MYTHOLOGIZATION OF THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE HEROIC EPIC IN THE SOVIET CINEMA OF THE 1930S AND 1950S

The article analyzes the mythologization of epic images of heroes and enemies, visual space, plots and motives in the domestic cinema of the Stalinist period. The author notes that due to the availability of plots, sometimes naive, but very expressive imagery, and the vastness of the means of artistic expression, the film language has become one of the most popular metalanguages of Soviet mass culture. The Russian cinema of the 1930s and 1950s is conventionally designated, by analogy with the content of the material embodied, «the heroic epic of Soviet culture», not only at the level of content, but also of form. The transformation of existing images and the introduction of new images into the cultural code of the epic can be interpreted as mythologization, that is, the deformation of meaning, according to R. Barth, in which the appearance of these characters is perceived by the viewer as familiar and organic. In the course of analyzing the films, C. The author comes to the conclusion that many epic concepts of the heroic, folk epic formed the basis of the Soviet mythosystem almost unchanged (images of the cultural hero, monster, enemy). The image of the ruler undergoes transformation, while in the folk epic the ruler can act as an antagonist of the hero, in the Soviet cinema of the Stalinist time the image of the ruler is clearly idealized, often through the introduction of the image of the traitor and the transfer of guilt for the cruelty and mistakes of the ruler to it. Thus, the cultural code of the Russian epics includes an idealized image of the ruler, a characteristic image of an internal enemy, a traitor, relevant to the ideology and internal politics of that time.