Overview
In the American imagination, the Soviet Union was a drab cultural wasteland, a place where playful creative work and individualism was heavily regulated and censored. Yet despite state control, some cultural industries flourished in the Soviet era, including animation. Drawing the Iron Curtain tells the story of the golden age of Soviet animation and the Jewish artists who enabled it to thrive. Art historian Maya Balakirsky Katz reveals how the state-run animation studio Soyuzmultfilm brought together Jewish creative personnel from every corner of the Soviet Union and served as an unlikely haven for dissidents who were banned from working in other industries. Surveying a wide range of Soviet animation produced between 1919 and 1989, from cutting-edge art films like Tale of Tales to cartoons featuring “Soviet Mickey Mouse” Cheburashka, she finds that these works played a key role in articulating a cosmopolitan sensibility and a multicultural vision for the Soviet Union. Furthermore, she considers how Jewish filmmakers used animation to depict distinctive elements of their heritage and ethnic identity, whether producing films about the Holocaust or using fellow Jews as models for character drawings. Providing a copiously illustrated introduction to many of Soyuzmultfilm’s key artistic achievements, while revealing the tumultuous social and political conditions in which these films were produced, Drawing the Iron Curtain has something to offer animation fans and students of Cold War history alike.
Full Product Details
Author: Maya Balakirsky Katz
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Imprint: Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 17.80cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 25.40cm
Weight: 0.794kg
ISBN: 9780813577012
ISBN 10: 0813577012
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 15 July 2016
Recommended Age: From 16 to 99 years
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Reviews
A Beast of Unknown Origins: May Day: The surprising Jewish origins of the animated character who taught a generation of Soviet children to be good communists by Maya Balakirsky Katz
A Beast of Unknown Origins: May Day: The surprising Jewish origins of the animated character who taught a generation of Soviet children to be good communists by Maya Balakirsky Katz--The Tablet Katz has written a very important book exploring an area of popular significance but little scholarly attention. --David Shneer University of Colorado-Boulder Drawing on their Jewish heritage - an interview with Maya Balakirsky Katz --The Jewish Standard Drawing the Iron Curtain is an important contribution to Jewish studies, animation studies, and Russian studies --Lora Wheeler Mjolsness Slavonic and East European Review Maya Balakirsky Katz's new book is a welcome addition to Soviet animation studies This book contains a significant amount of useful information, and I would ultimately recommend it... to all scholars of Soviet cinema and culture, and to all academic libraries with holdings in Russian and Soviet culture --Bella Ginzbursky-Blum The Russian Review From Dishes to Spyware, Quirky Mementos of Soviet Dominion - Eve M. Kahn on the recent surge of interest in East-Bloc mementos, including Drawing the Iron Curtain --The New York Times A superbly researched treatise that will be of keen interest to readers of Soviet history, Jewish studies, and film history. Students of animation will take particular delight in the detailed explorations of Yuri Norstein's famous film Tale of Tales and of Cheburashka, the phenomenally popular character also known as the Soviet Mickey Mouse. --Library Journal
Katz has written a very important book exploring an area of popular significance but little scholarly attention. --David Shneer University of Colorado-Boulder
Katz has written a very important book exploring an area of popular significance but little scholarly attention. --David Shneer University of Colorado - Boulder
Katz has written a very important book exploring an area of popular significance but little scholarly attention. --David Shneer University of Colorado-Boulder Maya Balakirsky Katz's new book is a welcome addition to Soviet animation studies This book contains a significant amount of useful information, and I would ultimately recommend it... to all scholars of Soviet cinema and culture, and to all academic libraries with holdings in Russian and Soviet culture --Bella Ginzbursky-Blum The Russian Review
Author Information
MAYA BALAKIRSKY KATZ is a professor and chair of the art history department at Touro College, in New York. She is the author of The Visual Culture of Chabad and the editor of Revising Dreyfus.
