Cinepaternity: Fathers and Sons in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film

by Helena Goscilo (Editor)

This wide-ranging collection investigates the father/son dynamic in post-Stalinist Soviet cinema and its Russian successor. Contributors analyze complex patterns of identification, disavowal, and displacement in films by such diverse directors as Khutsiev, Motyl', Tarkovsky, Balabanov, Sokurov, Todorovskii, Mashkov, and Bekmambetov. Several chapters focus on the difficulties of fulfilling the paternal function, while others show how vertical and horizontal male bonds are repeatedly strained by the pressure of redefining an embattled masculinity in a shifting political landscape.

344 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Helena Goscilo received her early education in England at Rugby Grammar School, her BA from Queens College in New York, and her graduate degrees from Indiana University. After teaching many years in the Slavic Department at the University of Pittsburgh, in 2009 she accepted a position as Professor and Chair of Slavic at the Ohio State University, which she currently holds. Most of her scholarship in recent years has focused on gender and culture in Russia, with an emphasis on the contemporary period, though she has published on 18th, 19th, and 20th -century culture, the topics ranging across art, music, graphics, gesture, gender politics, celebrity studies, and film. Her volumes in the last five years include Gender and National Identity in 20th Century Russian Culture (2006; with Andrea Lanoux), Preserving Petersburg: History, Memory, Nostalgia (2008; with Stephen Norris), Cinepaternity: Fathers and Sons in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film (2010; with Yana Hashamova), Celebrity and Glamour in Contemporary Russia: Shocking Chic (2011; with Vlad Strukov), Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon (2012), and Embracing Arms: Cultural Representations of Slavic and Balkan Women in War (2012; with Yana Hashamova). Currently she is working with Vlad Strukov on a collection of articles on the visual depiction of Russian/Soviet aviation.