STATE POLICY IN THE SPHERE OF CINEMATOGRAPHY IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

The article is devoted to the problem of the establishment of relationships between the state and pre-revolutionary cinematographic society within the realization of its professional interests. While at the initial stage of establishment and development of cinematography the state considered it to be a kind of a trade and industrial activity and, in this regard, the main effort was made to develop the relevant tax legislation, gradually the influence of cinematography on the social conscious, especially during young people, is understood. This raises a task for the state to develop new censure norms of regulation of cinema production and distribution. Based on the example of the leading cinematographic joint-stock companies: “Br. Pate” and “A. Khanzhonkov and Co.” the author shows how the professional society solved problems of struggling with the attempts to establish state and church censure in the sphere of cinema production. These two cinema firms, which controlled a significant portion of the Russian cinema market and were the main competitors in the sphere of pre-revolutionary cinema production, nevertheless, combined their efforts in creating a joint movie devoted to 100-year anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812. This work helped them to find a compromise between the requirements of the state and interests of the professional society, and rather efficiently overcome the restrictions raised in the course of realization of the movie’s script. As concerns the state, its interest in the sphere of regulation of the cinema production was mostly in the attempt to establish a state monopoly, which was considered only as an aim to impose a trade tax on cinema theaters, i.e. to realize, above all, the “fiscal side of a deal”. As a countermeasure to the draft law proposed by the State Duma, the private cinema business established “All-Russian association of the owners of Cinematographic theaters”, which aim was, apart from other things, in the protection of the professional and economic interests of the members of the association and improving of their economic status. However, during the First World War it was problematic to solve these tasks both for the state and cinema business.