Methodological aspects of studying the history of Soviet cinema in the 1930s

The article is devoted to the history of the Russian film studies and methodology of film history as science using the example of the Introduction of History of the Soviet Film Art by Nikolai Iezuitov (1899–1941), one of the founders of the national film studies. Since the manuscript of History of the Soviet Film Art — the first history of the Soviet cinema — has not yet been published and introduced into scholarly use, the author pays special attention to archival sources.

Despite a number of essays and discussions about film history and its methodology, a fundamental scholarly work on the historiography of the history of Soviet and Russian cinema has not yet been written. The relevance and novelty of the article is that it is based on the study of archival manuscripts of Nikolai Iezuitov. The exploration of early approaches to the study of the history of the Soviet cinema is important both historically and pedagogically.

One of the most important sources of the concept of film history at an early stage of the national film studies is Iezuitov's Introduction to History of the Soviet Film Art. The Introduction is valuable because: 1) it is a rare evidence of reflection on the foundations of film history as scholarship and its methodology; 2) it is given by the author of the first history of the Soviet cinema; 3) it is represented by the author not as a separate “abstract” essay but as a part of the history itself.

The Introduction defines the scholarly tasks and content of film history; overviews foreign books on the history of cinema; emphasizes specific periods of Soviet film history; and indicates the principles of work with relevant sources.

Iezuitov’s main principles in relation to film history are established in connection, firstly, with Soviet history scholarship; and secondly, with the vision of film history as the history of film art. Thus, film history, according to Iezuitov, is the unity of Marxist understanding of history and art-historical (stylistic) analysis of films and the main film movements in Soviet cinema.