The otherworldly and the irrational in soviet pre-war cinema
Abstract
This article examines the semiotics of the irrational in pre-war Soviet cinema (1920s – early 1940s). Despite the dominance of materialistic ideology and the official ban on direct depictions of the otherworldly, elements of mysticism, the absurd, and the supernatural permeated cinematic language through a complex system of codes and allegories. The methodological basis of this work is an integrative approach that synthesizes semiotic analysis (based on the theories of Yuri Lotman, Karl Metz, and Robert Barthes) with ideological criticism, psychoanalysis (trauma theory), and cultural anthropology. This article demonstrates that irrational images (nightmares, surreal metaphors, visions) functioned as a crucial sign system for representing the collective trauma of the revolution and civil war, as well as a form of aesthetic resistance and a means of expressing meanings inexpressible within the framework of socialist realism. Using films by S. Eisenstein, A. Dovzhenko, F. Ermler, G. Kozintsev, and L. Trauberg as examples, the dialectic of the rational (ideological mandate) and the irrational (artistic avant-garde, the collective unconscious) is revealed. It concludes that the irrational was not a relic, but a shadow language of the era, allowing for artistic understanding of the metaphysical rupture of reality caused by the revolutionary upheaval.