“This is something we live through every day” : Negotiating the cultural memory of the Decembrist revolt in Russian historical film Union of Salvation

Abstract: The study examines the narratives of the Decembrist revolt created in and around Russian state-funded cinema. By exploring the narratives surrounding a particular instance of political dissent in the past, the research seeks to uncover the factors that impact on the negotiation of cultural memory between the text and the audience in the context of state-influenced media. This exploration is based on the case of Union of Salvation – a 2019 Russian historical film, created with support from the Russian government and presented as a truthful depiction of the past. The research is conducted at an intersection of popular culture and memory studies. The theoretical part of work explores the dynamics and mediated nature of cultural memory in connection to historical cinema, highlighting the fact that the examination of audience engagement is largely absent from the field of research. By connecting the concept of cultural memory with the concept of audience engagement, the thesis seeks to uncover the negotiation of memory and historical narratives, performed by the active audience. The research operates within a qualitative case-focused framework. This provides an understanding of the ways audiences negotiate cultural memory of the Decembrist revolt while engaging with historical film in the context of Russian state-produced and controlled media. The two methods of data generation in this thesis are film narrative analysis and qualitative semi-structured interviewing, with the latter being the dominant method. The interview sample consists of young Russian students and professionals aged between 21 and 26 years. The film narrative analysis reveals the patterns of narrative structure which present Decembrists as disunited and aimless rebels as opposed to the people in power who are open to dialogue. The analysis of the interviews uncovers consistent rejection of these narratives, which is based on the audience’s understanding of the interpretive nature of historical film genre, strong opinions on and knowledge about the Decembrist revolt, as well as expectations of manipulation put on the Russian state-sponsored cinema.