The film "In the Mountains of Yugoslavia" in the Context of Relations Between the USSR and the FPRY

The article deals with Abram (Abraham) Room's film "In the Mountains of Yugoslavia" (1946), that may be considered the beginning of the cinema of the FPRY-SFRY. The film had a difficult distribution fate, was subjected to numerous censorship edits, and during the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was, in fact, "shelved" (or "bunkered"). Nevertheless, no other Soviet-Yugoslav joint project in cultural or art field had such a deep and lasting political resonance. An analysis of archival documents and memoirs allows us to conclude that the film, classified by many as "hack work" or "lame", was in fact ahead of its time and was created with the foresight of the inevitability of a crisis in relations between the USSR and the FPRY. Moreover, the film played an important role in the confrontation of the Soviet and Yugoslav leaders at its initial stage. The article also highlights some historical aspects of the cultural policy of the Yugoslav ruling party, the activities of the Yugoslav Agitprop, and provides an outline of the collective moviemaking of the Soviet Union and Yugoslav communists, beginning in 1944.

Abram Room, Georgiy Mdivani, Anatoliy Lavrent'yev, Ivan Sadchikov, Josip Broz Tito, Milovan Djilas, World War II, Yugoslav cinema, partisan cinema, cultural neocolonialism, Tito-Stalin conflict, political censorship