"Caricature of the 90s” or Parable of Revolution? The Film Narrative about L. D. Trotsky in his 1993 Biopic: the Transition from Repressive Forgetting to Selective Forgetting

The article explores the representation of the pivot points of L. D. Trotsky's biography in his biopic of 1993 – the first Russian fiction film dedicated to the fate of the once “enemy № 1”. With the help of G. Korte's film analysis methods, the author highlighted narrative features and visual images in the film. Then on the material of reviews the ways of decoding the meanings contained in it are summarized, and on the basis of interviews of the film's creators their vision of the film is determined. A. Assman's conceptual apparatus is used to analyze the obtained results: forms of repressive forgetting, i.e., destruction of references to a person or event, and selective forgetting, selective remembrance of the past, natural for any society. The historical inaccuracies of the film narrative are accounted for as derivatives of the technique of “palimpsest” – symbolic rewriting generated by interpretations and reinterpretations of past events. Themes not presented or weakly articulated in the film are seen as manifestations of “covert silence” (V. Vinitzky-Seroussi & C. Teeger). The author concludes that the methods of constructing images and clichés in the representation of L. D. Trotsky, highlighted in the film narrative, partially “normalize” him as a historical figure and allow us to call the film an element of the transition to selective forgetting. Key words : L. D. Trotsky, film narrative, decoding, selective forgetting, palimpsest technique, construction of images through film language, palimpsest technique, covert silence