From Taboo to Controversial Narratives of World War II in Russian War Cinema Post-Glasnost`. Anti-Heroes in Penal Battalions

The article aims to reveal de-heroicising patterns of World War II in recent Russian films about a previously forbidden topic in the Soviet period – Soviet penal battalions (shtrafbats). Still a controversial topic, the recent films and TV series on this topic disclose new heroic approaches and ways of constructing World War II's (unsung) heroes. On the one hand, these filmic productions represent tributes to the heroes of penal battalions; on the other, they bring forward the anti-hero as the new positive hero of the post-Soviet period. Therefore, these filmic productions may be seen as Postmodernist recycling attempts of Socialist Realism, as proposed by M. Lipovetsky. Additionally, they are attempts to re-ascertain Russian cultural relevance and revisionist efforts before the Russo-Ukrainian war. We focus on V. Novak’s film Gu-ga (1989) which opened the path of discussing the penal battalion topic and N. Dostal’s TV series The Penal Battalion (Shtrafbat, 2004). Our paper explores the public and critical response to these film productions and their role within Russian recent cultural history and the character construction of Boris Tiraspolsky (Gu-ga) and Vasily Tverdokhlebov (Shtrafbat) as reflections of the social, political and cultural changes.

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