Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War

327 Pages·2011·21.839 MB·English

by  Kristin Roth-Ey

Museum
prime time

MDSCDIil
PR IM E TIM E
HDI1I THE SOVIET UNION
DUILT THE MEDIA EMPIRE
THAT LOST THE CULTURAL
COLD IUAR
KBISTIN BDTH-EY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review,
this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2011 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roth-Ey, Kristin Joy
Moscow prime time : how the Soviet Union built the media empire that lost
the cultural Cold War / Kristin Roth-Ey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-4874-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
i. Mass media policy—Soviet Union. 2. Motion picture industry—
Government policy—Soviet Union. 3. Radio broadcasting policy—Soviet
Union. 4. Television broadcasting policy—Soviet Union. 5. Soviet
Union—Cultural policy. I. Title.
P95.82.S65R654 2011
302.23*09409045—dc2o 2010047282
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Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my father, John J. Roth (1940-2004),
who would have loved to see this book,
and for David Roth-Ey, whose love
means more than all books

CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations, ix
Introduction: Soviet Culture in the Media Age, i
1 The Soviet Film Industry:
Defining Cinematic Success after Stalin, 25
z The New Soviet Movie Culture, 71
2 What Was Said When the Muses Were Heard:
Foreign Radio in Soviet Contexts, 131
M Finding a Home for Television in the USSR, 176
B Television and Authority in Soviet Culture, 223
Epilogue, 281
Selected Bibliography, 287
Acknowledgments, 301
Index, 305

ABBREVIATIONS
Moscow, Russia
GARF Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii
RGALI Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva
RGANI Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii
RGASPI Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi
istorii
RGASPI-m Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi
istorii-m (formerly Tsentr khraneniia dokumentov
molodezhnykh organizatsii)
TsAOPIM Tsentral'nyi arkhiv obshchestvenno-politicheskoi istorii
Moskvy (formerly Tsentral'nyi arkhiv obshchestvennykh
dvizhenii Moskvy)
Gosteleradiofond Gosudarstvennyi fond televizionnykh i radioprogramm
Kyiv, Ukraine
TsDAHOU Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads'kykh ob'ednam'
Ukrainy
TsDAVO Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vishchikh organiv vladi ta
upravlinnia Ukrainy
Budapest, Hungary
OSA Open Society Archive