Born in 1871, Anastasia Vial’tseva was a popular singer in the early 1900s whose celebrity crossed Russia as well as many other European countries.  She owed her fame in part to her prolific career in gramophone records.  Records were themselves a new technology gaining popularity at the time and helped make her famous across all classes. Vial’tseva’s widespread celebrity was also linked to the emergence of a wider popular culture in Russia during this period. The press grew alongside literacy, leading to more pieces covering celebrities and more people to read them. Photography also became cheaper and more accessible, allowing average citizens to own pictures of popular athletes, actors, and singers. This formed an implicit connection when pictures of the royal family and pictures of celebrities were sold side by side. Together these factors increased the prestige of celebrities across class boundaries.

The deaths of such celebrities were increasingly marked by large public demonstrations, commemorated by another new technology: film. Following film’s introduction to Russia in 1896, people from both upper and lower classes flocked to movie theaters, and by 1913 there were around 1,400 such theaters in existence, most of them in cities. Popular genres of the time included melodramas, historical dramas, and other themes that reflected the societal changes toward urban life. These films were often preceded by newsreel clips, funeral films, or recorded military demonstrations.  

When Anastasia Vial’tseva died on February 17th, 1913, her massive funeral celebration on February 20th, 1913 was filmed by Khazhonkov Studio, a prominent Russian film company. This edition presents this film and situates it in the social and cultural history of its time for use by students, teachers, and researchers.