Editorial

The third issue of Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema for 2021 presents four articles that stretch across the entire history of Soviet and post-Soviet cinema and visual art forms. We begin with Binayak Bhattacharya’s extraordinary analysis of the impact of Soviet cinema on the Indian film industry, revealing the absence from distribution of many films that were banned for political reasons from British India (as much as Britain itself) whilst having, through critical narrative, a strong influence on filmmakers. Using archival sources, he reconstructs these critical narratives. Sergei Ogudov engages in a similarly meticulous reconstruction of creative processes, in his case of the changes between Ekaterina Vinogradskaia’s literary script and Fridrikh Ermler’s film A Fragment of the Empire, drawing extensively on archival sources and applying narrative theory to the comparison of the texts. We stay in the Soviet era for Deborah Allison’s perceptive reading of the war-time imagery in the fairy-tale film Kashchei the Immortal by Aleksandr Rou. Finally, Lynn Patyk takes us to the very present with a study of Little Big and the group’s synthetic approach in the music video. We have a rich section of book reviews, prepared and presented by Stephen M. Norris, to whom I express my deep gratitude for this ‘booster’ in the midst of delays caused by the pandemic almost everywhere along any publication process. As this issue is about to go to print, news has come in of the premature and unexpected death of the outstanding film scholar and programme director of the Moscow International Film Festival, Kirill Razlogov (whose article on Parajanov’s prison experience and its impact on his films appeared in this journal in 2018). Our deepest sympathy goes to his family and friends, colleagues and students – indeed, a whole generation of new film scholars. As always, Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema encourages submissions on any aspect of Soviet, post-Soviet and Russian cinema and visual culture, including the former Soviet territories. We operate a system of double-blind peer-review; submissions should be original (i.e., previously unpublished, including publications in another language) and will be considered at any time throughout the year. They should be sent to the editor at birgit.beumers@gmail.com. I should like to take this opportunity to thank the journal’s production team at Taylor & Francis, as well as my editorial and advisory boards, and particularly Richard Taylor for his generosity when it comes to matters of translation.