Western Cinema in the USSR

Trophy films seized from the German film archive at the end of the Second World War were widely screened in Soviet cinemas. This monograph is the first dedicated study of these films, investigating their history in the USSR through three main perspectives: seizure and translocation, economic exploitation and reception.

Drawing on extensive archival research, this book examines the mechanisms governing Soviet film distribution and exhibition, including planning, taxation and the everyday logistics of print circulation. It introduces previously unanalysed quantitative data on audience statistics and box-office figures to reassess the popularity of Western cinema in the USSR during the first post-war decade. Using diaries and memoirs, it explores how Soviet audiences interpreted, appropriated, and reworked Western films, tracing these practices diachronically from immediate post-war screenings to late Soviet and post-Soviet remembrance. This book demonstrates how heterogeneous experiences were gradually consolidated into a coherent narrative of ‘trophy cinema’.

Western Cinema in the USSR is valuable for scholars and students specialising in Russian and Eurasian studies, film history and reception studies, German studies, cultural diplomacy, Cold War history, and memory studies.