Abstract
Soviet newsreel film forms an important part of the production of the various Soviet publicity media during the Soviet-German war, the co-ordinated aim of which was to mobilise the Soviet people and their resources most effectively to the war effort for the defeat of Nazi Germany.
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Notes
S. M. Shtemenko, The Soviet General Staff at War, 1941–5 (Moscow, 1970) pp. 378–9.
A. Werth, Russian at War (London, 1964) pp. 222–3.
For the war-time domestic and military context of this paper, apart from Werth, I have used the following: A. Seaton, The Russo-German War, 1941–5 (London, 1971);
J. Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1975);
S.P.Platonov, Vtoraya Mirovaya Voina, 1939–45. Voenno-istoricheskii Ocherk (Moscow, 1958);
A. M. Samsonov, Stalingradskaya Bitva (Moscow, 1960);
M. M. Minasyan et al. (eds.), The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. A General Outline (Moscow, 1974).
Quoted in I. Deutscher, Stalin. A Political Biography, rev. edn (London, 1966) p. 460.
Tamara Deutscher (ed.), Not by Politics Alone … The Other Lenin (London, 1973) pp. 204–5.
Statistics from Narodnoye Khozyaistvo SSSR v 1958 godu (Moscow, 1959) pp. 867–9; SSSR v tsifrakh. 1973 (Moscow, 1974) pp. 216–17. Figures are not available for the war years. In the whole population in 1939, 25.1 per cent were under 10 or over 69 years old. There was however a much higher proportion of the very old and very young in the countryside. My estimate is based on a very young and very old urban population of about 20 per cent. See P. G. Pod’yachikh, Naselenie SSSR (Moscow, 1961) pp. 29–34.
V. Smirnov, Dokumenta’Vnye filmy o Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny (Moscow, 1947) pp. 7–10, 264;
Y. S. Kalashnikov et al (eds), Ocherki Istorii Sovetskogo Kino, vol. II (Moscow, 1956) pp. 548–9, 559–62;
M. P. Kim et al. (eds), Sovetskaya Kul’tura v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny (Moscow, 1976) pp. 255–60. Smirnov gives numerous examples of the exploits of Soviet cameramen in the war and some references to their diaries and reminiscences.
Y. S. Kalashnikov, vol. n, op. cit., pp. 143–6; A. A. Grechko et al (eds), Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny (Moscow, 1974– ) vol, III, pp. 398–9.
J. Leyda, Kino (London, 1960) pp. 367–9;
N. Kolesnikova et al, Roman Karmen (Moscow, 1959) pp. 73–4. Karmen’s first war pictures from Velikiye Luki appeared in issue no. 69 (July 19). The German forces reached Velikiye Luki towards the beginning of August.
Issues 11–12, 14, 15, 16, 44, 49, 50, 55, 57, 79 (1943) and nos 17, 20, 28 (1944) include non-Russian, mainly Caucasian and Central Asian stories. References to some of the non-Russian nationalities are also of interest in showing the suddenness of the change of policy towards them during the war. In July 1941 the Volga-Germans were chosen (no. 62, 2 July 1941) to make the usual points about bringing in the harvest. This positive reference to Soviet-Germans was hardly fortuitous, given the outbreak of the war only a few days before. In August the Volga-Germans were deported en masse for disloyalty. One of the last positive references to the Kalmycks (deported in late 1943) is in the newsreel no. 5 (January 1943) concerning the liberation of Elista, ‘capital of the Kalmyck ASSR’. In March 1944 (no. 17) a story is devoted to reconstruction in the tiny Kabardin-Balkar ASSR in the north Caucasus. This area had already been freed from German occupation for many months. In April the Balkars were deported for collaboration with the Germans and all references to them were prohibited until their rehabilitation in 1956. Unfortunately the copy in the Imperial War Museum collection of the controversial issue nos 23–4 (April 1944) on the liberation of the Crimea is a mute print. It is not therefore possible to determine whether the reception by the local population is referred to. The Crimean Tartars were deported in May/June 1944. See R. Conquest, The Nation-Killers. The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (London, 1970) pp. 54. 62–3, 100–1, 105–6.
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© 1982 Nicholas Pronay and D.W. Spring
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Spring, D.W. (1982). Soviet newsreel and the Great Patriotic War. In: Pronay, N., Spring, D.W. (eds) Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918–45. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05893-8_14
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