Happily Ever After: Soviet Animation from the 1940s and 1950s

• In Event: Adapting the Foreign in Soviet Animation

Abstract

The paper studies how a range of the Soviet animated films of the 1940s and 1950s were used to promote the Soviet ideological and national paradigm. On one hand, they heavily relied on a transcultural aesthetic largely based on Walt Disney’s style, which became the norm in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, most animated films produced in that period were based on folk or fairytale narrative structures and Russian folklore. This unique combination of the Disney style and the Russian folklore allowed Soviet animation to represent what Soviet life was supposed to be like and to strengthen the socialist and ideological state project in “making fairytales come true”.

Author

• Jennifer Boivin, Independent Scholar