From Revolution to Cosmos: expressions of science fiction in the early decades of Soviet cinema

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2317-4765.rus.2025.241631

Keywords:

Soviet cinema, Science fiction, Russian literature

Abstract

This article aims to present an understanding of the cultural promotion of the science fiction/fantasy genre in imperial Russian and Soviet society, and conduct a study of the two cinematographic works selected using Marc Ferro's method of analysis. The science fiction/fantasy literary genre in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union was popular in different forms and themes. In Soviet cinema, the genre began to be popularized through two productions: director Yakov Protazanov’s film Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924) and director Vasily Zhravlev’s Cosmic Journey (1936). 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

  • Vinícius Braga Mendonça, Universidade Estadual de Maringá

    Mestrando em Psicologia pela Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM)

  • Walter Günther Rodrigues Lippold, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

    Doutor em História pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Professor Colaborador do Programa de Pós-graduação em História da UFRGS. Autor de Fanon e a Revolução Argelina (Autonomia Literária) e coautor de Colonialismo Digital: por uma crítica hacker-fanoniana (Boitempo).

References

CHRISTIE, Ian. Down to earth: Aelita relocated. 2005. In: TAYLOR, Richard; CHRISTIE, Ian (Orgs.). Inside the Film Factory: New approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 81-102.

ESLER, Dominic. Soviet Science Fiction of the 1920s: Explaining a Literary Genre in its Political and Social Context. 2010. In: BANERJEE, Anindita (Org). Russian science fiction literature and cinema: a critical reader. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018, p. 117-146.

FANON, Frantz. Pele Negra, Máscaras Brancas. São Paulo: Ubu Editora, 2020.

FERRO, Marc. Filme Uma contra-análise da sociedade. Le GOFF, Jacques; NORA, Pierre (org.). História: novos objetos. Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves, 1988.

HORTON, Andrew. Science Fiction of the Domestic: Iakov Protazanov’s Aelita. 2000. In: Banerjee, Anindita (Org). Russian science fiction literature and cinema: a critical reader. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018, p. 166-177.

KENEZ, Peter. Cinema and Soviet Society: from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin. Londres: I. B. Tauris, 2001.

KOSIK, Karel. Dialética do Concreto. 7ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2002.

MAJSOVA, Natalija. Soviet Science Fiction Cinema and the Space Age: Memorable Futures. Lanham-Boulder-New York-London: Lexington Books, 2021.

SIDDIQI, Asif. Imagining the Cosmos: Utopians, Mystics, and the Popular Culture of Spaceflight in Revolutionary Russia. 2008. In: BANERJEE, Anindita (Org). Russian science fiction literature and cinema: a critical reader. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018, p. 79-116.

SMITH, Michael. Stalinism and the Genesis of Cosmonautics. 2014. In: BANERJEE, Anindita. (Org). Russian science fiction literature and cinema: a critical reader. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018, p. 201-213.

SPUTNITSKAIA, Nina. The politics of outer space: colonisers and missionaries in Russian fantasy film of the 1930s. Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, v.11, n. 2, p. 134-145, 2017. DOI: 10.1080/17503132.2017.1300426.

WILSON, F. Booth. The Cinema of Yakov Protazanov. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2024.

YOUNGBLOOD, Denise. Movies for the masses: popular cinema and Soviet society in the 1920s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

YOUNGBLOOD, Denise. The return of the native: Yakov Protazanov and Soviet cinema. 2005. In: TAYLOR, Richard; CHRISTIE, Ian (Orgs.). Inside the Film Factory: New approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 103-122.

YOUNGBLOOD, Denise. Russian war films: on the Cinema Front, 1914-2005. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007.

AELITA, Queen of Mars. Direção: Iakov Protazanov. Produção: Mezhrabpom-Rus. União Soviética, 1924. (111 min). Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe4X_VbHi3Q&t=5961s.

COSMIC Journey. Direção: Vassili Zhuravlev. Produção: Mosfilm. União Soviética, 1936. (70 min). Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDhJKzuOb2w&t=3s.

Downloads

Published

2025-11-30

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 29 (2025): Cinema russo e soviético: do império aos nossos dias

Section

Dossiê

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Vinícius Braga Mendonça, Walter Günther Rodrigues Lippold

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish in RUS agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

How to Cite

Mendonça, V. B., & Lippold, W. G. R. (2025). From Revolution to Cosmos: expressions of science fiction in the early decades of Soviet cinema. RUS (Sao Paulo), 16(29), 14-36. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2317-4765.rus.2025.241631