National Identities in the Context of the USSR's Westward Expansion: Visions of Poles and Ukrainians in Soviet Cinema, 1925-1941

This thesis examines Soviet cinematic depictions of Poles and Ukrainians leading up to and following the USSR’s annexation of eastern Poland in 1939. It is a history of Soviet cultural practitioners’ fears and aspirations towards, and projections onto, the territories of modern-day western Ukraine, most of which had belonged to interwar Poland before being conquered by the USSR in the wake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Through close analysis of a range of often-overlooked feature and documentary films made in both the Soviet centre and the national republics, I examine cinematic depictions of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and the Hutsul highlanders of the Carpathian mountains, exploring Soviet models of appropriation and ‘othering’ in cultural discourse. My thesis highlights the role played by cinema in both laying the ideological groundwork for Soviet westward expansion and, from 1939, incorporating Poland’s eastern territories into the Stalinist state. It shows how images of the Polish enemy remained a constant feature on the Soviet screen throughout the 1920s and 1930s. It outlines how filmmakers, acting on the direct orders of the state, entered Polish territories closely behind Red Army troops and made films that formed a vital component of Sovietisation efforts in the annexed lands. Additionally, it reveals how cinematic representations of eastern Poland during this period complicate conventional narratives about the representation of nationalities under Stalinism, and argues that the films made to propagate Soviet territorial expansion between 1939 and 1941 contain a degree of celebration of Ukrainian folk culture in its western regions that exceeded what had been possible in the Russocentric climate of the 1930s.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Lacny, Stefan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Widdis, Emma

• Soviet cinema
• National identities
• Ukraine
• Poland
• Territorial expansion

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/676f45b4-7b3e-43b7-bcb0-bd457c1dab66/download
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.113280

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/375755