Blockbuster History in the New Russia Movies, Memory, and Patriotism [Paperback]

Seeking to rebuild the Russian film industry after its post-Soviet collapse, directors and producers sparked a revival of nationalist and patriotic sentiment by applying Hollywood techniques to themes drawn from Russian history. Unsettled by the governments move toward market capitalism, Russians embraced these historical blockbusters, packing the American-style multiplexes that sprouted across the country. Stephen M. Norris examines the connections among cinema, politics, economics, history, and patriotism in the creation of blockbuster history the adaptation of an American cinematic style to Russian historical epics.

[Norris] offers a compact and legible inventory of the [historic cinematic] experiment . . . .Jan. 2014

Stephen M. Norris is Professor of History at Miami University of Ohio. He is author of A War of Images: Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity and editor (with Willard Sunderland) of Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present (IUP, 2012).

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Multiplexing Russia
Part 1. The Russia That We Lost
2. The First Blockbuster of the New Nation
3. Terrorism Then and Now
4. Wars and Gambits
5. A Requiem for Communism
Part 2. The Price of War
6. Mirror of War
7. Playing with History
Part 3. Back in the USSR
8. The Blessed Blockbuster
9. The Soviet Horror Show
Part 4. Fantasy Pop History
10. Animating the Past
11. The Look of Fantasy
12. The Business of Patriotism
13. The Production of the Past
14. Conclusion: Packaging the Past
Notes
Index

Blockbuster History in the New Russia . . . should be on the reading list of every student of contemporary Russian culture. . . . The book is a pleasure to read. Norris is an excellent storyteller who appropriately and elegantly introduces thousands of details into his narrative to keep the reader interested.Blockbuster History is not merely a study of l£0