Mythical Beasts Made Soviet: Adaptation of Greek Mythology in Soviet Animation of the 1970s

Ancient mythology was not very popular theme in the Soviet animation, however several cartoons were made from the late sixties till the nineties. A reason for such underestimation of ancient topics could be an abundance of gods and demigods that were main heroes of the Greek and Roman mythology, which was in contradiction with realism as the main principle of the Soviet culture. The Soviet ideology has domesticated Slavic mythological creatures (not gods!) quite quickly and admitted their presence in popular culture, including cinema. Cartoons on ancient mythology were firstly made in sympathy with animated Russian folk tales. However, in this regard, it was necessarily to input new characters, including monster creatures. Ways of constructing images of these creatures, their relation to cultural and historical context, use for ideological purposes, a comparison with other similar creatures is the focus of this chapter.