Women at war in Soviet feature films of the 1960s-1980s: assessments by film critics and audiences

The article aims to identify the principal interpretations of the image of women at war in the assessments of film critics and audiences of feature films from the late 1960s to the 1980s. A representative sample of war films from this period was characterized, and the role of the female image was highlighted. In addition, the key meanings found in film critics’ reviews, as well as in viewers’ letters and interviews, were identified in interpretations of the image of women at war. These types of interpretation were related to the sociocultural context of the Soviet era. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it is the first to identify and analyze interpretations of the female image at war in late Soviet cinema, while also comparing professional reviews with audience responses. The article provides a brief analysis of film critics’ assessments and audience reactions to the release of feature films on military themes from the late 1960s to the 1980s, in which the image of women at war and its evolution can be identified. The work reveals the types of responses to visual representations of the female image offered by contemporaries in articles and reviews published in both central and regional periodicals. Furthermore, in order to determine the role of a particular image and its circulation in public consciousness, the study presents Soviet citizens’ responses to war films in the form of letters and excerpts from interviews. As a result, the analysis of these sources made it possible to establish that the image of women in war films of the late Soviet period was often central to the representation both of the events of the war itself and of interpretations of the war that were relevant to that era. Based on a comparison of professional and mass reception, the article proposes a typology of interpretations that reflects not only the content of these images but also the mechanisms by which they became embedded in cultural memory.