The film club: The Peasant Women of Ryazan

Olga Preobrazhenskaya (1881-1971), rose to prominence as a actress in early pre-revolutionary Russian cinema. After 1917, she moved into directing, at a time when the role of women in society was undergoing considerable changes: women were given equal rights to men, maternity pay and the right to legal abortion. Divorce also became easier.

Preobrazhenskaya, who oversaw the creation of 15 films, is regarded as one of the few women directors to achieve acclaim in the Twenties and is widely is considered to be the first major female filmmaker in Russia. The Peasant Women of Ryazan (1927), her best known film, depicts a community living in a peasant village in the Ryazan region, 200km south-east of Moscow, from 1916 to 1918.

The melodrama tells the story of Anna, a peasant girl who falls in love with Ivan, just before he is sent to the front line. The film soon turns dark when Ivan’s father rapes Anna and she gives birth to his child. On Ivan’s return, Anna commits suicide after he rejects her and her baby. For Preobrazhenskaya, Anna represents the patriarchal power structures of Russian peasant culture. In contrast, it is Anna’s sister-in-law, a New Soviet Woman, who takes on the baby, and walks off into a brighter future.

English translations of the intertitles are availiable as a PDF here.