On May 10, a conference onAnimation Films for Children behind the Iron Curtain (Animation Films for Children behind the Iron Curtain, 1945-1989) was held at the Center PAN in Rome and the Polish Institute, accompanied by a film screening. In addition to the PAN Station and the Polish Institute, Jagiellonian University, La Sapienza University, the Czech Center and the Slovak Institute were also involved in organizing the event.

The main goal of the conference, which is part of a larger project on the circulation of fairy-tale motifs in Slavic-language animation, was to draw attention to the cultural significance of animation from Central and Eastern Europe. Animations from 1945-1989 were created in communist realities, in relative isolation from currents present in the West (especially those under the Disney brand), which did not remain without influence on their formal layer and content. Therefore, treating animations not only as entertainment for children, but as a specific product of their time, it is possible to screen a number of socio-cultural problems through them.

During the conference, researchers from the University of Silesia, La Sapienza University, Yellow Tapir Films, the School of Performing Arts in Bratislava and Adam Mickiewicz University presented their reflections in three panels.

Dr. Patryk Oczko (UŚ) and Dr. Eva Šošková (WSSSB) discussed the origins of animation after World War II, in Poland and Slovakia, respectively. In both cases, the inexperience of animation pioneers, as well as the institutional framework, had a significant impact on the shape of emerging productions.

Dr. Oczko mentioned the first animations that were targeted by censors for aesthetic(Their Path, 1949, directed by Zdzislaw Lachur) or ideological reasons(A-1, 1949, directed by Wladyslaw Nehrebecki). Animated films were to be, according to the new government's assumption, "socialist in content, national in form," which in a way favored folkloric motifs on the model of Soviet animation.

Dr. Šošková argued that a distinction should be made between Slovak and Czech animation, because although they were created in the same country, these schools had fundamentally different trajectories of development. One example is the persistent myth of the "ideological innocence" of animation, due to which Slovak censors intervened less frequently than Czech ones.

The distinctiveness of Czech and Slovak animation was also emphasized by Professor Urszula Kowalska-Nadolna (Adam Mickiewicz University) in a recorded speech dedicated to the golden age of Czech animation. Moreover, she argued, productions of the Czech animation school such Krecik or Pat and Mat, although they did not contain camouflaged counter-revolutionary content, when read in a broader context, constitute a fairly reliable diagnosis of the realities in which they were created.

Dr. Konrad Sierzputowski's (Yellow Tapir Films) presentation was devoted to "our Mummies" produced by Studio Se-Ma-For in 1977-1982, a fascinating case both because of the myth surrounding their creation (won by Studio Se-Ma-For, competition with Disney) and the animation technique itself (semi-flat puppets animated on glass). As Dr. Sierzputowski suggested, this giving impression of strangeness, the isolation of the animated character from the background, can be taken as a metaphor for the alienation of the individual in the world.

Unlike the artistically interesting Tales of the Moomins, Bolek and Lolek was a fairy tale using simple means of expression. Professor Monika Wozniak (La Sapienza) noted that the nature of the animation - a rather schematically drawn story about "ordinary boys, in ordinary circumstances" - has meant that despite its popularity with viewers, Bolek and Lolek has unduly received little attention from researchers. Discussing The Fairy Tales of Bolek and Lolek (1970-1971), a series of animations loosely inspired by fairy tales, Professor Wozniak drew attention to their essential non-fairy-tale (or anti-tale) nature resulting, among other things, from the absence of magical motifs or the replacement of magic with science, science-fiction elements, or role-playing.

Professor Jakub Sadowski (UJ) and Anna Svetlova (UJ) analyzed various aspects of Soviet animations in their presentations. Professor Sadowski was interested in how animations are remembered and their canon in the collective consciousness. In turn, Ms. Svetlova, using examples of animated adaptations of English literature, discussed the phenomenon of late-Soviet Victorianism, in which imagined Englishness became a cozy, better version of the known world.

Finally, Dr. Elena Kurant pointed to the existence of a new Iron Curtain as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the possibility of using short animations as a medium for expressing protest by the Animators Against War movement.

Finally, the organizers also encouraged people to watch the Ukrainian animated film Mavka and the Guardians of the Forest (2023, directed by Oleh Malyuzh and Oleksandra Ruban) inspired by Lesya Ukrayinka' s Songs of the Forest, a story that has gained a new dimension in the wake of the Russian invasion. Importantly, the poem has just been published in Yaryna Grusha's translation into Italian (Lesja Ukrayinka, Il canto della foresta, 2024).

One of the conclusions of the discussion, was to point out the impossibility of defining other than a national canon of children's animation, if only because different productions were seen in different countries. This does not mean, however, that animation research is doomed to provinciality. On the contrary, conferences such as the one held at the Center PAN prove the special value of dialogue between researchers working in different contexts and the great potential of comparative research. And the hope is that the gap in the literature on regional animation will become smaller and smaller.

On the same day, the Polish Institute hosted a screening of selected animated films preceded by introductions by experts. In addition to Polish, Czech and Slovak animations, Ukrainian animations were also presented, which was a valuable complement to the earlier conference. Judging by the attendance and the audience's lively reactions, animations for children from behind the Iron Curtain continue to be popular (and not only among the youngest).

Ewelina Sikora