Character’s Imagery in Russian Animation of 1990s

The article deals with the character’s imagery evolution in Russian animation from 1992 to 1998. The imagery transformations are connected with sociocultural changes. This makes investigation of character’s imagery evolution under transition from Soviet to Russian animation highly interesting. The chosen screen stuff is justified by the films’s genre and duration. The animations are classified according to the target audienc’s age, production technology, the studio, where the film was created. These aspects’ influence on the characters imagery is explained on the basis not only of practical observation, but also of cinema theoreticians and practisers’ works. Such properties as the type of a character, one’s gender, age, function in the plot are analyzed. Five concepts of character’s type classification are introduced: a human, an anthropomorph, a zoomorph, an objectified and fantasy character. These characteristics are described theoretically and examplified by the animation films considered. Such concepts as the gender role, character’s age and one’s function in the plot are also illustrated with the examples from the animation films. The dynamics of characters’ transformations in these criteria, the ratio of character types in different years have been researched. The paper shows, how the character transforms in accordance with the type, how the dominating gender identity changes. The main trends in the dynamics of characters’ changes are singled out. The main relations between different features of this period’s films hero, for example, between the production technology and the characters’ type, or between the target audiences’ age and the protagonists’ function in the plot, are drawn out . The author defines the dominated type of a character at certain studios, working most actively in the period in question, and for Russian animation environment in general. The general conclusion about the most accepted character’s type of the period is drawn.