ostern

The Ostern ("Eastern"; ; or ) is a film genre created in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as a variation of the Western films. The word Ostern is a portmanteau derived from the German word Ost, meaning "East", and the English word western. Two subgenres may be distinguished (although the terms may be used interchangeably): Red Westerns, set in America's "Wild West" but involving radically different themes and interpretations from US Westerns. These Westerns were mostly produced in the Eastern Bloc, especially in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Examples of Red Westerns include Lemonade Joe or the Horse Opera (Czechoslovakia, 1964), The Sons of Great Bear (East Germany, 1966), The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanians (Romania, 1981), and A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines (USSR, 1987). Easterns (Osterns) were set domestically on the steppes and Central Asian regions of the USSR, typically during the Russian Revolution or the following Civil War. Easterns were presented in a style heavily influenced by American Western films. Examples of this genre include The Elusive Avengers (1966) and its sequels, White Sun of the Desert (1970), Dauria (1971), At Home Among Strangers (1974) and The Bodyguard (1979).

== Context and origins == American Westerns were among the US films imported into the early Soviet Union. As a result, certain Soviet films at the time are seen to incorporate Western elements. For example, the image of the Western cowboy is used to symbolize the United States and the West as a whole in the Soviet silent comedy The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924). Red Devils is a revolutionary action film that also borrows from the Western genre. As cultural restrictions tightened during the Stalinist era, however, Western-inspired films in the Soviet Union became rare. However, Stalin was an avid enjoyer of Hollywood Western films, and is argued by some to have desired the Western genre within the Soviet Union.