The perception of the feature film Union of Salvation by Andrey Kravchuk in the Russian media

The article deals with the reviews published in the Russian media about the feature film Union of Salvation; the film itself is about the Decembrist Revolt. The choice of the time period (late 2019 - early 2020) is conditioned by the date of the film’s wide release: accordingly, before the release, the film was widely advertised in the media, and after its release it was actively discussed. The author also analyzes the statistics related to Union of Salvation on the sites devoted to films and compares the available data with the data on other experiences of the director Andrey Kravchuk in films (for example, the feature film Viking (2016)). Thus, the objectives of this study include analyzing Russian media publications devoted to the 2019 feature film about the Decembrists Union of Salvation, characterizing the perception of the film on the basis of ratings, and describing the specifics of the perception of the Decembrists - in connection with the discussion around the film - in the Russian media of late 2019 - early 2020. The research methods used in the article include analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, classification. The author conditionally classifies reviews of Union of Salvation into those in which the Decembrists were conceptualized as traitors to the Motherland and those in which the Decembrists were presented as fighters against tyranny (although it should be noted that reviewers did not necessarily assume a positive attitude towards the Decembrists - unlike the negative attitude towards Emperor Nicholas I). The study concludes that the reviewers noted the parallel between the reign of Nicholas I and the contemporary Russian government, as well as between the Decembrists and the contemporary Russian nonsystemic opposition (although together with this there were also points of view “Senate Square = Maidan Nezalezhnosti”). The Decembrists shown in Union of Salvation were called traitors by representatives of the most diverse contemporary political camps; in their opinion, even if the imperial authorities made mistakes in the choice of means, the ends, which, as is well known, justify the means, were right. Among the reviewers who held the opposite viewpoint, there was much less political diversity: they tended to believe that the creators of Union of Salvation had the goal of conveying the idea that rebellion against the authorities was pointless and criticized Union of Salvation (in fact, criticism of the Decembrists). Thus, the reviewers reason not only and not so much about the movie or the Decembrists, but about current realities. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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