The Last Soviet Children: Russia's Pepsi Generation

FAIN: GN-50672-05

Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. (Melrose, MA 02176-3933)
Robin Hessman (Project Director: March 2005 to July 2007)

Consultation for a one-hour television documentary that would examine how Russians experienced the social, political, and economic changes that accompanied the fall of communism in the 1980s.

The last generation of Soviet children taught to adore “Grandfather Lenin” was just coming of age when the USSR collapsed and their world changed beyond recognition -- in ways both liberating and disorienting. Seemingly overnight, the official messages they had heard their entire lives were swept away and replaced by their polar opposites. “The Last Soviet Children: Russia's Pepsi Generation” will be a one-hour documentary intended for national and international public television and for use in schools. During the NEH consultation period, broad humanities themes will be further developed through close work with scholars and extensive research on the issues that faced these young individuals caught in a unique moment of historical change.