Animated cartoons smuggled out of USSR

realitykeeper

When I was a child, RTE occasionally showed short animated films which had been smuggled out of the former USSR. These films were made by soviet citizens at great personal risk. I can recall at least two of these and they depicted the USSR as a horrible place.

One in particular made me feel physically ill. It is hard to describe but it made Hell seem like not such a bad place. I have searched online and found propagandist cartoons of both Soviet and American origin but I could not find any of the animations which were made by Soviet citizens and smuggled out.

I think RTE should give these an airing if they still have them in the archives. These animations have an important role in ensuring people do not forget that aspect of the Communist legacy. If anyone has one of those animated films, please post the link. Thanks.

Peregrinus

I remember a steady stream of animations from Eastern Europe on TV in Ireland in the 70s and 80s. Some of them were fairly bleak, but none that I recall were unofficial/underground. They were mostly fairly short, and I suspect RTE showed them to fill gaps in the schedule because they were cheap.

If you're searching, Samizdat was the general term for the underground media in the Soviet Union. It was mostly literature, but it did involve graphic art and sound recordings. I've never heard of Samizdat film, either animated or live action, though that's not to say that it didn't exist. But I think the market for it would have been small; Samizdat wasn't mainly aimed at western audiences, who had ready access to uncensored critical depictions of life in the Soviet Union, but at audiences within the Eastern bloc, and dissident audiences with access to the projection and viewing facilities necessary for watching underground films would have been, um, a very niche market. It would be much easier to produce and distribute, say, a printed comic critical of the regime, and it would reach far more people.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

El Tarangu

realitykeeper wrote: »

... short animated films which had been smuggled out of the former USSR. These films were made by soviet citizens at great personal risk.

With the sheer amount of manpower and resources involved in creating even a few seconds of animation, I would be very surprised if animation was used as the medium of choice by dissidents protesting against the Soviet regime.

realitykeeper

El Tarangu wrote: »

With the sheer amount of manpower and resources involved in creating even a few seconds of animation, I would be very surprised if animation was used as the medium of choice by dissidents protesting against the Soviet regime.

The two cartoons that I remember definitely did exist. These Soviet cartoons were exceptionally grim and staid, not unlike a lot of the cartoons from eastern Europe at that time. It may well have taken years to create them. I remember the less unpleasant one was called The hand. Here it is (just found it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4Th36zN_g

Peregrinus

The Hand is from Czechoslovakia, not the USSR, and it wasn't an underground production, or produced at "great personal risk". On the contrary, it was produced in official facilities, with government funding, by a well-established and internationally respected animator, and it was publicly distributed and shown.

It was only some years later that, after the Prague Spring and associated repression, that it dawned on the censors that it could be interpreted as a critique of official repression in the artistic world, and it was withdrawn from public view and, basically, banned. However the animator who produced it suffered no sanctions and, when he died in 1969 (of a heart condition) he received a state funeral.

the_syco

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bm2Il5rVGUEJ:www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/dutkatrnka.php3+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

From Edgar Dutka, writing about The Hand in Animation World Magazine in 2000:

It is curious that Trnka predicted his own fate in it. When Jiri Trnka died in November 1969 (at only 57 years of age), he had a State funeral with honours. Only four months later, The Handwas banned; all copies were confiscated by the secret police, put in a safe and the film was forbidden for screening for next twenty years. A seventeen minute long puppet film intimidated the unlimited power of the Totalitarian State.

realitykeeper

Peregrinus wrote: »

The Hand is from Czechoslovakia, not the USSR, and it wasn't an underground production, or produced at "great personal risk". On the contrary, it was produced in official facilities, with government funding, by a well-established and internationally respected animator, and it was publicly distributed and shown.

It was only some years later that, after the Prague Spring and associated repression, that it dawned on the censors that it could be interpreted as a critique of official repression in the artistic world, and it was withdrawn from public view and, basically, banned. However the animator who produced it suffered no sanctions and, when he died in 1969 (of a heart condition) he received a state funeral.

I am not 100% sure if this is the same hand though. The one I remember seemed shorter and in the end when he was buried, the Soviet National Anthem was played like he was a hero of the nation. Other than that, the theme was somewhat similar, the little guy trying to live a quiet life and the hand trying to make him a soldier if I recall correctly.

realitykeeper

Peregrinus wrote: »

The Hand is from Czechoslovakia, not the USSR, and it wasn't an underground production, or produced at "great personal risk". On the contrary, it was produced in official facilities, with government funding, by a well-established and internationally respected animator, and it was publicly distributed and shown.

It was only some years later that, after the Prague Spring and associated repression, that it dawned on the censors that it could be interpreted as a critique of official repression in the artistic world, and it was withdrawn from public view and, basically, banned. However the animator who produced it suffered no sanctions and, when he died in 1969 (of a heart condition) he received a state funeral.

I am not 100% sure if this is the same "hand" though. The one I remember seemed shorter (about 5 minutes) and in the end when he was buried, the Soviet National Anthem was played like he was a hero of the nation. Other than that, the theme was somewhat similar, the little guy trying to live a quiet life and the hand trying to make him a soldier if I recall correctly.