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ABSTRACT
This article examines the process of symbolisation in the images of women in Soviet cinema. It argues that during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) many female characters served as symbolic representations of the country itself, of Mother Russia, determined to defeat the enemy and ready to endure hardships and to cope with deprivation and grief. The start of the resistance against Nazi Germany called for many more depictions of women than was typical in the thoroughly masculinised culture of the 1930s. At the same time, wartime images of women were quite abstract: they recalled posters and o.. en relied on a symbolically charged mise-en-scène.
KEYWORDS: Second World War, the Great Patriotic War, Soviet, cinema, Mother Russia, femininity, masculinity
The War's Central Image
Starting from the first weeks of what the Soviet Union called the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), many short and full-length feature films showed women joining the ranks of the Red Army and the partisans.1 They also appeared as mothers, wives and sisters who inspired their sons, husbands and brothers to fight bravely - as substitutes for men in traditionally male professions, and as victims of the enemy's atrocities, whose suffering called for vengeance. Meant to rally the population at a time of instability and chaos, wartime films offered a variety of female portraits many of which served as symbolic representations of the country itself, of stoic Mother Russia, determined to defeat the enemy and to endure hardships and cope with deprivation and grief.2 During and after the Second World War, the term Rodina-mat' was translated into English as 'Mother Russia' which is confusing because the Soviet notion of Rodina-mat' is different from Rossiia-matushka, the old personification of Russia, which is also translated into English as 'Mother Russia'. The literal translation of the expression Rodina-mat' as 'Mother Motherland' is so awkward that it has virtually no circulation in English.3 So, in order to understand representations of women in Soviet wartime films, it is important to distinguish between Rodina-mat' and Rossiia-matushka. As the Russian scholar Oleg Riabov has demonstrated, Rodina-mat' is not a simple assimilation of the old symbol of Rossiia-matushka by Soviet culture.4 Apparently, early Soviet culture had little need of the symbol of Soviet Motherland while marginalising the Tsarist concept of...