Blackness and Race in Soviet Cinema

This book argues that although Soviet ideology did not accept the principle of biologically based racial inferiority, aspired to achieve equality for all citizens under socialist internationalism and regarded “race” as a concept formulated by modern capitalism, nevertheless Soviet films that addressed issues of “race” still exposed their authors’ views. Moreover, the book contends that these views made a significant contribution to popular perceptions and to the gradual rise of “white supremacy” thinking in the late Soviet period, with such thinking being now very widely held in post-Soviet, contemporary Russia. The book discusses a wide range of films including films about Africa, Africans and Afro-Americans, explores in detail the Soviet social construction of race, gender and identity and contrasts this with the development of racial thinking in the Western world. The book’s rich and subtle analysis shows how Soviet cine-culture in a variety of popular genres, from adventure films to biopics and political drama, re-articulated meanings of “race” through allegedly anti-racist imageries of “blackness” and “whiteness”.

This book argues that although Soviet ideology did not accept the principle of biologically based racial inferiority, aspired to achieve equality for all citizens under socialist internationalism and regarded “race” as a concept formulated by modern capitalism, nevertheless Soviet films that addressed issues of “race” still exposed their authors’ views. Moreover, the book contends that these views made a significant contribution to popular perceptions and to the gradual rise of “white supremacy” thinking in the late Soviet period, with such thinking being now very widely held in post-Soviet, contemporary Russia. The book discusses a wide range of films including films about Africa, Africans and Afro-Americans, explores in detail the Soviet social construction of race, gender and identity and contrasts this with the development of racial thinking in the Western world. The book’s rich and subtle analysis shows how Soviet cine-culture in a variety of popular genres, from adventure films to biopics and political drama, re-articulated meanings of “race” through allegedly anti-racist imageries of “blackness” and “whiteness”.