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Cinema for the “Soviet East”: National Fact and Revolutionary Fiction in Early Azerbaijani Film

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael G. Smith
Michael G. Smith*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Purdue University
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Extract

Before the eyes of the vast, ignorant masses of the eastern nationalities, the fast-moving frames of cinema will reproduce the many achievements of human knowledge. For the illiterate audience, the electric beam of the magic motion-picture lamp will define new concepts and images, will make the wealth of knowledge more easily accessible to the backward mind.

Bakinskii rabochii, 18 September 1923

Pictures, so the first Bolsheviks believed, speak louder than words. Visual propaganda was essential in their campaign to reach the illiterate and poorly literate masses, to engage them in a new Soviet style of life. By the end of the civil war, every leading member of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party valued the political uses of film. As commissar of nationalities, Iosef Stalin recognized its potential; in his simple expression, film was “the greatest means of mass agitation.” Like cinema, the Bolsheviks appeared at the confluence of two worlds, the traditional and the modern. For them, film was the perfect medium by which to critique the old and celebrate the new. Film viewed the world as they did, with one measure of hard realism, another of soft utopianism.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 645 - 678
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1997

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References

For their comments on the many drafts of this article, I thank Richard Stites, Denise Youngblood, Diane Koenker, Rakhman Badalov, and the readers at Slavic Review. I am also grateful to Bakhtiar Rafiev, director of Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv politicheskikh partii i obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Azerbaidzhanskoi respubliki; to A. A. Pashaev, Vegif Agaev, Fikret Aliev, and Sima Babaeva at Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii Azerbaidzhanskoi respubliki for their crucial help during my research trips to Baku. I was able to view all of the Azerkino movies discussed in the text—with the exception of Baigush, On Different Shores, Oil and Steel Workers at Rest and Recuperation, An Eye for an Eye, Gas for Gas, and Aina. My thanks to Oktai Mirkasimov at Azerbaijani Cinema and Video and to Seifulla Mustafaev of the Independent News Service for their assistance. Research trips to Russia and Azerbaijan were made possible by generous grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board, the University of Dayton Research Institute, and the Purdue Research Foundation. Throughout the notes, I refer to the various embodiments of the Azerbaijani film industry simply as "Azerkino." To reflect the preponderance of Russian language and script sources, I have transliterated Azerbaijani words according to the Library of Congress system for Russian-Cyrillic characters.

1. Stalin quoted at the Thirteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1924, from Taylor, Richard, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 1917–1929 (Cambridge, Eng., 1979), 64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For background, see Leyda, Jay, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (Princeton, 1985), 158.Google Scholar

2. For more on the Bolshevik appreciation of film, see Taylor, Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 34–36. On film as a peculiarly modern enterprise, see Corkin, Stanley, Realism and the Birth of the Modern United States: Cinema, Literature, and Culture (Athens, Ga., 1996), 12–13, 194Google Scholar; and Charney, Leo and Schwartz, Vanessa R., eds., Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar.

3. Quoted from Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii Azerbaidzhanskoi respubliki (GANI), f. 816, op. 7s, d. 6 (Azerkino production report, 1923), 1. 37. “Cinema is nothing but an illusion,” Stalin once said, “but its laws are dictated by life.” Quoted in Volkogonov, Dmitri, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (New York, 1991), 148 Google Scholar. For fuller treatments of realism in early Soviet film, see Youngblood, Denise, Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935 (Ann Arbor, 1985), 29–30, 76–79, 224–25.Google Scholar

4. For these general descriptions of socialist realism, I have relied on Taylor, Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 92–94; Mathewson, Rufus, The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, 2d ed. (Stanford, 1975)Google Scholar; Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar; Robin, Regine, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic (Stanford, 1992)Google Scholar; and Kenez, Peter, Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917–1953 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 5, 145, 148, chap. 8.Google Scholar

5. Narimanov, quoted from Kulibekov, E. A., Kinoiskusstvo Azerbaidzhana (Baku, 1960), 9–10 Google Scholar. Nariman Narimanov (1870–1925) was a major figure in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party before and during the revolution, namely as a leader of the Azeri-Turk “Gummet” (Endeavor) fraction; afterward, he served in several top administrative posts in the Azerbaijani and Russian Soviet governments.

6. I use the problematic term narodnost’ to mean those traditional cultural values of village or national life that, in the perspective of socialist realism, are worthy of assimilating into the proletarian culture of the future, along the “dialectic” from “spontaneity to consciousness.” See the discussions in Robin, Socialist Realism, 51–55; Clark, Soviet Novel, 84; and James, C. V., Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory (New York, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York, 1979), 145, 205Google Scholar. On orientalism in Soviet cinema, see Micciche, Lino, “The Cinema of the Transcaucasian and Central Asian Soviet Republics,” in Lawton, Anna, ed., The Red Screen: Politics, Society and Art in Soviet Cinema (London, 1992), 300 Google Scholar. For a rare study of Soviet orientalism in architecture, see Castillo, Greg, “Peoples at an Exhibition: Soviet Architecture and the National Question,” South Atlantic Quarterly 94, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 715–46.Google Scholar

8. For background on Soviet nationalities policy, I have relied on Connor, Walker, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar; Simon, Gerhard, Nationalism and Policy toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union, trans. Forster, Karen and Forster, Oswald (Boulder, Colo., 1991)Google Scholar; and Suny, Ronald G., The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, 1993)Google Scholar.

9. Quoted from GANI, f. 1305, op. 1, d. 49 (Azerkino production reports, 1925–1928), I. 25; and GANI, f. 816s, op. 2, d. 128 (Azerkino production reports, 1925–1928), II. 1–48. For the broader discussion, see Said, Orientalism, 5, 153–55.

10. Hereafter, I will use the term European in this same sense, to refer to any non-Muslim living or working in the Muslim Caucasus and Central Asia. Starring a beloved actor and progressive thinker from the Baku theater, Gusein Arablinskii, and appearing in both Russian tides and Azeri-Turkic titles, the film was a hit. The leading folk musicians of Baku—Dzhabbar, Kurba, and Gulu—performed live at the premiers. To accommodate religious sensibilities, movie houses offered separate seatings and viewings for Muslim women. The producers even published the script, in Azeri Turkic, as a separate piece of pulp fiction. G. Mamedova, “Prolog,” Bakinskii rabochii, 2 April 1972. For more on life in late imperial Baku and the effects of Russian colonial rule, see Kurban Said's novel, Ali and Nino, trans. Jenia Graman (New York, 1970)Google Scholar. On late imperial cinema, see Tsivian, Yuri, Early Cinema in Russia and Its Cultural Reception (London, 1994).Google Scholar

11. For background, see Altstadt-Mirhadi, Audrey, “Baku: Transformation of a Muslim Town,” in Hamm, Michael F., ed., The City in Late Imperial Russia (Bloomington, 1986), 284 Google Scholar; and Swietochowski, Tadeusz, Russian Azerbaijan, 1905–1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community (Cambridge, Eng., 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. See Suny, Revenge of the Past, chap. 3. Quoted from Héléne Carrére d'Encausse, “Determinants and Parameters of Soviet Nationality Policy,” in Azrael, Jeremy, ed., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York, 1978), 45 Google Scholar. For the documents of the congress, see Riddell, John, ed., To See the Davm: Baku, 1920—First Congress of the Peoples of the East (New York, 1993)Google Scholar. Quoted from Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 989, op. 1, d. 445 (Azerkino “Report for Presentation at the All Union Conference on Film,” 29 March 1924), 1. 89.

13. Vladimir Lenin, quoted in his “Directive on Cinema Affairs” (17 January 1922), in Taylor, Richard, ed. and trans., The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 56 Google Scholar. The official government history of national film framed Azerbaijan's early contributions in these same terms. Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1917–1967, vol. 1, 1917–1931 (Moscow, 1969), 221, 680. Azerkino was established on 4 July 1920 as the Photographic and Cinematic Department of the People's Commissariat for Education (it was reorganized as the Azerbaijani Photographic and Cinematic Directorate on 5 March 1923). For background, I have relied on Gadzhinskaia, N., Kino-iskusstvo strany ognei: Polveka azerbaidzhanskogo kino, 1920–1970 gg. (Moscow, 1971)Google Scholar. For a relevant discussion of the role of ideology in revolutions, see Skocpol, Theda, “Cultural Idioms and Political Ideologies in the Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power,” Social Revolutions in the Modern World (New York, 1994), 199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. On the birth of national film as photographic documentary, see Mamatova, L. Kh., Mnogonatsional'noe sovetskoe kino-iskusstvo (Moscow, 1982), 7 Google Scholar; Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1: 713–20; and Rzaeva, M. Z., Dokumental'noe kino Azerbaidzhana (Baku, 1971)Google Scholar.

15. Quoted from Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv politicheskikh partii i obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Azerbaidzhanskoi respubliki (GAPPOD) f. 609, op. 1, d. 119 (Narimanov's top-secret report, “Toward a History of Our Revolution in the Borderlands,” presented to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and comrade Stalin, December 1923), 1. 12. In this report, Narimanov lashed out at Moscow's russifying elites in Azerbaijan. For background on the national purges of these years, see Altstadt, Audrey, The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule (Stanford, 1992), 122–24Google Scholar; and Blank, Stephen, “Stalin's First Victim: The Trial of Sultangaliev,” Russian History 17, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 155–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Audience favorites included Mary Pickford's Daddy Longlegs and Soap Bubbles, Norma Talmedge's Yes or No (Two Ladies), and Reginald Denny's Leather Gloves. On the influence of American cinema in the Soviet Union, see Youngblood, Denise, Movies for the Masses: Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s (New York, 1992), 17–19, 43–51Google Scholar; and in Europe more generally, Grazia, Victoria de, “Mass Culture and Sovereignty: The American Challenge to European Cinema, 1920–1960,” Journal of Modern History 61 (March 1989): 53–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199 (Box-office records and receipts), II. 34–43, 65.

17. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199 (Azerkino production reports, 1925–1926, and the Aviation-Chemical Council's “Letter to the TsK AKP,” June 1926), II. 43, 50.

18. On the popular “eastern” films, see Youngblood, Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 16–20; Youngblood, Movies for the Masses, 59, 77–79, 87; Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, 45; Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1: 201–10, 218–19, 618–19, 626–27, 657, 709–12; and Bakinskiirabochii, 31 October 1923, 22 May 1924, and 31 March 1924. Most of Makhno's campaigns were fought on the steppes of Ukraine, but Little Red Devils was set amid the “wild mountains, rivers, forests and cascades” of the North Caucasus—much more romantic. From Leyda, Kino, 168. Several Georgian and Armenian cinematographers (Ivan Perestiani, Nikolai Shengelaia, Mikhail Chiaureli, and Amo Bek Nazarov) were among the USSR's most successful directors.

19. RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 1 (Vostokkino production reports), II. 85–90, 114.

20. Quoted from GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 23 (M. S. Saiapin's remarks in the Narkompros ASSR reports, September and December 1920), II. 477–83, 800. Litvinov quoted from GANI, f. 816, op. 7s, d. 6 (Azerkino and NKRKI—Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate—investigation reports, 1924), II. 58–60, 74–77; and “Kino: Perspektivy nashei kino-promyshlennosti,” Bakinskii rabochii, 18 May 1924. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 6 (Personnel statistics), 1. 295. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199 (Personnel statistics), II. 43, 55.

21. Over the next two years, the film remained a popular attraction in the city: 13, 795 viewers filed into theaters to see it (as compared to the average of 5, 000); it brought in 8, 300 rubles in gross receipts (as compared with the average of 3, 000). It also played well throughout the Soviet Union. Among the native actors who joined the production were Ismail Idaiatzade, Ibragim Azeri, and Khanafi Teregulov. The star attractions were Ernesto Vagram (Vagram Papazian) and Sofia Zhozeffi. “Kino,” Bakinskii rabochii, 14 March 1924. V. V. Balliuzek (1881–1957) had been an artist and costume designer for the Ermoliev film factory in 1914; during his illustrious career, he worked on such films as Queen of Spades, Father Sergei, and Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom.

22. Another feature was The Oil Worker at Rest and Recuperation (Gorniak-neftik na otdykhe i lechenii, 1924). Marietta Shaginian wrote a series of books in the 1920s, based on the Nat Pinkerton detective series in the United States, recounting the struggles between valiant workers and vile capitalist conspirators. “Mess-Mend” was their secret password. See Shaginian, Marietta, Mess Mend: Yankees in Petrograd, trans., with an introduction, Cioran, Samuel D. (Ann Arbor, 1991)Google Scholar.

23. “Kino,” Bakinskii rabochii, 10 April 1924. RGALI, f. 989, op. 1, d. 383 (Narkompros ASSR administrative documents, 1923), II. 21–22, 39, 159; GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 387 (Narkompros materials, 1924–1927), 1. 6; GANI, f. 57, op. 5, d. 42 (Narkompros materials, 1924–1927).

24. GANI, f. 816s, op. 2, d. 128 (NKRKI investigation materials, 1925–1928), II. 1–22, 55–60. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199 (Azerkino production report and related materials, 1925), II. 34–43, 65. On the broader disputes between Sovkino and the Main Committees on Political Education, see Youngbiood, Movies for the Masses, 38–39; and Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, 90. One of Litvinov's bombs, Baigush (1924), a typical “eastern” adventure story, was so bad that a special commission of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party judged it totally “ridiculous and unacceptable,” forbidding its exhibition anywhere in the USSR. Azerkino quickly sent out a phony news release, sadly reporting that a “carelessly thrown cigarette” had ignited three parts of the movie's negatives, destroying them beyond repair. It had cost nearly 17, 000 rubles to make; an accidental screening in the southern city of Lenkoran brought in a grand total of 41 rubles.

25. Ia. Andreev, “Dovol'no bezobraziia,” Bakinskii rabochii, 1 June 1928. GANI, f. 816, op. 7s, d. 6 (Azerkino and NKRKI reports, 1924), II. 58–60, 74–77, 81. Ball, Alan M., And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930 (Berkeley, 1994), 24–25.Google Scholar

26. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 6 (Personnel statistics), 1. 295; GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199 (Personnel statistics), II. 43, 55. Before it was closed, the Baku film studio trained Dzhafar Dzhabarly, Mikail Mikailov, and Agarza Kuliev as its first native directors.

27. For details on the number of movie houses in both Baku and the provinces, see appendix A.

28. Reports on film in the provinces (1926 and 1928), in GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 449, 1. 1; and d. 479, 1. 179.

29. Taylor, Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 92. Sovkino tried over and over again to restrict Vostokkino's control over Russian populations within non-Russian regions, or to prevent its movies from being screened in the USSR. Vostokkino discussions (1928–1931) in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 1, 1. 103; d. 10, II. 94–95; d. 38, 1. 4.

30. Azerkino production reports (1926–1929) in GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 1, 1. 6; and d. 8, II. 327, 347; f. 1305, op. 1, d. 49, 1. 32; f. 57, op. 1, d. 577, 1. 16. Sometimes Azerkino smuggled commercial films into the villages against the prohibitions of the censors, simply to make a profit. Happy was that day for the eager village audience. Main Committees on Political Education reports (1926), in GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 449, 1. 6; and GAPPOD f. 1, op. 235, d. 199, 1. 53.

31. Quotes from the Azerkino reports (1924 and 1925), in GANI f. 379, op. 3, d. 259, 1. 51; and GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 199, 1. 37. Quotes from “Na anti-religioznom fronte,” Bakinskii rabochii, 3 July 1924, and “Vo imia boga, miloserdnogo i milostivogo,” Bakinskii rabochii, 15 July 1925. Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “The ‘Soft Line’ in Culture and Its Enemies,” The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992), 91.Google Scholar

32. The director B. Svetlov filmed two of Gadzhibekov's works, A Measure of Cloth (Arshin mal alan) and If Not This, Then That (Ne ta, tak eta), in 1918. Azerkino filmed them again in 1945 and 1957, respectively. GANI f. 57, op. 1, d. 752 (Report on the theater's activities), 1. 4. On the Azerbaijani enlightenment in general, and its mutations under the Soviet regime, see Swietochowski, Tadeusz, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition (New York, 1995), 25–36.Google Scholar

33. Bliakhin was the author of the recent hit, Little Red Devils. Sharifzade, who directed with the guidance of Balliuzek and Litvinov, was a veteran dramatist who had helped to stage anticlerical satires and pro-Bolshevik agitational plays in earlier years. Riza Akhundov, “Kak proshla antimageramskaia kampaniia,” Bakinskii rabochii, 10 August 1925. “Kino: S'emka shakhsei-vakhsei,” Bakinskii rabochii, 2 October 1924.

34. Makhmudbekov, “Ob azerbaidzhanskoi kinomatografii,” Trud (Baku), 17 December 1927. Vostokkino founding protocols and production plans (1928–1929 and 1930–1931) in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 1, 1. 34; d. 3, II. 2, 9; d. 19, 1. 82; and d. II. 1. 86.

35. For background, see Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1: 300–304, 658–67; Mamatova, Mnogonatsional'noe sovetskoe kino-iskusstvo, 46–47; and Leyda, Kino, 248–50. The quote is from a Iakut representative, quoted in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 1 (Vostokkino production reports), 1. 94.

36. On Gadzhi Kara, see GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 8 (Protocol of the Repertory Committee of Narkompros), 1. 23; and the commentary in “Sona (Gadzhi Kara),” in the Latin-script publication, Gandzh ishchi (Young worker), 15 March 1929. I have not been able to find any existing copies of this film. Among the theater stars participating were M. A. Aliev, Aziza Mamedova, G. A. Abasov, Sona Gadzhieva, and S. Rukhulla.

37. For background, see Gregory Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929 (Princeton, 1974); and Shoshana Keller, “The Struggle against Islam in Uzbekistan, 1921–1941: Policy, Bureaucracy, and Reality” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1995), 5, 41. On Azerbaijan, see Azade-Ayse Rorlich, “The ‘Ali-Bayramov’ Club, the Journal Sharg Gadini, and the Socialization of Azeri Women, 1920–1930,” in Central Asian Survey 5, nos. 3–4 (1986): 221–39; Gadzhibeili, Dzheikhun, Izbrannoe (Baku, 1993)Google Scholar; and the interior police and agitational-propaganda documents in GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 74, d. 280 (Documents of the State Political Directorate and of the Agitation-Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, September 1928), II. 4–26.

38. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 74, d. 282 ( “Top Secret Protocol of the Secret Department of the TsK AKP,” 11 November 1928, “On the Struggle with Hooliganism Related to the Removal of the Veil “), I. 133.

39. Also see the discussions of such movies as Vtoraia zhena (Uzbekkino, 1927), Chadra (Uzbekkino, 1927), and Dock’ sviatogo (Uzbekkino, 1931), in Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1: 702–9; and in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my: Annotirovannyi katalog, 4 vols. (Moscow, 1961–1968). For historical background on Russian cultural paradigms of Caucasus women, see Layton, Susan, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy (New York, 1994).Google Scholar

40. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 8 (Azerkino production report, 1927), II. 238, 294–97. N. Pashkin, “Izzet-khanum: Ocherk,” Sotsialisticheskaia industriia, 3 November 1972. Izzet Orudzheva, “My shli riad riadom,” Molodezh’ Azerbaidzhana, 16 November 1978. Orudzheva defended her dissertation, “Methods to Improve Oil-Based Lubricants,” in 1947 and eventually became a doctor of engineering science and an academician. Almas, Azerkino's first sound film, was directed by Dzhabarly.

41. Quoted from A. Gurvich, “Sevil',” Bakinskii rabochii, 19 June 1929. Bek-Nazarov, A., Zapiski aktera i kinorezhissera (Moscow 1965), 159–62Google Scholar. Reviews of the film in the Baku Latin-script newspaper, Yeni Yol (New path), 21 June 1929 and 25 June 1929, testified to its popularity. For background on the “decadent” 1920s, see Stites, Richard, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (New York, 1992), chap. 2.Google Scholar

42. See the favorable reviews of the film in Yeni Vol, 13 July 1928 and 2 December 1928. For more on the Gilan Republic, see Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan, 94–100; and Afary, Janet, “The Contentious Historiography of the Gilan Republic in Iran: A Critical Exploration,” Iranian Studies 28, nos. 1–2 (Winter-Spring 1995): 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. For the events surrounding the executions of the “twenty-six,” see Suny, Ronald G., The Baku Commune, 1917–1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar. The hagiography went into full swing when the Azerbaijani Communist Party celebrated their memory in print and commissioned the film. See GANI, f. 379, op. 3, d. 45 (Decree of the Baku Committee, 26 July 1923), 1. 60; and the special edition of Bakinskii rabochii, 20 September 1923.

44. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 6 (Azerkino production materials, 1926), II. 43–48. RGALI, f. 2214, op. 2, d. 10 (Room's report). Quoted from RGALI, f. 2214, op. 2, d. 11 (P. A. Bliakhin's screenplay, 1926).

45. Quoted from RGALI, f. 2214, op. 1, d. 25 (Stenogram of the meeting of the Agitation-Propaganda Department of the Baku Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, 18 February 1927). When it finally appeared in 1933, the film was a critical success but a popular failure. For more on falsified representations of the twenty-six commissars, including Isaak Brodskii's imaginative painting, see Hopkirk, Peter, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (New York, 1994), 390.Google Scholar

46. Quoted from GANI, f. 379, op. 3, d. 4381 (Decree of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party and the Director's Board of the NKRKI ASSR on control over and purge of Azerkino, 31 May 1931), 1. 17. For background, see Taylor, Richard, “A ‘Cinema for the Millions': Soviet Socialist Realism and the Problem of Film Comedy,” Journal of Contemporary History 18 (1983): 439–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, 145; Leyda, Kino, 303.

47. Quoted from GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 25 (Azerkino production report, 1934), 1.15. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva Azerbaidzhanskoi respubliki (GALI), f. 330, op. 1, d. 35 (Protocol of the Baku Film Studio Conference, March 1940), 1. 7. Tucker, Robert C., Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York, 1990), 568 Google Scholar; and Tucker, , Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia (New York, 1987), 112.Google Scholar

48. See such pieces as Zabyl’ nel'zia (1931); Sem’ serdets (Turkmenskoe kino, 1934); Khizhina starogo luvena (Mosfil'm, 1935); Liudi doliny sumbar (Turkmenskoe kino, 1938); Novyi gorizont (Bakinskaia kinostudiia, 1940); Sad (Stalinabadskaia kinostudiia, 1939); and Almazy (Sverdlovskaia kinostudiia, 1947)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

49. See such pieces as Ai-gul' (Soiuzdetfil'm, 1936); Umbar (Turkmenfil'm, 1936); Trinadtsat’ (Mosfil'm, 1936); Druz'ia vstrechaiutsia xmov’ (Tadzhikskoe kino, 1939); Pogranichniki (Ashkhabadskaia kinostudiia, 1940); Zastava v gorakh (Mosfil'm, 1953)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

50. I have in mind such Azerkino movies as Letif (1934), Ismet (1934), and Almas (1934). Sovkino reviews in RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 112; and d. 113, II. 1–6, 26–27.

51. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 8 (Protocol of the Repertory Committee of Narkompros), 1. 23. RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 1 (Script discussions at Vostokkino, 1928), I. 22. See the descriptions of Ciulli (1927); Eliso (1928); Dom no. vulkane (1928); Asal’ (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1940); Svinarka ipastukh (Mosfil'm, 1941); and Nerushimaia druzhba (Erevanskaia kinostudiia, 1939)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

52. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 14 (Protocols of the Literary Department of the Baku film factory, February and March 1934), II. 7–14, 17–18, 20–23.

53. Quoted from RGALI, f. 2441, op. 1, d. 28 (Typed Sovkino stenogram, 1 April 1936), II. 1–6. Critique of the film in the Baku Latin-script newspaper, Adabiyat (Literature), 1 June 1936, no. 13. For background about Soviet-Russian mass comedies, see Richard Stites, “Soviet Movies for the Masses and for Historians,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 11, no. 3 (1991): 243–52.

54. See the descriptions of Poslednii maskarad (1934); Pepo (Armenkino, 1935); Arsen (Goskinprom Gruzii, 1937); Karo (Armenkino, 1937); Zangezur (Armenkino, 1938); Sevanskie rybaki (Erevanskaia kinostudiia, 1939); Kadzhana (Tbilisskaia kinostudiia, 1941); and Georgii Saakadze (Tbilisskaia kinostudiia, 1943)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

55. See the descriptions of Krytyi furgon (1927); Kliatva (Uzbekfil'm, 1937); Druz'ia (Lenfil'm, 1938); Amangel'dy (Lenfil'm, 1938); Salavat lulaev (Soiuzdetfil'm, 1940); Romantiki (Soiuzdetfil'm, 1941); Ego zovul Suhhe-Bator (Mongolkino, 1942); Dzhambul (Alma-Atinskaia kinostudiia, 1952); Bai i batrak (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1954)—in Sovetskie khudozheslvennye fil'my.

56. The character descriptions for Bakintsy (directed by V. Turin) are from RGAL1, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 144 (V. Turin's script); and for Kendliliar (directed by Samed Mardanov) from GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 26 (Main Cinematography Directorate of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars SSSR, April 1937), II. 1–2. Kendliliar should not be confused with Fridrikh Ermler's Peasants (1935).

57. For background on the purges, see Altstadt, The Azerbaijani Turks, chap. 8; and Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 81–87 .

58. The criticisms were voiced in GALI, f. 330, op. 5, d. 4 (Protocol of the Artistic Council of the Baku Film Studio, December 1940), II. 14–16; and in GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 29 (Materials of the Azerkino conference, September 1936), 1. 77. Bagirov quoted from GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 795 (Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party discussions of the script, fall of 1937), I. 13.

59. GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 35 (Comments by Rasul Rza, Mustafaev, and Sheikov, December 1939), II. 12–18. In fact, four major Azerkino projects of the mid-1930s, largely native in design and production, were shelved just after completion, mostly because of low quality. See Istoriia sovetskogo kino, 1917–1967, vol. 2, 1931–1941 (Moscow, 1973), 443.

60. GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 1090 (Azerkino production reports, 1934), 1. 4; and GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 1141 (Azerkino production reports, 1940), 1. 28. Among those recruited by the State Institute of Cinematography were Samed Mardanov, AM Sattar Atakishiev, Rza Takhmasib, Mekhti Gusein, Rasul Rza, Enver Mamedkhanly, Sabit Rakhman, Gusein Seidzade, Tafik Tagizade, and Niiazi Badalov. Native Azerbaijani writers—Samed Vurgun, Firza Ibragimov, Mekhti Gusein, Suleiman Rustam—also began to play more active roles in the writing of scripts and the production of films.

61. GANI, f. 57, op. 1, d. 1090 (Azerkino report, 1934), 1. 12. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 795 (Letter of protest from Niiazi Badalov to the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, October 1936), 1. 17. GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 75 (Discussion, 1937), II. 99–100. Letters of protest (1933) in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 25, I. 91; and d. 52, II. 68–69.

62. Quoted from Vostokkino script reviews (1929–1931) in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 10, 1. 106; and d. 3, 1. 6; and d. 38, II. 3–5, 10–39. Script reviews (1930 and 1935) in RGALI, f. 2489, op. 1, d. 11, II. 29, 49; and d. 108, 1. 77. On the cult of Russian scientists in Soviet film (including the agronomist Michurin), see Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, 240.

63. The original story begins as a detachment of Russian workers make their way east across the Urals during the civil war, where they finally meet Chapaev, the “fiery steed of the steppes.” He embodies the peasant vices of instinct and license, disorder and anger—the earmarks of what I would call an internal Russian orientalism. But his vices become virtues when directed to the Bolshevik cause, feeding the “dialectic” from peasant spontaneity to proletarian consciousness. Clark, Soviet Novel, 84. On the dubbed version, see RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 34 (Protocol of the “Commission to Establish Norms and Standards for Film Dubbing,” of the Main Directorate for the Production of Feature Films, or Kinokomitet, of Sovkino, 1938), II. 1–8. Sheikov was a graduate of the Azerbaijani State Theatrical Tekhnikum and the Moscow Meierkhol'd Theater. Nikolai Ibalov, “Zhizn', otdannaia kino,” Baku, 18 September 1981.

64. RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 34 (Protocols of the conference on dubbing, 28 September 1938), II. 48–49, 64.

65. Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 148–55.

66. By 1941, six and a half million people filled the movie houses of Azerbaijan, largely as a result of the introduction of cinema to the provinces. They watched 330 Soviet and only 12 foreign films. Statistics (1932–1941) compiled from GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 211, 1. 56; GANI, f. 411, op. 8, d. 61, 1. 119; GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 23, 1. 4; GANI, f. 411, op. 8, d. 186, II. 137–41.

67. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 1141 (Azerkino report to the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, 1940), 1. 44. GANI, f. 2926, op. 1, d. 9 (Stenogram of a meeting of cinema administrators, 1935), 1. 23. Vostokkino documents (1930) in RGALI f. 2489, op. 1, d. 52, 1. 94; d. 20, II. 37–38, 125, 239; and d. 19, 1. 69. In fact, the whole USSR suffered from a “movie shortage” (malokartina) between 1927 and 1937. See Maya Turovskaya, “The 1930s and 1940s: Cinema in Context,” in Taylor, Richard and Spring, Derek, eds., Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (New York, 1993), 42.Google Scholar

68. GAPPOD, f. 1, op. 235, d. 1141 (Report of the Directorate for Cinefkation, 1940), II. 62–71. In 1940, of 63 Russian-language films in the Azerkino inventory, only 5 were dubbed into Azerbaijani, including one such copy of They Came from Baku for the whole country. For details on the language of film shown, see appendix B.

69. Clark, Soviet Novel, 39–40. Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, 201–2. Richard Taylor, “Red Stars, Positive Heroes and Personality Cults,” in Taylor and Spring, eds., Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, 88.

70. See the descriptions of Puteshestvie v Arzrum (Lenfil'm, 1936); Syn Mongolii (Lenfil'm, 1936); Pesni Abaia (Alma-Atinskaia kinostudiia, 1945); David Curamishvili (Tbilisskaia kinostudiia, ]946); Alisher Navoi (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1947); KolybeVpoeta (Tbilisskaia kinostudiia, 1947)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennyefil'my. On the Pushkin cult, see Levitt, Marcus C., Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 (Ithaca, 1989)Google Scholar. For more on the limited revival of national cultures at this time, see Tillett, Lowell, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill, 1969)Google Scholar; and Geldern, James von, “The Centre and the Periphery: Cultural and Social Geography in the Mass Culture of the 1930s,” in White, Stephen, ed., New Directions in Soviet History (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 75–76.Google Scholar

71. RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 1280 (Script reviews and reports, 1938), II. 2–55. BekNazarov, Zapiski aktera, 216–18.

72. See the descriptions of Kadzheti (Goskinprom Gruzii, 1936); Nasreddin v Bukhare (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1943); Takhir i Zukhra (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1945); Volshebnyi kristall (Ashkhabadskaia kinostudiia, 1945); Pokhozhdeniia Nasreddina (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1946); Anait (Erevanskaia kinostudiia, 1947); Keto i kote (Tbilisskaia kinostudiia, 1948); and Dalekaia nevesta (Ashkhabadskaia kinostudiia, 1948)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

73. Quoted from GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 9 (Aleksandrov's report, “Elementy rezhisserskogo stsenariia,” 15 October 1942), II. 1–2. Quoted from GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 58 (Goskino report, 1944), 1. 37. GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 58 (Azerkino documents), 1. 99. For background, see Stites, Russian Popular Culture, 74–75, 88–91.

74. At a screening of the film (sponsored by the International Research and Exchanges Board and the Kennan Institute for Russian Studies) at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (Washington, D.C., October 1995), the capacity audience laughed throughout the film and applauded at the end. The quote is from Rakhman Badalov, “Mifologiia Azerbaidzhanskogo kino,” paper presented at the Kennan Institute for Russian Studies, Washington, D.C., October 1995.

75. For mote of the “singing films” of the war years, see such movies as Tadzhikskii kinokontsert (Dushanbe kino, 1943), Kontsert piati respubliki (Ashkhabadskaia kinostudiia, 1944), and Pod zxmki dombr (Alma-Atinskaia kinostudiia, 1944)—in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my.

76. Quoted from G. Abaszade, “Podniat’ kinoobsluzhivanie na uroven’ trebovanii voennogo vremeni,” Bahinskii rabochii, 27 March 1943.

77. See the descriptions of such films as Syn Tadzhikistana (Dushanbe kinostudiia, 1942) and Otvazhnye druz'ia (Tashkentskaia kinostudiia, 1941), in Sovetskie khudozhestvennye fil'my. Mikailov and Takhmasib assisted Aleksandrov.

78. Quoted from RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 1485 (Materials of the Ministry of Cinematography of the USSR, 1947), II. 1–6. For background on the crisis, and its political and cultural dimensions, see Fawcett, Louise L'Estrange, Iran and the Cold War: The Azerbaijani Crisis of 1946 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)Google Scholar; and Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan, chap. 6.

79. Quoted from RGALI, f. 2450, op. 2, d. 1484 (Director's script). GALI, f. 330, op. 1, d. 16 (Ministry correspondence, 1948), 1. 8. The movie was not released until after Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.

80. Maxim Gorky, “The Lumiere Cinematograph” (4 July 1896), in Taylor, ed. and trans., Film Factory, 25.

81. The quote is from Said, Orientalism, 94, 321. On the nation as “construct,” see the discussion in Suny, Revenge of the Past, chap. 1; and Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983)Google Scholar. On the use of traditions as “models of command” and “models of ‘modern’ behaviour,” see Ranger, Terence, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” in Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Eng., 1984).Google Scholar

82. In his memoir of Azerbaijani cinema, A. Aliev, “Dukhovnyi mir sovremennika,” Pravda vostoka (6 June 1980), cited Narimanov's statement about “eastern backwardness” (quoted earlier in this article) as if it were really true. Quotes from Mamed Kurbanov, “Polveka sluzheniia narodu i ego iskusstvu,” Baku, 26 August 1969; and A. Iskenderov, “Tvorcheskoe sodruzhestvo, vzaimopomoshch',” Baku, 24 July 1972.