The Arctic in the Soviet cinema lens: “Two Oceans” by Vladimir Shneiderov

Annotation

The study aims at introducing unstudied materials, i.e., film documents of the Soviet period, related to the development of the Russian North, into the scientific circulation. So-called expedition films occupied a special place in the history of Soviet visual anthropology — films of educational content about the peoples and territories of the USSR. They reached its heyday at the turn of the 1920s — 1930s. One of the pioneers of Soviet visual anthropology is considered to be the filmmaker V.A. Shneiderov, the author of a series of films about the USSR territories (“The Great Flight”, “The Pamirs (the bottom of death)”, “At the height of 4500”, etc.). In addition to solving creative issues, the production of such films was part of a state experiment on the construction of local images and the country. The Soviet authorities used the resources of the cinematographer as a media source and agitation. In this article, the author considers the example of the expedition film “Two Oceans”, the classic of documentary films where V.A. Shneiderov pictured the history of the Northern Sea Route and the Soviet colonization of the Arctic. The context of the filmmaking, i.e., parallel processes in Soviet cultural politics and cinema, is discussed as well. The author conclusions contain thoughts about the research value of the Soviet expeditionary film as a complex historical source.

About authors

Keywords

the Arctic, Soviet film, Vladimir Shneiderov

DOI

10.17238/issn2221-2698.2019.35.144

UDC

[39+77](045)