Rimgaila Salys

Grigorii Aleksandrov’s musical comedy films, created with composer Isaak Dunaevskii, were the most popular Russian cinema of the 1930s and ’40s. Drawing on studio documents, press materials, and interviews with surviving film crew members, The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov presents the untold production history of the films. Salys explores how Aleksandrov’s cinema preserved the paradigms of the American musical, including its comedic tradition, using both to inscribe the foundation myths of the Stalin era in the national consciousness. As the first major study to situate these films in the cultural context of the era, this book will be essential to courses on Russian cinema and Soviet culture.

Laughing Matters

The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov

Alexander Prokhorov

Elena Prokhorova

Russian TV Series in the Era of Transition examines contemporary Russian television genres in the age of transition from broadcast to post-broadcast television. Focusing on critical debates and the most significant TV series of the past two decades, the volume’s contributors—the leading US and European scholars studying Russian television, as well as the leading Russian TV producers and directors—focus on three major issues: Russian television’s transition to digital post-broadcast economy, which redefined the media environment; Russian television’s integration into global television markets and their genre systems; and major changes in the representation of gender and sexuality on Russian television.

Genres, Technologies, Identities

Russian TV Series in the Era of Transition

The novel Envy provides a humorous look at the individual's struggle with an increasingly industrialized society. This critical companion, edited by Rimgailia Salys, aims to acquaint readers with the history, biographical context, critical reception and interpretation problems related to the novel. It also helps the first time reader decipher some of the text's more difficult features, including its shifting narrators and fluid boundaries between dream and reality.

A Critical Companion

Olesha's Envy

"Grigorii Aleksandrov's musical comedy films, created with composer Isaak Dunaevskii, were the most popular Russian cinema of the 1930s and '40s. Drawing on studio documents, press materials, and interviews with surviving film crew members, The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov presents the untold production history of the films. Salys explores how Aleksandrov's cinema preserved the paradigms of the American musical, including its comedic tradition, using both to inscribe the foundation myths of the Stalin era in the national consciousness"--Cover.

Rimgaila Salys

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