Editorial

The third issue of Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema for 2025 shifts attention towards the cinema of the Soviet peripheries, including Central Asia, and offers perspectives from researchers outside our usual fold, including Uzbekistan and Japan.

The issue opens, proceeding broadly in chronological order, with an article by Sergei Ogudov on the hitherto unpublished Petersburg screenplay by Andrei Bely, which explores how its narrative reflects the conventions of the cinema of attractions rather than the techniques of Soviet montage. This is followed by an article that analyses documentaries about trials of the Holocaust made in Soviet Lithuania in the 1960s by Lithuanian scholar Gintare Malinauskaite.

The issue also includes three articles about cinema in Central Asia: Bakhtiyor Alimdjanov and Kamila Akbarova offer a historical overview of the role of women in Uzbek cinema, from the 192os to the years of independence. Japanese scholar Akira Matsumoto analyses the strategy of balancing Soviet ideology and ethnic imagery in order to forge a national discourse in Tolomush Okeev’s The Sky of Our Childhood. And the Kazakh scholars Elmira Pshenayeva and Sharipa Urazbayeva, along with Gulzhan Karibayeva, analyse the detrimental impact of corruption on Kazakh film production.

As always, we have a small selection of book reviews, prepared by our new book reviews editor Jenny Kaminer, whom I welcome here most warmly.

And as always, Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema encourages submissions on any aspect of cinema and visual culture from the pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet space and time. We operate a system of double-blind peer-review; submissions should be original (i.e., previously unpublished, including publications in another language) and will be considered at any time throughout the year. They should be sent to the editor, [email protected]. We do not use a submission system, because our field is small and we believe in the value of personal correspondence.