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Sexuality in the USSR during Perestroika

Student: Golovanova Iuliia

Supervisor: Elena Kochetkova

Faculty: School of Arts and Humanities

Educational Programme: History (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2021

This work is a study of late Soviet culture through the prism of representations of the sexuality of perestroika cinema. In the period from 1985 to 1991, many transformations and breakdowns took place, forming new cultural codes, including visual ones. They are most vividly reflected in the cinema. In the context of publicity in films, the press and other media, it becomes possible to articulate previously taboo topics, including sexuality. The analysis of films with explicit scenes makes it possible to understand how the culture reacted to changes and at the same time to trace the specifics of society at that time. The novelty of the research lies in the use of previously unused sources - not only such popular films as "Little Vera" (V. Pichula, 1988), "City of Zero" (K. Shakhnazarov, 1988) will be used in the work, but also less well-known, but no less interesting and illustrative films from the point of view of sources - "Brunette for 30 kopecks" (S. Nikonenko, 1991), "Day of Love" (A. Polynnikov, 1990), "Sex and Perestroika" (F. Zhuffa, 1990) and others. This work will answer the question: how is the public discourse of sexuality changing and what influences it? To answer this question, the context of publicity will be analyzed, as well as the films themselves with multiple forms of representation - sexuality will be considered from the point of view of gender, violence, irony and eroticism.

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