The reception of I. Perestiani’s film The little Red Devils in Soviet printed media of the1920–1930s

Abstract

The paper is focused on the reaction of Soviet media in 1920–1930s to Peresteriani’s movie The little Red Devils. The movie was based on P. Blyakhin’s shorter novel written in the last year of the Russian Civil War. The movie was shot in Soviet Georgia, because the system of filmmaking in Russia was in ruin. The little Red Devils turned out to be especially successful – partly because of the fact that the movie was being strongly promoted by the Party. The movie was a strange mix of ideological cliches and the adventure plot. At the very beginning of work on the film yet, the story underwent significant changes- so that the father of the little Red Devils was turned from a revolutionary peasant into a class conscious railway worker, etc. A decade later, in mid 1930s the movie was recut to delete any allusions with Trotsky’s politics during the Civil War. In early 40-s the new recutting was made as the final version. Such mutations according to the Party’s demands was rather typical for many Soviet art pieces which got the status of the Soviet classics.