Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas The Culture of Movie Going After Stalin

Indian films and film stars were immensely popular with Soviet audiences in the post-Stalinist period. Sudha Rajagopalan provides the first detailed social and cultural history of this phenomenon, exploring the consumption of Indian popular cinema in the USSR from the mid-1950s until the end of the Soviet era. Drawing on oral history and archival research in Russia, Rajagopalan analyzes the ways in which Soviet movie-goers, policy makers, critics, and sociologists responded to, interpreted, and debated Indian cinema.

"The ultimate outcome of socialism is melodrama, so it is no wonder that Indian films became so popular in the Soviet Union after the Stalin era that one could consider them a separate Soviet film genre. This fascinating book offers not only an analysis of the dynamic of the film industry and consumption in the USSR but also shows deep understanding of Soviet sensitivity and imagination." --Evgeny Dobrenko, University of Sheffield Indiana University Press

"Fresh and sophisticated, well-written and accessible, this highly original book not only makes an important contribution to the global history of Indian cinema, it also illuminates Soviet social and cultural history during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras." --Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont Indiana University Press

"[The author's] study provides an engaging and thought-provoking read and should appeal to a wide variety of scholars, including those interested in Russia and the Soviet Union, media studies, and film reception." --American Historical Review, June 2011

"[T]his book has value beyond the explicit subject matter of Indian popular films.... [B]y focusing on mutual influence and negotiation, Rajagopalan adds colour and voice to 'monochrome' images of movie-going culture after Stalin." --Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Vol. 4, No. 3

"[Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas] is invaluable in that it provides such an interesting view of the conflicts and contradictions that existed within one facet of Soviet culture." --Slavic and East European Journal, 55.1 Spring 2011

"This fascinating study of box office statistics suggests that Indian movies were more popular than any other foreign films shown in the Soviet Union. Rajagopalan's ethnohistorical study of Indian cinema shows why this is so and reveals the intricacies of Soviet popular culture of the post-Stalin period." --The Russian Review

"Rajagopalan's book is an illuminating and welcome contribution to multiple fields... providing concrete and deeply contextual elaborations of frequently all-too-general claims about global cultural exchanges and affinities." --American Ethnologist Indiana University Press

"This is a book that deserves a place in the libraries, personal and institutional, of all scholars and students of Soviet cinema and popular culture." --Slavic Review

Understanding the Soviet public's love of Indian popular film

Sudha Rajagopalan is an affiliated researcher with the Media Studies Group (Institute of History and Culture) at the University of Utrecht.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction: Indian Films and Movie-going after Stalin

I. Indian Films in the Soviet Past: Memories Articulated

II. Import/Facilitation: Ambivalent Accommodation

III. Cultural Mediation and Disengagement

IV. Public Voices: Negotiation

Conclusion

Appendices

References and Select Bibliography

Index