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This is a thread for Soviet film, music, literature, and other media. I'll get us started with some examples: Movies  Battleship Potemkin is famous as one of the most influential propaganda movies ever released. It's told in an episodic format about the mutiny against the Tsar's cruel army.  Waterloo is a massive English-language war movie about Napoleon's rise and fall. The movie used so many Soviets as extras that the director controlled the 7th-largest army in the world.  Come and See is a disturbing drama about a child soldier in World War II. I don't recommend it unless you have a very strong stomach, but it's certainly the most unsettling movie I've ever watched. Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0 The national anthem of the USSR is one hell of a powerful, dramatic piece. Russia now uses the same music with different lyrics. I'll link the next two, because they're both over an hour long: Shostakovich's 7th Symphony (The Leningrad Symphony) is an upbeat, triumphant march written during the darkest part of the Great Patriotic War. His 8th Symphony (The Stalingrad Symphony) is a bleak and mournful piece written after the Soviets had turned the tide and began to win the war. Shostakovich was briefly arrested and these works were banned until after Stalin's death for supposed unpatriotic leanings. Literature Admittedly I don't know much about Soviet literature. I'm trying to recall the name of a book I heard about, about a cosmonaut who discovers that the moon launch is being faked and he will be killed to cover it up in the end. Anyway...  We is a dystopian novel famous for influencing both Brave New World and 1984. Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfI69DC_jaw This is called "There Will Come Soft Rains", based on a Ray Bradbury short story of the same name, based on a poem. I recommend you don't look for those until after you've watched the animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuxyBLj6KMw "Polygon", a well-done short film about the drive to create an unstoppable weapon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqdiEUp6s4E Perhaps the best-known Soviet animation nowadays, "Vinni Pukh" is the Soviet adaptation of Winnie the Pooh. I recommend watching at least the first five minutes for some cute songs and philosophy for children. Miscellaneous  Tetris was invented by a Soviet computer scientist, and they controlled the rights to the game for several years. The first version on the Nintendo Entertainment System was called TETЯIS: The Soviet Mind Game, and recalled after Nintendo sued its publisher.
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Nov 15, 2013 07:50
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The Soviet Union really did have some cool propaganda.   The funny thing about the Potemkin is that while the sailors did indeed revolt against the oppressive officers, it never docked at Odessa (there was never even a massacre at Odessa in 1905!) and it never sailed with the Russian fleet to revolution - the crew just took political asylum in Romania. In fact, when the vessel itself was reinstated for Russian service, but in 1909 it accidentally sunk a submarine during a training exercise, killing all 16 crewmen, lol!
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Nov 15, 2013 08:01
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Koo! Kin-Dza-Dza! Sure is something. Bizarre, to say in the least. The whole drat thing's on youtube, I refuse to spoil anything for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47CNxwlt9U Kew!
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Nov 15, 2013 08:29
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:Come and See is a disturbing drama about a child soldier in World War II. I don't recommend it unless you have a very strong stomach, but it's certainly the most unsettling movie I've ever watched. Yeah it is. This is one of those movies that on one hand I want people to tell people to watch because it is a really good and powerful movie, but on the other hand god drat is the second half of the movie just one never ending, giant 
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Nov 15, 2013 08:43
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Say what you will about the Red Army, they had a rocking men's choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5_fu_0m-Io
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Nov 15, 2013 08:48
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Wasn't there a Soviet movie adaption of War and Peace?
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Nov 15, 2013 08:55
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Farecoal posted:Wasn't there a Soviet movie adaption of War and Peace? Yes there was. It's 7 hours long and over 17,000 people were involved in its production. It's reportedly very good, and I suppose I could manage to watch it since it's shorter than the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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Nov 15, 2013 09:00
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Farecoal posted:Wasn't there a Soviet movie adaption of War and Peace? Indeed there was. And speaking of Soviet films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TgWoSHUn8c
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Nov 15, 2013 09:05
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Pereval is an interesting animated film, but really, really loving weird. edit: Just checked, it was still the USSR when this was made.
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Nov 15, 2013 10:15
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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yia2azQd4GY&sns=em "White Sun of the Desert (Russian: Белое солнце пустыни; Beloye solntse pustyni) (1970), a classic 'Eastern' or Ostern film of the Soviet Union. The film is one of the most popular Russian films of all time. Its blend of action, comedy, music and drama, as well as memorable quotes, has made it wildly successful, and it has since achieved the status of a top cult film in Soviet and Russian culture. The film is ritually watched by cosmonauts before many space launches." One of my favorite movies, funny, poignant, and totally bad-rear end. The Eastern genre was the 2nd World's answer to Western films. This one is set in Turkmenistan during the Revolution, and is sort of a cross between a Clint Eastwood film and a tale from the Arabian nights, but Russian. twoday has a new favorite as of 10:37 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 10:34
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When checking out Soviet cultural highlights you can't go far wrong with checking out some of the dissident literature of the period. Some examples:- The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - seminal work on the Gulag system. Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the Gulags, and this first hand account is pretty moving. Check out his book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - which describes one day in the Gulag. To Build a Castle by Vladimir Bukovski - a first hand account of the Soviet psychiatric system, and how it was used to imprison political prisoners. Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky - Details his attempts to emigrate to Israel from the USSR, and his subsequent imprisonment under false charges. I am aware that Sharansky is, in fact, a big old Zionist idiot - it doesn't make a lot of his writing any less powerful. Red Square at Noon by Natalya Gorbanevskaya - examines, in great detail, the show trial of 7 dissidents who protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Subsequent to writing this she was declared, by the Soviet Union, to be insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital. Memoirs by Andrei Sakharov - Nuclear physicist, key man in the Soviet nuclear program and in later years activist. He was exiled from the Soviet Union and only returned during Peristroika.
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Nov 15, 2013 11:02
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There was some pretty good Soviet comedies out in the 60s and 70s - my parents grew up with these and loved them. I'm a big fan of the Diamond Arm, as well as Ivan Veasilievich Menyaet Professiyu, or "Ivan Vasilievich Changes his Career - known in the west as Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future, but if you're googling the full movie you probably won't find it under that name. Ivan Vasilievich also has probably the greatest music I've ever heard in a movie. Check this out as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrM5BAoR4Q. MinistryofLard has a new favorite as of 12:56 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 12:48
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 Arkady and Boris Strugatsky created one of the most surreal and strangely profound works of fiction in this. While supposedly set in "America", the characters are essentially all Russian with American names. This was probably a necessary compromise as the novel depicts a desperate, cutthroat world centered around the Zones, areas where debris of alien origin have severely distorted the laws of physics. A short, suspenseful read that I highly recommend. Oh, it is also in fact the inspiration behind the movie Stalker and the video games of the same name. They share themes and a general atmosphere, but not setting or plot.
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Nov 15, 2013 13:07
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Russian car crash vidoes on Youtbube. BLiYED!!
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Nov 15, 2013 13:52
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:
there's a really good documentary about the genesis of Tetris here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn9dO_iL7lo
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Nov 15, 2013 13:57
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On the subject of literature, Andrei Volos' "Hurammabad" is a very good book that takes place in Tajikistan during the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was written in the 90s, but according to my Russian Lit professor it was the last meaningful literary work by a Russian author. There is an English version somewhere, check it out. If you speak Russian, get that poo poo in a hard cover because it's a very powerful piece of literature. "Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov is another famous piece of literature that follows a Cossack man through World War 1 and the revolution. The first half is very good, the second half is so-so in my opinion, but check it out if you have time. This book has been compared to War and Peace in terms of its influence.
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Nov 15, 2013 14:10
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Amused to Death posted:Yeah it is. This is one of those movies that on one hand I want people to tell people to watch because it is a really good and powerful movie, but on the other hand god drat is the second half of the movie just one never ending, giant It is one of the few movies I've seen that is happy to keep you unsettled and it is pretty horrifying. I'm kind of curious to see weird Soviet knock off brands from the Seventies. I heard they had their own version of Pepsi?
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Nov 15, 2013 16:21
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The Pepsi was legit. So was Fanta. The concentrates were traded for Stolichnaya vodka and other alcoholic drinks.
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Nov 15, 2013 16:24
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pigdog posted:The Pepsi was legit. So was Fanta. The concentrates were traded for Stolichnaya vodka and other alcoholic drinks. Ah I see. Was there any sort of soft drink knocks offs of other famous brands?
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Nov 15, 2013 16:25
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I don't think so. They wouldn't have the same food chemistry available, anyway. There were domestic brands of course. Oh, and by today's standards hugely unhygienic soda water machines, 1 kopek for plain soda water, 3 with orange syrup. Kvass was perhaps the soft drink of choice.
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Nov 15, 2013 16:41
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAOEzdWDYFA A surreal dadaist nightmare and a piece of Soviet propaganda mixed in a blender full of LSD, "The Glass Harmonica" is the coolest cartoon ever made. Made in 1968, and including certain elements just to appeal to politicians of the time, it was never released because the censors deemed it to be simply too weird.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW0jvJC2rvM And absolutely everybody, without exception, loves "Hedgehog in the Fog" (1975). twoday has a new favorite as of 17:03 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 16:57
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Soviet statuary is easily the single best post-classical art form  
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Nov 15, 2013 17:58
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Right after the Russian Revolution there was a big vogue of avantgardism in Soviet art. In architecture, this movement is known as Constructivism, which preferred simple geometric shapes and used a form-follows-function philosophy. I just love the futuristic style - keep in mind that these buildings were built in the Twenties. Some examples from Kharkiv (now eastern Ukraine): Derzhprom-Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derzhprom)   Kharkiv Post Office:  Sadly (at least if you prefer modern art to pompous neo-classicism) buildings such as these weren't deemed soviet after Stalin came to power. gipskrampf has a new favorite as of 19:08 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 19:03
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Gotta love the song "Katyusha". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dM2IIvs6m4 I'm also a big fan of the Ganelin Trio, a Soviet avant-garde jazz band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlFTq2DaI4E
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Nov 15, 2013 19:13
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Red Crown posted:
The cover of that book uses a scene from the movie Stalker. It is an excellent movie, though the pacing of Soviet movies can be off-putting to Western viewers. It was made by the director Andrei Tarkovsky, whose most famous movie is probably Solaris.  
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Nov 15, 2013 19:20
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gipskrampf posted:Right after the Russian Revolution there was a big vogue of avantgardism in Soviet art. In architecture, this movement is known as Constructivism, which preferred simple geometric shapes and used a form-follows-function philosophy. I just love the futuristic style - keep in mind that these buildings were built in the Twenties. And as a natural evolution of that, they loving loved Brutalism too.    
Gyro Zeppeli has a new favorite as of 19:53 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 19:50
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The Monkey Man posted:Gotta love the song "Katyusha". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dM2IIvs6m4  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J__ZdvsZaE
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Nov 15, 2013 19:57
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USSR clearly had the most epic sounding national anthem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yDrtNEr_5M
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Nov 15, 2013 20:15
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VogeGandire posted:And as a natural evolution of that, they loving loved Brutalism too. Though there were a few decades of stuff like this between Constructivism and the revival of modernist architecture in the late phase of the USSR, so don't know if there is a clear "line of descent" between the two.  Winning project for the contest of the Palace of the Soviets (never built). gipskrampf has a new favorite as of 20:19 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 20:15
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Pycckuu posted:"Quiet Flows the Don" That book used to be an obligatory high-school read in Yugoslavia, and needlessly wordy essays were often mocked by being compared to the book. While this is, indeed, a brutal(ist) structure, it's not Soviet. It's one of the Gates of Belgrade, and I pass by it every time I go to visit my sister.
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Nov 15, 2013 20:16
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 Soviet and generally communist iconography loving rules. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7m-4Vc3MU
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Nov 15, 2013 20:26
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While we're talking Solzhenitsyn, I think his best work is Cancer Ward. The characters are all patients in a cancer clinic in Uzbekistan in the 50's. Almost all of them are terminal, and mostly going about coming to terms with their impending deaths. Most do so by wrestling with their actions in Stalin's purges and their guilt over betraying their neighbors and doing nothing to stop the judicial murder or exile of innocent countrymen. What makes the novel brilliant is that the characters are very real in their reactions, and in that reality paint allegories of Soviet politics. The narc who got his flatmate exiled for the apartment fears revenge as the flatmate returns, and schemes to protect himself. The scientist struggles to leave a great discovery before he dies, but never finds his work to be important enough. These human problems grow with no end, and consume the character's souls in parallel to how their cancers consume their bodies. Even the radiotherapist, who deals with guilt because her aggressive (State directed) radiotherapy for all manner of issues like dermatological problems has created lymphomas and sarcomas in patients whom she must now watch die, absolutely refuses to learn anything about her disease or how it is being treated. The technological progress of the workers, paralelling Stalinist political and industrial reforms, has created deadly cancers in the persons involved. Now that they are gone, their administrator must be blind to the repurcussions to keep functioning day to day. Likewise, the party leadership now that Stalin is dead must deal with the consequences of gulags and purges, yet if they tried to examine the disease and its source (Stalin) they would destroy themselves and the Party. In many ways this brilliantly describes Soviet politics in the period. Beria attempted to issue reforms and lay blame for atrocities on Stalin, but his own involvement made Khruschev and others fear that he was simply preparing another round of purges. Purgers purging purgers for purging in an unending cycle. Instead, Khruschev denounced Stalin in secret, and split the road between liberalization and keeping control of the unrest caused by examining Stalin's crimes.
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Nov 15, 2013 20:57
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 Eduard Limonov-It's me, Eddie Eduard Limonov is one of my favorite Russian writers and has lived so many different lives it's interesting to see the chronology of his thought. Limonov has been a dissident socialist poet, an unemployed emigre in both the US and France, a struggling decadent writer, personal butler, regular columnist for The Exile, and general pan-slavic military adventurer, as well as the the founder of the quasi-fascist National Bolshevik Party. Limonov's initial claim to fame in the west was the novel "It's me, Eddie" a fictionalized memoir which was a large departure in both tone and content from the starkly anti-soviet literature written by most emigres, as Limonov was critical of the soviet system but also the west, and was especially critical of soviet dissidents. He was outspoken in criticizing them because he found them to be unrealistic about the possibilities for Russia and generally hypocritical in their praise of the west. Solzhenitsyn, Sakharin, and Joseph Brodsky come in for special critique, and a lot of what Limonov says about their shortcomings was proven right by the chaos experienced in Russia in the 1990s. It was written in Russian in a style that's hard to describe exactly, but seemed very fresh to readers of Russian because it was written in a style that was neither soviet nor imperial. It's not a bitter book and it's not a happy book, it's sarcastic but still very earnest. It's me Eddie is also pretty lurid, describing the traumatic break-up with his wife, low-level welfare fraud, socialist politics in the US, alcoholism, and homosexual encounters with the homeless. With the exception of alcoholism, these were all topics people didn't expect a Russian emigre to be writing about. It's very interesting to read in retrospect, as Limonov is now the head of an ultra-nationalist opposition political party. Limonov is and is not a fringe figure--his politics are highly aesthetic and paradoxical, but he's not irrelevant. The name of the Other Russia opposition coalition led by Kasparov was borrowed from a series of essays by Limonov, and they also worked together in the past to maintain the monthly day of protest to protect freedom of assembly in Russia through the "Strategy 31" campaign. Most western profiles of Limonov either dismiss him as a clown or misrepresent him as a straightfoward nazi, but The Guardian published a pretty representative interview with him here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/12/eduard-limonov-interview-putin-nightmare In any case, even if his politics make you uneasy, most of his books are really worth reading, and can be found in English with a little bit of searching!
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Nov 15, 2013 21:31
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This is perhaps the most nightmarish children's cartoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUhv7lTAuk filmed in Estonia, then part of USSR. There was also a cola drink made in DDR, not part of USSR but a part of the Soviet block. The stuff was called Vita Cola, supposedly a healthy alternative to evil capitalist Coke, and it's still being made today: http://www.vita-cola.de/
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Nov 15, 2013 21:40
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Well, there is this one film made by an early famous Soviet film-maker, Sergei Eisenstein, which was supposed to be the first of a trilogy of the life of Ivan the Terrible - available due to that youtube Mosfilm group. It's not especially good... but it is interesting to me, in that it seems like a film which is directed more as a silent film would have been, but with 40s technology. Oh yeah, I suppose I cannot go without the song which partially inspired my username, in addition to it being a hot water supply for tea. P.S. That White Sun of the Desert film is really enjoyable so far. It's got an extreme Sergio Leone-vibe. does anyone know of any others? Samovar has a new favorite as of 23:51 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 22:03
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gipskrampf posted:Though there were a few decades of stuff like this between Constructivism and the revival of modernist architecture in the late phase of the USSR, so don't know if there is a clear "line of descent" between the two. Just as well; it would have sunk into the river if it was ever built. Instead, the Soviets blew up a cathedral and built the world's largest swimming pool in what would have been the Palace's foundations.  Not so bad a trade.
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Nov 15, 2013 22:27
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The Master and Margarita is, on the thin surface, a story about Satan and some of his associates (including a gigantic, alcoholic, shapeshifting, gun-toting black cat named Behemoth/Hippopotamus) tormenting atheist bureaucrats in the Soviet Union. Read in deeper and you get to some absolutely vicious satire of Soviet bureaucracy and religious policy, endorsement of sexual liberation, the creation and critique of art, the harnessing of artistic drive for political purposes, censorship, self-censorship, and freedom in a world of chains. рукописи не горят. Really, anything to do with the Soviet Union (or Tsarist Russia) and its treatment of/feelings toward religion is usually worth a read. Edit: Oh yeah, while this is technically just before the USSR, Ilya Repin's work did so much to influence socialist realism that he's worth a shoutout too.  Look at those eyes. Daeren has a new favorite as of 22:42 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 22:39
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pigdog posted:I don't think so. They wouldn't have the same food chemistry available, anyway. There were domestic brands of course. Oh, and by today's standards hugely unhygienic soda water machines, 1 kopek for plain soda water, 3 with orange syrup. Kvass was perhaps the soft drink of choice. Holy poo poo I remember those machines! My memory is a bit hazy because I was just a little kid when I used one, but you'd flip the glass over, just like it is in that photo, and press it down to trigger water spraying out of that hole, washing the glass! loving magical is what it was! More Soviet drinks: Baikal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_%28drink%29 This was the state answer to filthy western capitalist cola drinks. It's still made today and is tasty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarhun_%28drink%29 Tarhun! Another delicious option. Look for them in Russian deli stores here in the west, I'm sure you'll find at least Tarhun in stock. Present has a new favorite as of 22:45 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 22:42
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The Master and Margarita is brilliant! It is, perhaps, one of the best books I have ever read. It has a brilliant line in it about love: "Love struck them like a murderer in a dark alley, like a Finnish knife."
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Nov 15, 2013 22:44
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motherland_Calls This rad statue, for the heroes of Stalingrad. Vasily Zaytzev is buried there. And in true Soviet fashion, it's built over the top of an ancient Tatar burial mound.
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Nov 15, 2013 22:51
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