The history of Russian animation is the visual art form produced by Russian animation makers. As most of Russia's production of animation for
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
...
and television were created during
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
times, it may also be referred to some extent as the history of Soviet animation. It remains a nearly unexplored field in
film theory and history outside Russia.
Beginnings
![Cameraman's revenge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Cameraman%27s_revenge.JPG)
The first Russian animator was
Alexander Shiryaev, a principal ballet dancer and choreographer at the
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre ( rus, Мариинский театр, Mariinskiy teatr, also transcribed as Maryinsky or Mariyinsky) is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music th ...
who made a number of pioneering
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
and traditionally animated films between 1906 and 1909. He built an improvised studio at his apartment where he carefully recreated various ballets — first by making thousands of sketches and then by staging them using hand-made puppets; he shot them using the
17.5 mm Biokam camera, frame by frame. Shiryaev didn't hold much interest in animation as an art form, but rather saw it as an instrument in studying human plastics.
[ Lord, Peter]
The start of stop-frame
''The Guardian''. November 14, 2008. Accessed on: June 23, 2009.Nina Alovert
Nina Nikolaevna Alovert (; born 1935) is a ballet photographer and writer. She lives in the United States, following her emigration from the Soviet Union in 1977.
Alovert was the photographer for the 1986 Emmy Award-winning program ''Wolf Trapp P ...
.
Belated Premier. Past Pages Come to Life
' article from the Russian Bazaar magazine, January, 2005 (in Russian) They were mostly forgotten during the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
period, mentioned only in the memoirs of his students.
In 1995, they were re-discovered by a ballet historian Viktor Bocharov who got hold of Shiryayev's archives and released ''A Belated Premiere'' documentary in 2003 with fragments of various films. All of them were later restored and digitized with the help from the
Pordenone Silent Film Festival
Le Giornate del cinema muto (referred to in English as Pordenone Silent Film Festival) is an annual festival of silent film held in October in Pordenone, northern Italy. It is the first, largest and most important international festival dedicated ...
and
Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and clay ani ...
.
The second person to independently discover animation was
Vladislav Starevich. Being a trained biologist, he started to make animation with embalmed insects for educational purposes, but soon realized the possibilities of this medium to become one of the undisputed masters of
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
later in his life. His first few films, made in 1910, were
dark comedies on the family lives of cockroaches, and were so revolutionary that they earned him a decoration from
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
. He produced a number of other popular animated films with insects at the
Aleksandr Khanzhonkov
Aleksandr Alekseevich Khanzhonkov ( rus, Александр Алексеевич Ханжонков, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ xənˈʐonkəf; — 26 September 1945) was a pioneering Russian''Peter Rollberg (2016)''Historical Dic ...
's studio where he also worked as a cinematographer and a director of live-action films, sometimes combining live action with stop motion animation, as in ''
The Night Before Christmas
''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' i ...
'' and ''A Terrible Vengeance'' (both from 1913). Starevich left Russia after the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, and for many years, the animation industry was paralyzed.
After the revolution
In the early years after the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, Russian animation remained undeveloped compared to
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
...
or
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
. The 1923
agitprop
Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', " propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred ...
animated short ''Today'' directed by
Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov (russian: Дзига Вертов, born David Abelevich Kaufman, russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман, and also known as Denis Kaufman; – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsre ...
and animated by Ivan Belyaev became a pioneering work and was followed by other
cutout films (called flat marionettes at the time) in style of
editorial cartoons
A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine ...
that satirized bourgeoisie, Church and Western countries, drawn and animated in a sketchy manner; those included films and sketches by Vetrov and Aleksandr Bushkin for
Sovkino
Goskino USSR (russian: link=Yes, Госкино СССР) is the abbreviated name for the USSR State Committee for Cinematography (Государственный комитет по кинематографии СССР) in the Soviet Union. It w ...
such as ', ''Humoresques'' and episodes of ''
Kino-Pravda
''Kino-Pravda'' (russian: Кино-Правда, translation=Film Truth) was a series of 23 newsreels by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman launched in June 1922. Vertov referred to the twenty-three issues of ''Kino-Pravda'' ...
''.
['' Giannalberto Bendazzi (2016)'']
Animation: A World History: Volume I: Foundations - The Golden Age
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
, p. 80–81, 79, 174-177
In 1924,
Mezhrabpom-Rus released the critically acclaimed ' that satirized ''
Aelita
''Aelita'' (russian: Аэли́та, ), also known as ''Aelita: Queen of Mars'', is a 1924 Soviet silent science fiction film directed by Yakov Protazanov and produced at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's 1923 ...
''. It also utilized
cutout animation
Cutout animation is a form of stop-motion animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets for stop motion. The world's e ...
along with the
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
art style and was developed independently by three artists —
Nikolai Khodataev, Zenon Komissarenko and
Yuri Merkulov — who headed the first Soviet animation studio at the
All-Union Technicum of Cinematography. In 1925, it was followed by a government-backed ''China in Flames'' made by the same team along with
Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Ivan Petrovich Ivanov-Vano (russian: Иван Петрович Иванов-Вано; – 25 March 1987), born Ivanov, was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian animation director, animator, screenwri ...
,
Vladimir Suteev and the
Brumberg sisters. With 1000
meters of film and 14
frames per second
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent.
Frame and FRAME may also refer to:
Physical objects
In building construction
*Framing (con ...
it ran over 50 minutes at the time, which made it the first Soviet animated
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
and one of the first in the world.
[''Larisa Malyukova (2013)''. OVERcinema. Modern Russian animation. — Saint Petersburg: Umnaya Masha, p. 264–265, 268 ][''Sergey Kapkov (2006)''. Encyclopedia of Domestic Animation, p. 14–21]
During the late 1920s, the industry started moving away from agitation. In 1927, Merkulov, Ivanov-Vano and directed the first Soviet cartoon aimed at children — ' based on the fairy tale in verse by
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky ( rus, Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский, p=kɐrˈnʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ tɕʊˈkofskʲɪj, a=Kornyey Ivanovich Chukovskiy.ru.vorb.oga; 31 March NS 1882 – 28 October 1969) was one of the most p ...
. Made at
Mezhrabpom-Rus, it combined
traditional animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation.
Proc ...
and some live action scenes.
['']Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Ivan Petrovich Ivanov-Vano (russian: Иван Петрович Иванов-Вано; – 25 March 1987), born Ivanov, was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian animation director, animator, screenwri ...
(1980)''. Frame by Frame. — Moscow: Iskusstvo, 239 pages, p. 34, 98, 102, 112–129, 150, 12–13, 223–226 Same year Ivanov-Vano and Cherkes worked on ', another hand-drawn short that featured a distinguishable art style (white lines against black background). It was written and directed by
Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky and
Nikolai Bartram, founder of the Moscow
Toy Museum
A toy museum is a museum for toys. They typically showcase toys from a particular culture or period with their history. These are distinct from children's museums, which are museums for children, and are often interactive – toy museums may be ...
, who also produced ''Bolvashka's Adventures'' that combined live action and
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
animation in a story about a
Pinocchio
Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel '' The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan ...
-like wooden boy.
The idea was extended in a spiritual successor — ''Bratishkin's Adventures'', the first Soviet
animated series
An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have eith ...
created between 1928 and 1931 by Yuri Merkulov and
Aleksandr Ptushko
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko (russian: Александр Лукич Птушко, – 6 March 1973) was a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and a People's Artist of the USSR (1969). Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referr ...
at
Mosfilm
Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output inclu ...
.
[Gulliverkino: Far Side of the Fairy Tale. Aleksandr Ptushko - Innovations](_blank)
article from Iskusstvo Kino, May 5, 2015 (in Russian)
In 1928, Nikolai Khodataev, his sister
Olga Khodataeva and the Brumberg sisters produced a hand-drawn animated short ' stylized as traditional
Nenets art that followed a dramatic narrative and used an innovative technique of printing on thin celluloid.
A 24-minute stop motion film ''The Adventures of the Little Chinese'' was directed same year by and could be considered a return to the traditions of
Ladislas Starevich
Ladislas Starevich (russian: Владисла́в Алекса́ндрович Старе́вич, pl, Władysław Starewicz; August 8, 1882 – February 26, 1965) was a Polish-Russian stop-motion animator notable as the author of the first pup ...
.
Mikhail Tsekhanovsky's ''
Post
Post or POST commonly refers to:
*Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries
**An Post, the Irish national postal service
**Canada Post, Canadian postal service
**Deutsche Post, German postal service
**Iraqi Post, Ira ...
'' (1929, cutout/cel animation) was both a return to constructivism traditions and a big step forward: it was successfully exported and widely shown around the world, while in the USSR it changed the perception of animation as an art form. It also became the first
colorized
Film colorization (American English; or colourisation [British English], or colourization [Canadian English and Oxford English]) is any process that adds color to black-and-white, sepia, or other monochrome moving-picture image ...
Soviet animated film and one of the first to get a musical score and a voiceover by
Daniil Kharms
Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.
Early years
Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvach ...
.
Mikhail and his wife
Vera Tsekhanovskaya led an animation studio at
Lenfilm where a number of distinctive hand-drawn and stop motion films were created throughout the 1930s, including the much-praised ' (1938) by .
[Eleonora Guylan, Peter Bagrov. ]
Once upon a time... Memoirs about the Leningrad pre-war animation
' at the Notes by Film Historian magazine, 2005 (in Russian)[''Sergei Asenin (2012)''. The World of Animation // The Tropes of Soviet Animation, p. 45–46. — Moscow: Print-on-Demand, 303 pages ] The team actively applied color using the original
dye-transfer process
Dye transfer is a continuous-tone color photographic printing process. It was used to print Technicolor films, as well as to produce paper colour prints used in advertising, or large transparencies for display.
History
The use of dye imbibition ...
invented by Lenfilm specialists, similar to
Technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
.
In 1933, the couple collaborated with
Dmitri Shostakovich and
Alexander Vvedensky on the first traditionally animated Soviet feature — ''
The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda'', a satirical opera loosely based on the fairy tale in verse by
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
and stylized as
ROSTA posters. Despite many problems, including the infamous
bullying of Shostakovich in press, the film was nearly finished and had been stored at Lenfilm until 1941 when almost all of it was destroyed in fire caused by the
bombings of Leningrad. Tsekhanovsky is also credited with invention of
graphical sound
Graphical sound or drawn sound (Fr. ''son dessiné'', Ger. ''graphische Tonerzeugung'',; It. ''suono disegnato'') is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are ...
along with
Arseny Avraamov and . They were challenged by a group led by who made a number of animated shorts based on their own idea of "drawing paper sound".
In 1935,
Aleksandr Ptushko
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko (russian: Александр Лукич Птушко, – 6 March 1973) was a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and a People's Artist of the USSR (1969). Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referr ...
directed ''
The New Gulliver
''The New Gulliver'' (russian: Новый Гулливер, ''Novyy Gullivyer'') is a Soviet stop motion-animated cartoon, and the first to make such extensive use of puppet animation, running almost all the way through the film (it begins and ends ...
'', one of the world's first full-length animated movies that combined detailed
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
with a live actor (a 15-year-old boy). The film featured from 1,500 to 3,000 different puppets with detachable heads and various facial expressions, as well as camera and technical tricks.
The international success of the movie allowed Ptushko to open his own "division of 3D animation" at
Mosfilm
Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output inclu ...
which also worked as a school for beginning animators. In four years, they created a dozen of stop motion shorts; most of them, such as (1936), were based around Russian folklore, traditional art (with the involvement of artists from
Palekh
Palekh (russian: Па́лех) is an urban locality (a settlement) and the administrative center of Palekhsky District of Ivanovo Oblast, Russia. Population:
Painting
Palekh has a very long history in Russian iconography, the art of painting R ...
) and could be watched in full color thanks to the newly invented three-color film process by .
[Nikolai Mayorov]
The Color of Soviet Cinema
from the Film Expert's Notes magazine № 98, 2011 (in Russian) In 1939, Ptushko directed another feature — ''
The Golden Key'' based on the popular Soviet
fairy tale; it also combined stop motion with live action, but to a lesser extent.
Simultaneously,
Alexandre Alexeieff
Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff (Russian: Александр Александрович Алексеев;Alternative transcriptions include Alexander Alexeieff or Alexander Alexeïeff or Alexandre Alexieff 18 April 1901 – 9 August 1982) was ...
who fled for
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
during the
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
developed a
pinscreen animation
Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated ...
technology that allowed for a wide spectre of special effects achieved through the use of hundreds of thousands of pins that formed different patterns. Despite the status of
white émigré
White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik commun ...
in the USSR his films were well known among Russian professionals and inspired various artists, most famously
Yuri Norstein
Yuri Borisovich Norstein, PAR (russian: link=no, Ю́рий Бори́сович Норште́йн; born 15 September 1941) is a Soviet and Russian animator best known for his animated shorts '' Hedgehog in the Fog'' and '' Tale of Tales''. Sin ...
. In the mid-1990s Alexeieff's daughter visited Moscow and presented her father's works to the . Today he is commemorated as a patriarch of Russian animation.
[''Sergei Asenin (1983)'']
The Wisdom of Fiction: Masters of Animation about Themselves and Their Art
— Moscow: Iskusstvo, p. 37
Soyuzmultfilm, 1936–1960
In September 1933, the Principal Management of the Photo-Cinematographic Industry (GUKF) ordered to provide animators with facilities and equipment; meanwhile, specialized script-writers were hired for Animated feature films.
who headed the
Amkino Corporation Nicola Napoli, was the President of Artkino Pictures, Inc., the primary distributor of Soviet films in the United States, Canada, Central America and South America from 1940 to 1982. Napoli was a double agent Soviet Spy for the United States. In 19 ...
, a
New York-based company responsible for distribution of Soviet movies in
North America, was given the task to study the animation processes at
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
and
Fleischer Studios.
[Kirill Malyantovich. ]
How they fought cosmopolites at Soyuzmultfilm
' article from the Notes by Film Historian magazine, 2001 (in Russian) Next year Smirnov returned to Moscow and founded an Experimental Animation Workshop under the Main Directorate of the Photo-Cinematographic Industry where he, Alexei Radakov,
Vladimir Suteev and started "developing the Disney style".
In 1935,
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
himself sent a film reel with
Three Little Pigs
"The Three Little Pigs" is a fable about three pigs who build three houses of different materials. A Big Bad Wolf blows down the first two pigs' houses which made of straw and sticks respectively, but is unable to destroy the third pig's house ...
and
Mickey Mouse shorts to the
Moscow International Film Festival
The Moscow International Film Festival (russian: Моско́вский междунаро́дный кинофестива́ль, translit. ''Moskóvskiy myezhdunaródniy kinofyestivál''; abbreviated as MIFF) is the film festival first h ...
that made a lasting impression on Soviet animators and officials.
On June 10, 1936, the Soyuzdetmultfilm Studio was created in Moscow from the small and relatively independent trickfilm units of
Mosfilm
Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output inclu ...
,
Sovkino
Goskino USSR (russian: link=Yes, Госкино СССР) is the abbreviated name for the USSR State Committee for Cinematography (Государственный комитет по кинематографии СССР) in the Soviet Union. It w ...
,
Mezhrabpomfilm
Mezhrabpomfilm (russian: Межрабпомфильм), from the word ''film'', and the Russian acronym for Workers International Relief or Workers International Aid (russian: Международная рабочая помощь, was a German-Ru ...
and Smirnov's studio. In a year it was renamed to
Soyuzmultfilm
Soyuzmultfilm ( rus, Союзмультфи́льм, p=səˌjʉsmʊlʲtˈfʲilʲm , ''Union Cartoon'') (also known as SMF Animation Studio in English, Formerly known as Soyuzdetmultfilm) is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Launched in ...
. Three-months retraining courses were organized by the studio administration where animators studied everything, from drawing and directing movies to the basics of music and acting.
For four years some of the leading animators focused on the creation of Disney-style shorts, exclusively using the
cel
A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, bu ...
technique.
From 1937, on they also produced films in full color using the three-color film process by
Pavel Mershin.
In 1938, the team also mastered
rotoscoping, or Eclair as it has been known in Russia since the 1920s (after the
Eclair video projector). Not everyone was happy with the chosen direction though, and by 1939 many developed their own styles.
Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Ivan Petrovich Ivanov-Vano (russian: Иван Петрович Иванов-Вано; – 25 March 1987), born Ivanov, was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian animation director, animator, screenwri ...
directed based on the
fairy tale in verse which he personally praised as an important step from Disney.
Suteev and Lamis Bredis presented a distinctive
Uncle Styopa adaptation, while
Leonid Amalrik
Leonid Alekseyevich Amalrik (russian: Леонид Алексеевич Амальрик; — 22 October 1997) was a Soviet animator and animation director. He was named Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1965.''Sergei Kapkov (2006)''. Encyclopedia ...
and converted
Doctor Aybolit
Doctor Aybolit (russian: Доктор Айболит, ''Doktor Aibolit'') is a fictional character from the children's poems ''Aybolit'' (1929) and ''Barmaley'' (1925) by Korney Chukovsky, as well as from the children's fantastic novella ''Doctor ...
stories into a distinctive mini-series that ran from 1939 to 1946 and defined the "Soviet style" of animation. At the same time
Aleksandr Ivanov and made a radical shift towards
agitprop
Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', " propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred ...
and
socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...
with films such as ''Grandfather Ivan'' and ''War Chronicles''.
[''Irina Margolina, Natalia Lozinskaya (2006)''. Our Animation. — Moscow: Interros, p. 46–51, 58–63, 146–152, 70–75 ]
Soon after
Lev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (russian: Лев Владимирович Кулешов; – 29 March 1970) was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film theorist, one of the founders of the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. He ...
, then a professor at
VGIK
The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning
''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...
, suggested Ivanov-Vano to open and head a workshop under the Art Faculty which became the first official Russian workshop where students studied the art of animation. Among Ivanov's first students were
Lev Milchin
Lev Isaakovich Milchin (russian: Лев Исаакович Мильчин, 1920—1987) was a Soviet animation director, art director, artist and book illustrator. He was also a pedagogue at VGIK. He was named an Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in ...
,
Yevgeniy Migunov
Yevgeny Tikhonovich Migunov (russian: Евгений Тихонович Мигунов; February 27, 1921 — January 1, 2004) was a Russian artist, cartoonist, book illustrator, animation and art director, screenwriter, inventor, educator and me ...
and .
With the start of the
Great Patriotic War
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sou ...
the studio was evacuated to
Samarkand along with some key animators who continued teaching students and producing films, including
anti-fascist propaganda. In 1943, they returned to Moscow and released several kids movies such as ''
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan ( rus, «Сказка о царе Салтане, о сыне его славном и могучем богаты ...
'' (1943) by the
Brumberg sisters and (1945) by Ivanov-Vano — the last film to use the Soviet three-color filming process before the switch to
Agfacolor
An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from café in Oslo, Norway.
An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from Paris, France.
An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Hungary.
An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Zakopane in Poland.
An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 fr ...
.
By that time
Ptushko's studio at
Mosfilm
Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output inclu ...
had been shut down and
Tsekhanovsky's studio at
Lenfilm — destroyed by a bomb, which basically turned Soyuzmultfilm into Russia's animation monopolist.
Yet even after the war, its resources were very limited. 19 animators from the relatively small Soyuzmultfilm team were killed in action.
A whole generation of Leningrad animators either disappeared at fronts or died during the
Siege of Leningrad.
Others returned as war-disabled, like Boris Dyozhkin and Aleksandr Vinokurov (both lost their left eyes), who got a bullet stuck in his head and who lost his right arm and learned to work as left-handed. One of the leading directors,
Vladimir Suteev, left the industry on his return for personal reasons.
The rest worked intensively to prepare new animators; between 1945 and 1948, four groups of students graduated from VGIK. They also continued releasing short and feature films that brought them international recognition, such as ''
The Lost Letter'' (1945) and ''
The Humpbacked Horse'' (1947) that was used by
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
as a teaching tool for his artists.
In 1948, short comedy film was accused of "
formalism
Formalism may refer to:
* Form (disambiguation)
* Formal (disambiguation)
* Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary
* Formalism (linguistics)
* Scie ...
" and "
anthropomorphism" following the
Cold War anti-Disney campaign. As the art director Yevgeniy Migunov remembered, he floutingly drew backgrounds for his next movie as realistic as possible, and suddenly it became "a golden standard" for the next ten years.
s and other national styles. The Disney's conveyor method of production with a clear work split was implemented along with a full analog of a
. Eclair (
) also rose to popularity.
, it was a temporary measure that served as a teaching tool for beginning animators.
'' (1952).
Some directors made extensive use of this method, while others mixed it with traditional animation as in ''
, arguably the most famous work of that time.
with little to no use of rotoscoping. All this allowed for a yearly release of prominent feature films with high production values such as ''
'' (1959).
First changes happened in 1953 when a puppet division was reopened at Soyuzmultfilm. In 1954,
and his dog. According to Migunov, they had to reinvent the whole production process. They organized a technical base, constructed and patented a device for shooting in statics, with a horizontally moving camera and attachable dolls. Also for the first time they used
s and latex to make puppet faces.
They were followed by Vladimir Degtyaryov who produced many films such as ''Beloved Beauty'' (1958) and ' (1962), Roman Abelevich Kachanov, Roman Kachanov and who directed the award-winning ' (1959) that combined stop motion, traditional and cutout animation, and Nikolay Serebryakov whose style was marked by extensive aesthetic search for "combination of realism and the baroque".
Sergey Obraztsov and his team also produced a number of movies using hand puppets.
It was not long until other animators started abandoning it. In 1958, Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya released an adaptation of Arkady Gaidar's ''A Tale of Malchish-Kibalchish'' inspired by
, while Boris Stepantsev and Evgeny Raykovsky directed a postmodernism, postmodern ' that leant towards Tex Avery.