Paper Short Abstract:

In this presentation I focus on probably the first Vepsian feature film, “Armastan” (‘I love’, Russia 2005). The film was made by a group of enthusiasts of Vepsian origin. It is an action movie based on the realities of the late 1920s, when many Vepsian rural families fled to the forests to escape Soviet collectivisation. In a film a group of people set off “to taiga” in search of a mysterious Vepsian community. After hard trials, they achieve their goal, but new challenges lie ahead. Although this low-budget film mixed with action movie stamps, is not very convincing artistically, it is thematically important in telling the story of the complicated past of Vepsian people by Vepsians themselves.

Paper Abstract:

In 2005 a Vepsian youth organisation in Petrozavodsk (Karelian Republic, Russia) started making documentary films about the Vepsian ethnographic past. For young Vepsians, who had largely lost knowledge of their own language and often also of their exact origins, the film-making process was an important part of the discussion about their identity. Alltogether five films were made.

In this presentation I focus on probably the first Vepsian feature film, “Armastan” (‘I love’), made in 2005 (studio Greenpicture, Podporozhye, Leningrad oblast). The author of the plot is a journalist of Vepsian origin, P. Vasilyev, who has been investigating the repressions committed against the Vepsians in the 1930s. The film is an action movie based on the realities of the late 1920s, when many Vepsian rural families fled to the forests to escape forced collectivisation. A group of people set off “to taiga” in search of a mysterious Vepsian community. After hard trials, they achieve their goal, but new challenges lie ahead.

Although the film is not artistically very convincing, it is thematically important in telling the story of the Vepsian people. Collectivisation and the social complications that followed in the 20th century were the fate of dozens of indigenous groups in the Soviet Union. It is significant that now, in the 21st century, when the linguistic and cultural assimilation of many indigenous peoples in Russia is coming to an end, the will and strength to leave their mark, even in more artistically demanding forms, can still be found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5e6Lpub_28