani. Cut
to the gathering of apples in a collective farm in the foothills of Zaplijsky Cut to thegathering of apples, grapes and watermelons in the Murgab valley of Tajikistan. Clap
is also gathered. Cut to sculptor Igor Konenkov in his workshop, followed by an
exhibition of his work in a Moscow studio. Cut to a typhoon on the island of Kyusyu
in Japan. The streets and rice fields are flooded. Victims are rescued from a sunken
ferry in the Tsugaru Strait. Cut to an ice hockey match between the youth teams of
the Soviet Union and Poland. The Soviet Union wins the match.
1955 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.2
дня No.2
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: A suspension bridge stretches across the Volga in Stalingrad. Cut to
Kalinin hydroelectric power station in Voronezh. Cut to the opening of a 630 ton
press works. Cut to collective farmers mucking out a pigsty at Tchkalov. Cut tolandscape shots of the Gobi Desert. Cut to Vienna where children meet from 160
countries of the world. Vienna. Cut to a performance of Hamlet at the Moscow
theatre. Cut to the New Year’s ball at the House of Unions.
314

1955

News of the Day
No.11Новости
дня No.11

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Miners extract potash salt in the Ural Mountains. Franc, a member of the
Academy of Medical Sciences, talks about the application of radioactive substances inmedicine. Cut to a skiing competition in Ulyanovsk. Cut to an exhibition of fabrics in
the Ministry of Industrial Goods in Pyongyang, North Korea. A decade of Belarus
art is celebrated at the Bolshoi. Zolotaryov’s ballet, Ardent Hearts, is performed.
1955 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.17
дня No.17
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Scenes from a metal works in Rustavi and a pipe-rolling factory in
Sumgait. Cut to a pigsty in the state farm, Ordzhonikidze, in the Urals Mountains.
Cut to the Korovnik and Michurin collective farms in Kazakhstan and Spring in
Tajikistan. Vineyards and gardens are in blossom in Stalingrad. Cut to the
Dyadkovsky crystal factory in the Bryansk region. Workers produce the crystals using
machinery and their own hands. Cut to a performance of Giselle at the Bolshoi. Cut
to workers in Budapest signing a petition for workers’ rights. Cut to a picket of
strikers in Osaka. The strikers win. Cut to a port in Bratislava. A ship leaves the port
for Romania. Cut to figure skaters performing for foreign delegates in Dynamo
Stadium. Cut to the 22nd Soviet Chess Championship. Geller and Antoshin areplaying. Cut to the parachutist, Zhdanov, completing a 2000 metre jump.
1955 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.22
дня No.22
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Leningrad. Ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinska, performs. Cut to Smolny
Palace. Cut to the Russian cruiser, Aurora. Cut to iron production in Magnitogorsk,
the largest metal works in the Soviet Union. Cut to a pigsty on the Estonian state
farm, Ulenurme. Cut to the Svinootkormochny complex in Stavropol. Cut to the new
opera and ballet theatre in Chelyabinsk. The opera, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, is performed.
A tiger is hunted in the village of Kartun in Ussuriysk. A leopard is also caught. Cut
to the start of a bicycle race from Tashkent to Samarkand. Cut to workers in theautomobile factory, Gansh, in Budapest. Cut to a group of young people from
Prague travelling by bus to see the development of rural land in Czechoslovakia.
1955 News of the DayНовости
Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFD
No.27
дня No.27
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of Germany’s
unconditional surrender. A military parade takes place in Red Square. A performanceis held at the Bolshoi. A delegation of members of the Indian Parliament visit the
Kremlin. Cut to the release of new transformer designers at the Zaporozhetransformer factory. A memorial is held in the Columned Hall of the House ofUnions to mark the 10th anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s liberation from Nazi
Germany.

315

1955

News of the Day
No.33Новости
дня No.33

Central Studio
Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director – E.
Film
Vertova)
Synopsis: Prime Minister Neru of India delivers a wreath to the Lenin and Stalin
Mausoleum. Cut to the opening of a summer season at the All-Union Agricultural
Exhibition. Cut to the assembly of the turbine at Kama hydroelectric power station.
Cut to shots of a two-storied train carriage in East Germany. Cut to similar shots in
Warsaw. President Prasad of India examines a cable factory in West Bengal. Bamboo
canes are used to strengthen the banks of the river Brahmaputra in India. Cut to theBolshoi. Ballet dancers of the Bashkir Opera Theatre perform an adagio from ballet,
The Crane Song.
1955 News of the DayНовости дня Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.39
No.39
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: The city of Moscow. Participants meet at Leningrad Station to depart for
the World Assembly for Peace in Helsinki. Cut to delegates meeting in Vladivostok.
Cut to Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine where the application of radioactive chromeis being tested. The automatic device for the control of the balls is operated. Cut tothe cleaning of grain on the fields of collective farm, Yavansky, in Tajikistan. Corn issown and wheat is cleaned. Fishermen on Udarnik catch fish on the Bering Sea.
Tourists travel in the Caucasus. Parachutists from the Tchkalov Aeroclub jump froma plane. The parachutists fall to the ground. Cut to the testing of a railway line on a
bridge crossing the Danube in Hungary. A steam locomotive travels over the bridge.
Cut to afforestation in China. Cut to the village of Ojerskhot in Holland. Twins fromaround Europe meet together. Cut to Brno in Czechoslovakia. Gymnasts compete in
Brno Stadium.
1955 News of the DayНовости дня Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.45
No.45
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Moscow. A Yugoslavian government delegation, led by Bakarichem, visits
an automobile factory. The delegates inspect an assembly of vehicles. Cut tocollective farm, Molotov, in Georgia. Agriculturist, Dzhorbenadze, examines a newgrade of corn. Cut to a sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Collective farmers rest in thesanatorium and receive medical attention. Cut to a meeting at Moscow Airport
between the public and the command of the Soviet tanker, Tuapse, who have justbeen released from captivity in Taiwan. Cut to Chinese singers performing a
Stanislavski opera at the Moscow Academic Musical Theatre. Cut to Vienna. The
Soviet, American, French and English divisions of armies leave the city as it has now
been restored of its independence. The allies’ flags are hoisted down. Cut to ameeting of the Soviet and French delegates at the Fifth World Festival of Youth andStudents in Warsaw.

316

1955

News of the Day
No.49Новости дня
No.49

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: The Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belgium for the Soviet Union,
Loridan, meets with Saryevu at the Kremlin. Also present are Gorkin and Zorin. A
delegation from the Federal Republic of Germany, led by Adenauery, meets at
Vnukovskoy. The delegation meets Bulganin, Molotov and Pervuhin. Cut to ameeting at Moscow Airport with the parliamentary delegation of Japan, led byKitamura. Cut to a visit to Moscow by the Indian physicist, Khomi. Cut toLomonosov visiting Moscow State University. Cut to Riga factory, VEF, to observe
the production of springs for the telephone relay, designed by Mengelisy. Cut to thepoppy farm, Red Star, in Kirghizia. Collective farmers extract the raw material
required for the manufacturing of opium. Cut to French tourists enjoying the sights
of Leningrad. Cut to the international equestrian competition at Moscow
Hippodrome. The winner is Nasibov.
1955 News of the DayНовости дня Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
No.60
No.60
for
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director as
Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Delhi, India. A dinner is given by Neru in honour of Bulganin and
Khrushchev. Bulganin and Neru give speeches. Cut to the opening of the Metro in
Leningrad. Passengers board a train and go on a journey. Cut to Chinese engineers
working at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine. Cut to urban architectural wonders
in the apartment houses and office buildings of Voronezh, Moscow and Tbilisi. Cut
to coal mining in Czechoslovakia. Coal is transported by conveyabelt. Cut to aninternational competition between English and Polish motorcycle racers in Warsaw
Stadium. Cut to a hairdressing competition in Paris. Cut to an exhibition of
Hungarian sculptor, Shtroblya, in Moscow. Visitors examine the sculptures. Cut to acelebration of Soviet Union actress, Pashennaya. Pashennaya speaks to the crowd in
sync-sound.
1956 The International Международная Central Studio Director,
RGAKFD
Exhibition inвыставка вfor
Editor(credited as
KabulКабуле
Documentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: The International Industrial Exhibition in Kabul.
1956 Foreign Newsreel Иностранная Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDNo.4
кинохроника
for
Editor(credited as
No.4
Documentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Soviet engineers visit the newly constructed Calder Hall nuclear power
station in Cumbria, England. Cut to France’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pino,
signing Tunisia’s Declaration of Independence. Cut to oil storage in the north of
Italy. Cut to boar hunting in Bulgaria. Cut to scenes from the Oxford and Cambridge
boat race. Cut to the crowning ceremony of Norodom Suramarit in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia. Cut to equestrian sport in Germany. Cut to a performance by the Slovak
National Ensemble in Prague.

317

1956 Foreign Newsreel
No.6Иностранная
кинохроника
No.6

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(credited asDocumentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Celebrating May Day in Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany and
Peking. Cut to the introduction of Romanian peasants into cooperative society. Cut
to the research into oncological diseases at the University of San Francisco. Cut tothe extraction of ore in the An Lu Shan Mountains in China. Cut to Rajasthan in thenorth-west of India to celebrate its independence from Great Britain. Cut to theconstruction of a hydroelectric power station in Austria. Cut to research in caves near
Fua in the south of France. Cut to scenes from the FA Cup Final at Wembley
Stadium between Manchester City and Birmingham City.
1956 Foreign Newsreel Иностранная Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDNo.9
кинохроника
for
Editor(credited –No.9
Documentary
Director as
Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Production at a factory in Czechoslovakia. Cut to the visit of North
Korean Prime Minister, Kim Il-Sung, to a metal works in East Germany. Cut tocelebrations in Rome for the 10th anniversary of the Italian Republic. Cut to theinstallation of a 70 metre television aerial in Budapest. Cut to fishing in Romania andBulgaria. Cut to Bulgarian tourists in Belgrade. Cut to the Festival of National Danceand Music in Bombay. Cut to a beer festival in Belgium. Cut to a German motoballcompetition.
1956 Moscow Newsreel Иностранная Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDNo.10
кинохроника
for
Editor(credited as
No.10
Documentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: Scenes from a meeting held to decide on ways to improve socialist
conditions in Moscow, chaired by the secretary of the Moscow Committee,
Kapitonov. Cut to the postman bringing the first pension to former weaver, Vlasova.
Weavers work on their machines at the Kupavinskoy factory. Cut to the movementof transport in Moscow’s streets. Cut to the Exhibition of the Fine Arts of theMongolian National Republic in Moscow. Cut to a group of Italian cinematographersin Moscow: Dhirotti, Latuada, Pompanini, Korteze and Della Nage. Dhirotti gives aninterview to the SINHR. Cut to a tea exhibition on the streets of Kirov. Different
stands have different grades of tea. People taste the tea on offer. Cut to the Hall of
the Central Telegraph. Women who work at the Telegraph enjoy the Festival ofWorkers. People sing and dance.

318

1956

News of the Day
No.1Новости дня
No.1

Central Studio Director,
RGAKFDfor
Editor(Credited asDocumentary
Director –Film
E. Vertova)
Synopsis: The Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Iran, Ansari, meets with Voroshilov
at the Kremlin. Cut to a ceremonial meeting of representatives of culturalorganisations. The 8th anniversary of Burma’s liberation from colonial dependence iscelebrated at Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Present is Tikhonov, the Ambassador of
Burma for the Soviet Union. Cut to a gathering of builders at Kybyshev hydroelectric
power station to witness the start-up of the first hydrounit. Present is the Chief ofConstruction, Komzin. Cut to collective farmers of the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan
as they load an aeroplane with fertiliser. The fertiliser is dispersed over the fields. Cut
to the transportation of logs on the island of Sakhalin. Cut to a Minsk machine-toolconstruction factory. Workers Voroshen and Lisagor explain their production
methods. Cut to a New Year’s Eve party in the Georgievsk Hall in the Kremlin. A
young man is presented with a prize for the best dance. Cut to the construction of acement works near Datong, China. Cut to the extraction of salt from sea water on
the island of Sinoku. Cut to the American theatre company, Everyman, arriving in
Leningrad. The actors perform a segment of the Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess.
1956 The Fifth SessionНа пятой
Central Studio
CoRGAKFD
of the Supremeсессии
for
Director(Credited as
Soviet of theВерховного
Documentary (Directed Co-Director
USSRСовета СССРFilmwith O.
–E. Vertova
Kutusova),
with O.
EditorKutusova)
Synopsis: The Fifth Session of the Supreme Body of the Soviet Union. The
Chairman of the Ministerial Council, Bulganin, delivers a report. Present are Yasnov,
Nuriev, Nesmeyanov, Shepilov, Popova, Tikhonov, Latsis, Khrushchev, Voroshilov,
Моlotov, Malenkov, Konev and Lysenko.

319

320

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The Haverstraw Tunnel. American Mutoscope Company. United States. 1897.
Leeds – Views from a Moving Tram. Mitchell & Kenyon. United Kingdom. 1903.
Life of an American Fireman. Edwin Porter. Edison Manufacturing Company. UnitedStates. 1903.
Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire. Miles Brothers. United States. 1906.
Stenka Razin. Vladimir Romashkov. Alexander Drankov. Russia. 1908.
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Vsevolod Meyerhold. Thiemann & Reinhardt. Russia. 1915.
The Peasant Woman. Olga Preobrazhenskaya & Vladimir Gardin. Thiemann &Reinhardt. Soviet Union. 1916.
The Trail of the Arrow. Nell Shipman. Nell Shipman Productions. United States. 1920.
The History of the Civil War. Dziga Vertov. All-Russian Photo-Cine Department and
the People’s Commissariat of Education. Soviet Union. 1921.
The Trial of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union.
1922.
Kino-Eye. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1924.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. Lev Kuleshov.
Goskino. Soviet Union. 1924.
Cine-Pravda no.21. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1925.
Cine-Pravda no.22. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1925.
The First October without Il’ich. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1925.
Battleship Potemkin. Sergei Eisenstein. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1925.
337

Forward, Soviet!. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1926.
One Sixth of the World. Dziga Vertov. Goskino & Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1926.
Kashtanka. Olga Preobrazhenskaya. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1926.
Jews on the Land. Lilya Brik. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1926.
The Eleventh Year. Dziga Vertov. Goskino. Soviet Union. 1927.
The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. Esfir Shub. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1927.
Peasant Women of Ryazan. Olga Preobrazhenskaya. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1927.
The Great Road. Esfir Shub. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1927.
Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicolai II. Esfir Shub. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1928.
Man with a Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov. Ukrainian Film & Photography
Administration. Soviet Union. 1929.
The Glass Eye. Lilya Brik. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1929.
Bed and Sofa. Abram Room. Soviet Union. Sovkino. 1929.
The Right of the Fathers. Vera Stroyeva. Sovkino. Soviet Union. 1930.
Earth. Aleksandr Dovzhenko. VUFKU. Soviet Union. 1930.
Sasha. Aleksandra Khokhlova. Belgoskino. Soviet Union. 1930.
Enthusiasm. Dziga Vertov. Ukrainfilm. Soviet Union. 1930.
Victory of the Faith. Leni Riefenstahl. Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. Germany. 1933.
Three Songs of Lenin. Dziga Vertov. Mezhrabpom. Soviet Union. 1934.
Triumph of the Will. Leni Riefenstahl. Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. Germany. 1935.
Happiness. Aleksandr Medvedkin. Vostokfilm. Soviet Union. 1935.
The Circus. Grigori Aleksandrov & I. Simkov. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1936.
In Memory of Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Dziga Vertov. Soiuzkinokhronika. Soviet Union.
1937.
Lullaby. Dziga Vertov & Elizaveta Svilova. Soiuzkinokhronika. Soviet Union. 1937.
Glory to the Soviet Heroines. Dziga Vertov & Elizaveta Svilova. Soiuzkinokhronika.
Soviet Union. 1938.

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The Frozen North. Sergei Gerasimov. Lenfilm. Soviet Union. 1938.
Three Heroines. Dziga Vertov & Elizaveta Svilova. Soiuzkinokhronika. Soviet Union.
1938.
Men, Animals and Sensations. Harry Piel. Ariel. Germany. 1938.
Tractor Drivers. Ivan Pyriev. Kiev Film Studio. Soviet Union. 1939.
House in Gori. Elizaveta Svilova. Moscow Studio Newsreel/Tbilisi Art. Soviet Union.
1939.
In Transport. Elizaveta Svilova. Soiuzkinokhronika. Soviet Union. 1939.
Greater Force. Elizaveta Svilova. Moscow Studio Newsreel. Soviet Union. 1939.
Learn about Collective Farms. Elizaveta Svilova. Moscow Studio Newsreel. Soviet Union.
1940.
Roof of the World Elizaveta Svilova. Moscow Studio Newsreel. Soviet Union. 1939.
Bukovina. Yulia Solntseva. Ukrainfilm. Soviet Union. 1940.
Liberation. Yulia Solntseva. Ukrainfilm. Soviet Union. 1940.
Twenty Years of Soviet Cinema. Vsevolod Pudovkin. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1940.
Metro. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union. 1940.
Descent into a Volcano. Aleksandra Khokhlova & Lev Kuleshov. Soyuzdetfilm. Soviet
Union. 1941.
Citizen Kane. Orson Welles. RKO Radio Pictures. United States. 1941.
Soiuzkino Journal no.84. Irina Setkina. Central Newsreel Studio. Soviet Union. 1941.
Soiuzkino Journal no.114. Roman Gikov. Central Newsreel Studio. Soviet Union. 1941.
Soviet Kazakhstan. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1942.
Soiuzkino Journal no.9. Roman Gikov. Central Newsreel Studio. Soviet Union. 1942.
Soiuzkino Journal no.10. Nikolai Karmazinskii. Central Newsreel Studio. Soviet Union.
1942.
Soiuzkino Journal no.27. Irina Setkina. Central Newsreel Studio. Soviet Union. 1942.
Invincible. Sergei Gerasimov. Lenfilm. Soviet Union. 1942.

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We, the Urals. Aleksandra Khokhlova & Lev Kuleshov. Soyuzdetfilm. Soviet Union.
1943.
The Gentle Sex. Leslie Howard. Two Cities Films. Great Britain. 1943.
Rosie the Riveter. John C. Graham. RCM Productions. United States. 1943.
Millions Like Us. Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder. Gainsborough Pictures. UnitedStates. 1943.
Banner of Victory. Elizaveta Svilova & Dziga Vertov. Central Studio for DocumentaryFilm. Soviet Union. 1943.
Tawny Pipit. Bernard Miles & Charles Saunders. Prestige Productions. Great Britain.
1944.
The Mainland. Sergei Gerasimov. Lenfilm. Soviet Union. 1944.
Ivan the Terrible. Sergei Eisenstein. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1944.
News of the Day no.10. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1944.
Klooga Death Camp. S. Iakushev. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union.
1944.
Majdanek: Burial Sites in Europe. Aleksander Ford & Irina Setkina. Studio of the PolishArmy. Soviet Union/Poland. 1944.
Born by a Storm. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1945.
News of the Day no.6. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1945.
The Unvanquished. Mark Donskoi. Kiev Studios. Soviet Union. 1945.
Camps of the Dead. Les Actualitiés Françaises. France. 1945.
Memory of the Camps. Sidney Bernstein. SHAEF. United Kingdom. 1945.
Nazi Concentration Camps. George Stevens. U.S. Army Signal Corps. United States.
1945.
Concentration Camp Ebensee Austria. U.S. Army Signal Corps. United States. 1945.
Death Mills. Hans Burger. U.S. Army Signal Corps United States. 1945.
Defeated People. Humphrey Jennings. Crown Film Unit. United Kingdom. 1945.

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Oświęcim. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union.
1945.
Cinema Documents of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders. Elizaveta Svilova. Central
Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union. 1945.
Berlin. Yuli Raizman & Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film.
Soviet Union. 1945.
Brutality. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union. 1946.
To Nuremberg. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union.
1946.
Parade of Youth. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1946.
Judgement of the Nations. Roman Karmen & Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio forDocumentary Film. Soviet Union. 1946.
International Democratic Federation of Women. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio forDocumentary Film. Soviet Union. 1947.
News of the Day no.12. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1947.
The Last Stage. Wanda Jakubowska. P. P. Film Polski. Poland. 1947.
International Democratic Federation of Women in Paris. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studiofor Documentary Film. Soviet Union. 1948.
News of the Day no.31. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1948.
News of the Day no.48. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1948.
News of the Day no.48. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1948.
The Kuban Cossacks. Ivan Pyriev. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1949.
News of the Day no.32. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1950.
Yantgze River. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union.
1950.
Pioneer 11. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet Union.
1952.

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News of the Day no.9. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1953.
News of the Day no.53. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1953.
News of the Day no.60. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1954.
News of the Day no.2. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.11. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.17. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.27. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.33. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.39. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.45. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
News of the Day no.49. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1955.
Foreign Newsreel no.6. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.
Foreign Newsreel no.9. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.
Foreign Newsreel no.9. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.
News of the Day no.1. Elizaveta Svilova. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.
News of the Day no.24. Vassily Katanian. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.
News of the Day no.27. Leonid Solovyov. Central Studio for Documentary Film. Soviet
Union. 1956.

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Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia. Ivan Babushkin. Central Studio for Documentary Film.
Soviet Union 1956.
Poem of the Sea. Yulia Solntseva. Mosfilm. Soviet Union. 1958.
The Liberation of Auschwitz. Irmgard von zur Mühlen. Tapeworm. Germany. 1985.
Schindler’s List. Steven Spielberg. Universal. United States. 1993.
Paradise Lost. Joe Berlinger. HBO. United States. 1996.
Paradise Lost Revelations. Joe Berlinger. HBO. United States. 2000.
Murder on a Sunday Morning. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. HBO. France/United States.
2001.
The Pianist. Roman Polanski. R.P. Productions. United States/Poland. 2002.
The Cutting Edge: The Movie of Movie Editing. Wendy Apple. A.C. E. United States. 2004.
The Staircase. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Maha Productions. France. 2004.
The Edge of Heaven. Fatih Akin. Anka Film. Turkey/Germany. 2007.
Presumed Guilty. Roberto Hernández & Geoffrey Smith. Abogados con cámara.
Mexico. 2008.
Witch Hunt. Don Hardy Jr. & Dana Nachman. KTF Films. United States. 2008.
Paradise Lost: Purgatory. Joe Berlinger. HBO. United States. 2011.

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