A.G. Stakhanov in Gaumont Pathé’s Soviet Film Archives : Between Physical Performance and Instrumentalisation

Nadège Mariotti (1, 2, 3)

1 Ecole supérieure du professorat et de l'éducation
2 2L2S - Laboratoire Lorrain de Sciences Sociales
3 IRCAV - IRCAV - Institut de Recherche sur le Cinéma et l'Audiovisuel - EA 185

The depiction of the miner A.G. Stakhanov in newsreels from the Gaumont Pathé archives highlights the representations of this physical performance used in the specific economic and political environment of the USSR during the interwar period. The Soviet worker is idealized as a national hero. At that time, the Soviet government was looking for the “New Man” and “new technical standards” (Stalin, 1977) and Stakhanov lost his individuality, becoming “only an official agent of the state” (Vigne, 1984). This article examines the evolution of the memory of Stakhanov’s record mining achievement, moving from a retrospective point of view to a celebration and finally to commemoration (Ory, 1992).

Domaines: Histoire; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Nadège Mariotti. A.G. Stakhanov in Gaumont Pathé’s Soviet Film Archives : Between Physical Performance and Instrumentalisation. Slovo. Russian, Eastern European and Central Asia Affairs, 2019, 29 (2), pp.2-19. ⟨10.14324/111.0954-6839.063⟩. ⟨hal-03237850⟩