Metamorphoses of the "Soviet": the Breakaway from the "Bright Future" in the Cinema of the Former Republics of the USSR during Perestroika

The wordplay in the title “Metamorphoses of the "Soviet": the Breakaway from the "Bright Future" in the Cinema of the Former Republics of the USSR during Perestroika”, is meant as an attempt to express the main idea behind the research: the gradual breakaway from the communist project and the common future in the Soviet republics during perestroika 1986-1991. Thus, the research examines the period from 1986 to 1991, starting from the 27th congress of the Communist party (25 February - 6th March 1986), up until the end of the Soviet Union (18-21 August 1991). The aim of the research is to follow the transformation of the “sovietness” as it appeared and was expressed in the sphere of cinema in the republics. Cinema is understood not only as the visual representation of “sovietness” in films, but as the cinematic discourse: The discussions in professional magazines and in the society of Soviet filmmakers. This, since films “do not exist as films or on the screen, but in the consciousness, which makes them come to life”. Mark Ferro was among the first who concluded that for the majority in society who lives outside of the academic sphere, history exists first and foremost as forms, shaped by cinema. Thus, the research is conducted on films, which correspond with the genres as well as with the chronological and geographical boundaries of the research. The aim is to reach a wider level of analysis, namely the problem of working through the traumatic, totalitarian experiences of the Soviet Union in connection with the policies of youth and nation-state building within cinema during the perestroika.