Narrative Completion and the Postwar Crisis in Socialist Realism on Screen

• In Event: Liberating Narratives: Experiments with Soviet Film Storytelling

Abstract

The master plot of socialist realism as it developed in the 1930s was centered on the political maturation of the positive hero through a process of mentorship, sacrifice, and the achievement of an impossible goal. Soviet victory in 1945 fulfilled this narrative arc on an epic scale—and in reality, no less. As such, after the war, Soviet audiences, filmmakers, and party leaders alike called for the depiction of a new type of hero, suited to the era of victory and embodying the hard-won maturity of the Soviet people. Who would this hero be? What was his or her character arc? Late Stalin-era films set in the contemporary period sought to answer these questions—with some surprising results.

Author

• Claire Knight, U of Bristol (UK)