2026 № 1 (56)
Reception of Soviet Adventurous Films in the Domestic Periodicals of the 1920s
UDC 7.091.4
LBC 85.36
DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2026-1-240-289
For cit.: Salnikova E.V. Reception of Soviet Adventurous Films in the Domestic Periodicals of the 1920s. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2026, no. 1, pp. 240–289. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2026-1-240-289. (In Russian)
Salnikova Ekaterina V.
D.Sc. (in Culture Studies), PhD (in Art History), Head of the Mass Media Arts Department, State Institute for Art Studies, 5 Kozitsky Lane, Moscow, 125375, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8386-9251
ResearcherID: AAS-2122-2020
Reception of Soviet Adventurous Films in the Domestic Periodicals of the 1920s
Abstract. The paper examines the articles in the 1920s periodicals devoted to Soviet adventure cinema. The author identifies four main groups of people who spoke out on the issues of cinema: ordinary spectators, worker correspondents, professional critics with a strong ideological bias, and professionals in the film industry, critics, and writers who recognized the primacy of the artistic component in the cinema art. The question is raised about the attitude of representatives of these groups to the adventure (detective) genre and to films of other genres containing elements of adventure. It is revealed that the primacy of ideology in the film periodicals of the 1920s is a kind of mythologeme. In fact, despite the persistent ideological demands and the class approach of some (but not all) of those who wrote on cinema, such demands do not completely dominate. The positions of professional intellectuals, who primarily assess the artistic level of an adventure film, the presence of an author’s style, the affirmation of approved anthropological ideals, the novelty of techniques, and the overall originality / vanguard of the aesthetics, are strong. Among the ‘aestheticist’ critics, there is no inner loyalty either to N.I. Bukharin’s idea of creating a ‘communist Pinkerton’ or to the tastes of People’s Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky, who appreciated traditional ‘well-made’ art. The dominance of a high aesthetic standard and a disdainful attitude towards a commercial stencil ‘product’ for mass audience became the factors that slowed down the spontaneous development of the domestic adventure film industry.
Keywords: Soviet cinema, Soviet ideology, periodicals of the 1920s, adventurous film, ‘communist Pinkerton’, aesthetic tastes, anthropological ideals, film industry professionals, worker correspondents, mass audience, N.I. Bukharin, A.V. Lunacharsky
The research was carried out with the support of the RNF grant for small scientific groups No. 24-28-01484 “Anthropological ideals in adventure films of the Russian silent cinema of the 1910s — 1920s”.
Sourses:
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Stenogramma zasedaniya Khudozhestvennogo soveta po obsuzhdeniyu kinofil’ma “Doroga” rezhissera Stolpera, stsenariya F.I. Filippova “Vsadnik bez golovy” i kinoprob “Povest’ ob agronome”: 12 iyulya 1955 g. [Transcript of the Meeting of the Art Council to Discuss the Film The Road Directed by Stolper, the Screenplay by F.I. Filippov The Headless Horseman and the Screen Test of The Tale of the Agronomist: July 12, 1955]. RGALI [Russian State Archive of Literature and Art], f. 2453, inv. 3, storage unit 410. 56 l. (In Russian)
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Received 30.10.2025
Revised 13.11.2025
Accepted 18.11.2025
