Buttons, Buttons, Who's Got the Workers? A Note on the (Missing) Working Class in Late- and Post-Soviet Russian Cinema

Abstract

“Farewell to the Working Class?” was the title of a scholarly controversy in a recent issue of ILWCH. The title could also serve to introduce an aspect of modern Russian cinema, in both its Soviet and post-Soviet forms—the disappearance of the working class and working-class heroes from their once prominent place on Soviet screens. This is an impression gleaned from a sampling of recent films, probably the best, most important ones by any measure, and not from an exhaustive survey based on a statistical and content analysis of the whole Russian film corpus turned out over the last two decades. (Soviet film production was substantial during the first part of that period, peaking at over three hundred titles in 1991, but has since plummeted to double digits in the post-Soviet years.) Would such a survey confirm or disprove the impression? This “Note,” a preliminary probe, stresses the disappearing act and offers some possible explanations. When workers reappear, they are far from heroic. In some sense, Russian cinema has been a parallel universe to the course of Soviet life and society, from beginning to end, and after.