Research Catalog

Title

The enemy on trial : early Soviet courts on stage and screen / Julie A. Cassiday.

Author

Cassiday, Julie A.

Publication

DeKalb, Ill. : Northern Illinois University Press, c2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 260 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

• "Attempting to indoctrinate the public into a new society, the Soviets staged "show trials"--Legal trials that incorporated theatrical elements such as coached defendants, memorized confessions, and grueling interrogatory "rehearsals." This genre of legal drama, originating in socialist theater and cinema of the 1920s, moved from mass public spectacles to the courtroom as the Soviets sought to effect ever greater social transformations."
• "In this provocative interdisciplinary study, Cassiday shows how the trials deliberately used avant-garde drama and cinema to educate the citizenry about the new social order. She explores the ways Soviet courtrooms incorporated theatrical and cinematic elements - including such techniques as costuming, scripting, editing, and the framing of scenes - and turned public trials into vehicles for propaganda. Drawing on a variety of popular media from the 1920s, she reveals the origins of the show trials' melodramatic legal discourse built around confession, repentance, and pleas for reintegration into Soviet society." "The Enemy on Trial will engage a wide audience interested in drama, film, propaganda studies, and Soviet culture."--Jacket.

Subject

• Sovetskaja Associacija Meždunarodnogo Prava
• Moscow Trials, Moscow, Russia, 1936-1937
• Courts > Soviet Union > History
• Socialism and theater > Soviet Union > History
• Socialism and motion pictures > Soviet Union > History
• Culture and law
• Theater and state > Soviet Union
• Theater > Political aspects > Soviet Union
• Motion pictures > Political aspects > Soviet Union
• Trials in motion pictures
• Trials (Political crimes and offenses) > Soviet Union

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-254) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Imperial Precedents and the First Bolshevik Show Trials -- The Mock Trial: Mythopoetic Justice I -- Trials on Film: Mythopoetic Justice II -- Marble Columns and Jupiter Lights in the Shakhty Affair -- The Redounding Rhetoric of Legal Satire -- For Each Enemy, Another Trial.

ISBN

0875802664 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^00025544^

OCLC

• 43526864
• SCSB-9988008

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library