Introduction. The relevance of the study lies in conducting a descriptive analysis of war films (1941-1945), which act as a powerful ideological weapon in the processes of forming a special value system of the war period. The article specifies the relationship between the real image of the hero and his artistic depiction in the Soviet cinema, reveals patterns in the formation of images of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, explores the possibilities of "film language" as an effective propaganda tool during the war. The formation of a common "film language", the recognition of the heroes of the film, the analysis of the dialogues of the main characters "for quotations" became a sign of the audience's success of the film, actualizing heroic models of social behavior. The creation of heroic images in films took place in the context of military action, which influenced both the plot line of war films and the symbolism and the specifics of the artistic "depiction" of heroism. Materials and methods. This research is interdisciplinary in nature. In the course of the work, methods of historical research were used (historical and comparative analysis, historical and genetic, historical and typological methods, and a cultural and historical approach). Methods of related humanities disciplines were also used in the work: film studies methods, methods of visual anthropology when working with film sources, iconographic, imagological methods of analyzing a visual work, the method of hermeneutical analysis of cultural context, as well as an integrated approach to analyzing visual sources. Analysis. The article analyzes the images of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War created in the Soviet cinema of 1941-1945. It is emphasized that these images were often based on real exploits known to Soviet society. The main directions of heroization in wartime cinema are highlighted: heroic images of soldiers and commanders, as well as peasants and workers and intellectuals. Commanders are models to follow, and ordinary soldiers and sailors are ordinary citizens who stand up for the defense of the country. Soviet films reflect the nationwide nature of the war, where civilians trapped in occupation or working in the rear also show mass heroism on a par with soldiers at the front. A specific historical context, whether it was the defense of Leningrad or the Battle of Stalingrad, enhanced the impact of heroic images on viewers, making them the visual embodiment of real heroes. The scientific novelty of the study can be considered the definition of key types of heroic images (soldiers and commanders, peasants and workers, intellectuals) and their qualitative characteristics. Results. The result of the study was the formulation of a general ideological characteristic of the hero of the Great Patriotic War, the heroic image of the entire Soviet people, the "collective hero" in the films of the Soviet era. The manifestation of Soviet patriotism during the Great Patriotic War, conditioned by the ideology of socialism and the "ideological" type of political man, had no historical analogues. The specificity of the manifestation of Soviet patriotism is directly related to the image of a Soviet man, courageously fighting for their Motherland, for public socialist ideals. The confrontation of ideologies in the Great Patriotic War ("fascism" - "communism") became a determining factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the heroism of the Soviet people is forever inscribed in the history of the great victories of mankind.
Andrey Bespalov (Wed,) studied this question.