Unreality of ‘Screen’ Reality: Constructing of Ethnic Sameness in Today’s Russian Cinema

Unreality of ‘Screen’ Reality:
Constructing of Ethnic Sameness in Today’s Russian Cinema


Thakahov V. Kh.

Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia atalik7@yandex.ru

ID of the Article:

Rubric: Sociology of culture

For citation:

Thakahov V. Kh. Unreality of ‘Screen’ Reality: Constructing of Ethnic Sameness in Today’s Russian Cinema. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 11. P. 82-89


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Abstract

The paper examines the problem of ethnic and anthropological sameness in today’s Russian cinema. Applying the ethno-cultural approach to the analysis of today’s cinema-making process, the author reveals factors and conditions that, on the one hand, have helped produce the regime of exclusion of race and ethnic minorities from the filmmaking process on the federal level. On the other hand, these factors and conditions have helped transform national regional cinematographies into mono-ethnic spaces – ‘Tatar world’, ‘Bashkir world’, etc. The author believes that the main reason for the situation is a strategic gap in traditions that has manifested itself in rejection of the Soviet ideology and practice of internationalism in the cinema. The gap has led to the isolation from norms and regulations of the today’s world film industry oriented towards representation of race and ethnic diversity. Based on the analysis of institutional and structural, economic and anthropological aspects and potential negative consequences of ethnic monotony in the Russian cinema art, the author made several recommendations on how to overcome ethnic sameness


Keywords
Russian cinema; ethno-sociology of cinema; ethnic minorities; ethnic sameness; ethnic inequality; social exclusion

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Content No 11, 2019