“Lesnye liudi” – fenomen sovetskogo etnografi cheskogo kino

Abstract

The history of Soviet ethnographic cinema is full of great names, heroic pathways, and classic films. The pioneers of the genre – V. Arseniev and A. Litvinov – authored a series of films about peoples of the Far East and Chukotka in the 1920-30s (“Forest People”, “Tumgu”, “Chzou”, etc.). However, apart from its creative and educational mission, ethnographic cinema was part of the state’s grand experiment in nation-building, for Soviet authorities employed it as a means of uniting the peoples of the new Union “on the big screen”. Eventually, though, the show of “primitive peoples” began to be perceived as hindrance to the success of the Soviet brand; and in the mid-1930s, ethnographic films, quite in parallel with ethnographic theories in academia, went off the stage.