THE SECOND WORLD WAR ON THE BIG SCREENS OF UKRAINE IN THE mid-1980s-2010s

Abstract

This research considers how cinematography’s influence on the historical memory of the Second World War has changed from the mid-1980s to the present day. Cinematography has the ability to influence people’s feelings and memories. But the existing historiography very rarely uses such methods as statistical data of the box office revenues on films. Such data make it possible to more fully assess the movie’s popularity and, as a result, the possible impact of a single movie on the whole country.

This article highlights feature movies about the war that could have an impact on the average resident of Ukraine. It establishes the division of movies according to the geographical and political features: movies of the Soviet period of reconstruction, Russian movies, American movies, European movies, and Ukrainian movies. It contains a chronological periodization of movie distribution in Ukraine: the period of reconstruction, the absence and the beginning of the restoration of movie distribution in the Ukrainian language, and the ban on Russian mass media.

The role of movies about the war in the period of reconstruction was of little importance compared to the period of stagnation when a significant place among the leaders of cinema visiting were occupied by movies about ‘the Great Patriotic War’. In the 1990s, movie distribution on the territory of Ukraine de facto stopped, and after a slight recovery in the mid-2000s, it never reached the numbers of Soviet Union time.

Therefore, we can note that the influence of cinematography on historical memory in the considered period is insignificant. The necessary number of well-known movies about the war that would destroy the Second World War Soviet myths among the population in Ukraine was not produced.