The Politics of Memory in Contemporary Russian Cinema: Dear Comrades! (2020)

This article examines Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! (Dorogie tovarishchi! [Дорогие товарищи!], 2020) as a subtle intervention in the politics of memory in contemporary Russian cinema. The film weaves together ideological repression, generational trauma, and the silences in authoritarian historiography by presenting memory as a fractured and contested field rather than following the rules of didactic historical reconstruction. At its centre is Lyudmila, a devout Stalinist who starts to doubt her political beliefs when her daughter goes missing during the state’s brutal suppression of a workers’ protest. Memory here is not legacy but struggle. This article builds a tripartite theoretical framework by closely examining three key scenes, drawing on Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin’s “regimes of memory”, Michel Foucault’s “counter-memory”, and Marianne Hirsch’s “postmemory”. From intergenerational conflict and the aesthetics of violence to the affective transfer of unresolved trauma, each paradigm sheds light on a different aspect of the film’s mnemonic architecture. Alongside historical realism, Konchalovsky’s formal choices—constricted aspect ratio, monochrome cinematography, and meticulously composed mise-en-scène—also show the director’s critical stance towards the ideological framing of memory. Ultimately, this article argues that Dear Comrades! is a cinematic exploration of Soviet memory, addressing the moral obligations of remembrance in a context of denial, distortion, and loss.