The purpose of this guide is to facilitate researching Russian and Soviet cinema in the variety of online and printed resources at University of California, Berkeley Library. The guide contains a large selection of databases, books, and reference materials. This guide is work in progress and please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or suggestions using the contact information in my profile box.
Useful article databases
Historical Abstracts Indexes over 2,000 journals, as well as historical book reviews and dissertations, published worldwide about all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Articles covered were written from 1954 to the present
JSTOR Includes over 1000 scholarly journals with access to more than 2 million articles. JSTOR is an archive which means that current issues (generally the most recent 3-5 years) of the journals are not yet available. For more sophisticated search capabilities, go directly to JSTOR advanced search.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Web of Knowledge) Indexes over 1,000 of the leading arts and humanities journals, and provides searching of footnoted citations. Use the link above, then under Current Limits, specify Arts and Humanities Citation Index. For more guidance on using this database see the following tutorials: Creating Alerts and Creating an RSS Feed.
Academic Search Complete A multidisciplinary index to articles in more than 10,900 journals and other publications in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese; full-text is available for over 5300 journals.
Pravda Digital Archive Full text and full image coverage of Pravda
beginning in 1912 to the present. Searchable in Russian Cyrillic or transliteration.
Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts) Indexes graduate dissertations from over 1,000 North American, and selected European, graduate schools and universities. Dissertations published since 1980, and master's theses since 1988, include brief abstracts written by the authors. Offers full text of most of the dissertations added since 1997 . It is possible to search a subset of dissertations produced by UC students by going to Dissertations and Theses @ University of California (available in full text).
ABSEES Online Database Indexes journal articles, books, dissertations, selected government publications, and online resources published in the US and Canada on East and Central Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. Covers the more recent years of the print equivalent, American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies.
Дзи́га Ве́ртов (при рождении Давид А́белевич Ка́уфман, впоследствии известен также как Денис Абрамович и Денис Аркадьевич Кауфман; 1895/1896—1954) — советский кинорежиссёр, один из основателей и теоретиков документального кино. Обогатил кинематограф множеством операторских приёмов и техник, включая методику «скрытая камера»[1]. Его фильм «Человек с киноаппаратом» (1929) часто называют величайшим из всех документальных фильмов в истории.
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (23 January 1898 – 11 February 1948), né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage". He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1927), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958). (source: wikimaterials).
The Great Consoler (Russian: Великий утешитель, translit. Velikiy uteshitel) is a 1933 drama film directed by Lev Kuleshov and starring Konstantin Khokhlov.
Эсфирь Шуб (Esfir Shub)
Esther Shub was born on March 3, 1894 in the Chernigovsky District of the Ukraine, and moved to Moscow as a student. There, she became part of the artistic avant-garde, and soon turned her talents to film. According to Graham Roberts in History Today, she later wrote in her memoirs that she saw film as "a method of expressing all that the Great October Revolution had brought," and noted that for her country, "A new life was beginning." A few years before, the bloody upheaval of the Russian Revolution had resulted in the Soviet takeover of the country, and many people were filled with ideological optimism about the new government. Shub applied several times for a job in film, and was refused several times, but she persisted. Eventually she was accepted for a job in the film section of the Commissariat of the Enlightenment.
Esther Shub was born on March 3, 1894 in the Chernigovsky District of the Ukraine, and moved to Moscow as a student. There, she became part of the artistic avant-garde, and soon turned her talents to film. According to Graham Roberts in History Today, she later wrote in her memoirs that she saw film as "a method of expressing all that the Great October Revolution had brought," and noted that for her country, "A new life was beginning." A few years before, the bloody upheaval of the Russian Revolution had resulted in the Soviet takeover of the country, and many people were filled with ideological optimism about the new government. Shub applied several times for a job in film, and was refused several times, but she persisted. Eventually she was accepted for a job in the film section of the Commissariat of the Enlightenment. Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/esther-shub#ixzz29ChHyDiq
Early Russian cinema. Part 1 [microform] : the Russian cinematographic press, 1907-1918.
The collection includes 13 bimonthly periodicals as well as more popular weeklies published by major Russian film studios [between 1907 and 1918]. The library has microfiche 1-685 (2004)
Drug dei︠a︡teleĭ kino-varʹetė-miniati︠u︡r -- Ėkran Rossii -- Kinematograf (Russia, Petrograd : 1915-1916) -- Kinemo -- Kine-zhurnal -- Kino-teatr i zhiznʹ -- I︠U︡zhanin -- Novosti ėkrana -- Pegas -- Proėktor -- Vestnik kinematografii (Moscow, Russia : 1911) -- Vestnik kinematografov v S.-Peterburge -- Zhivoĭ ėkran.
Early Russian cinema. Part 2 [microform] : the Russian cinematographic press, 1907-1918.
The collection comprises wide array of cinematographic periodicals [20 titles], published in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Revel, Ekaterinburg, and Rostov-na-Donu at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Contents Ekler-zhurnal -- Ekran and st︠s︡ena (Rostov-na-Donu, Russia : 1910) -- Kinemakolor -- Kinematograf (Rostov-na-Donu, Russia : 1914) -- Kinematograficheskiĭ teatr -- Kino (Moscow, Russia : 1907) -- Kino (Riga, Latvia : 1915) -- Kino-bi︠u︡lletenʹ -- Kino-gazeta -- Kino-kurʹer -- Kurʹer sinematografii -- Mir-ekrana -- Nasha nedeli︠a︡ -- Nemoe iskusstvo -- Novosti grammofona -- Razumnyĭ kinematograf i nagli︠a︡dnye posobii︠a︡ -- Sine-fono -- Sinema-Pate -- Vestnik "Ekler" -- Vestnik "Zhivoĭ fotografii". The Library has microfiche 1-655 (2006).
Kino pravda. No. 2 [motion picture] / Kultkino ; Kino-Eye
Directior: Dzhiga Vertov. The film depicts work on the construction of the Moscow trolley system; tanks on the labor front; leveling the Khodinka Airport; trial of the social revolutionaries; organizing peasants to join the communes; children's sanitarium in the town of Gelenzhik; Melekes Junction; starving children waiting for the arrival of the sanitary train.
OLC-SSG-Slavic Studies
OLC-SSG-Slavic Studies is a specialized extract of the Swets database Online Contents of the "New Contents Slavistics: Contents slawistischer magazines" - continues - published in paper form until 2001.
Zhurnal'nyi zal
("Журнальный зал" (ЖЗ) является некоммерческим литературным интернет-проектом, представляющим деятельность русских толстых литературно-художественных и гуманитарных журналов, выходящих в России и за рубежом.)
Mosfilm on YouTube
Mosfilm is a film studio often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet-era films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein, to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production and the epic Война и Мир / War and Peace. (Source: http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCxQThQOtbk6M)
The facilities and land of the Leningrad film studio were nationalized in 1918 and it was established as a Soviet State-funded film industry. Within just a few years it bore several different names, such as "Petrograd Cinema Committee" and "SevZapKino" among various others. In 1923 the nationalized Aquarium garden was merged with "SevZapKino" and several smaller studios to form the Soviet State-controlled film industry in St. Petersburg. During 1924 - 1926 it was temporarily named Leningrad Film Factory Goskino and eventually changed its name several times during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1934 it was named Lenfilm (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenfilm)
