History, Power, and Incomplete Epistolarity in Post-Soviet Cinema

Abstract

This article examines epistolary enunciation in the recent cinema of former Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, and Estonia), and in particular how filmmakers use the letter device in their engagements with their nations’ past, present, and future. After discussing the post-Soviet epistolary through the prism of the region’s history, with reference to Altman (1982) and Naficy (2001), the article analyses the device in specific films. Recent examples often follow the Soviet-era model of the letter as a medium for contact not only (or primarily) between individuals, but also for more abstract kinds of contact, between distinct realms of human existence and consciousness: East and West, Public and Private, Life and Death/Afterlife, Freedom and Captivity, Science and Superstition, Authenticity and Imposture, History and Contemporaneity. The meanings created via epistolary efforts to bridge such gaps – by the characters and the filmmakers – are central to the post-Soviet cinematic project of national and individual introspection.

Keywords

• epistolary film
• Russian cinema
• Ukrainian cinema
• Estonian cinema
• Soviet cinema