Hannibal

Many had predicted that the Soviet collapse would unleash a new creative era, with a generation of young talent eager to break free of the old system's constraints. That never happened. They have not produced another Battleship Potemkin, And Quiet Flows the Don, Stalker, The Cranes Are Flying, etc. It makes sense. The Soviet Union had extensive cultural and artistic infrastructure that included state-funded theatres, publishing houses, film studios, conservatories, art schools, cultural centres--much of which collapsed with the USSR. To this day, the post-Soviet era has yet to produce a cultural legacy comparable to that of those seven decades. The loss of the USSR was the end of a civilization.