Symbolic boundaries in the politics of Soviet identity: gender dimension (On the materials on the Great Patriotic War’s cinema)

Using the boundary approach, the paper dwells upon the role of gender discourse in politics of the Soviet identity in the time of the Great Patriotic War. In the beginning, it discusses what role symbolic boundaries created with help of gender discourse play in politics of identity. Then, the essential traits of politics of Soviet identity are examined on the material of the film “Circus” (1936). Finally, the paper focuses on utilizing the gender discourse by cinema of the Great Patriotic War. It investigates how the films used the representations of femininity in such directions of the politics of the Soviet identity as producing the images of “us” and forming the feeling of belonging to the political community; providing the national unity through weakening internal symbolic boundaries; strengthening external symbolic boundaries and forming negative identity through constructing the images of “them” — the women of Nazi Germany. The author comes to the conclusion that the boundary approach has significant heuristic potential and may be employed in Gender Studies.