CREATING THE IMAGE OF FIDEL CASTRO IN U.S. AND SOVIET DOCUMENTARY FILMS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1960S

Abstract

Based on a systematic analysis of documentary film and television archival materials in the USSR and USA, the article explores for the first time in Russian historiography the representational strategies used to create the image of Fidel Castro in the first half of the 1960s. Apart from being an ideological and political conflict, the Cold War was also a media standoff where the Cuban Missile crisis was a major media event. The author pays special attention to the study of symbolic functions of the image of Castro for the USSR and the USA-Castro embodied-the political ideals of both countries, helped realize their civic values, served as a model of the “Soviet” and ostensibly the “anti-American” way of life. The article introduces, the previously unexplored materials of the Russian State Film and Photo Archive, which allows us to determine how the image of Castro was constructed documentaries and television programs. The author concludes that Soviet documentary films used more sophisticated techniques compared to their U.S. counterparts. Arguably, Soviet documentaries utilized important analogies between the cultures and histories of the USSR and Cuba, while attempting to integrate the image of Castro into the iconography of the “founding fathers” of the Soviet state (i.e., Vladimir Lenin).