Anna Kovalova is a scholar of 19th- and 20th-century Russian culture and early cinema. She is a Dobro Slovo National Slavic Honorary Society faculty advisor. 

Education and Training

PhD, St. Petersburg State University, 2012

Courses Taught

Early Russian Cinema
“When the Silence Speaks”: Russian Literature and Cinema (1900—1920)
Global Early Cinema
Language of Film
History of Russian Studies
18th and 19th Century Russian Literature in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Russian Literature of the 20th Century

Representative Publications

1. [With Yuri Tsivian] Кинематограф в Петербурге (1896-1917). Кинотеатры и зрители. Санкт-Петербург: Сеанс; Скрипториум, 2011.
2. “Vsevolod Meyerhold and Cinema.” In The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold, edited by Jonathan Pitches, Stefan Aquilina, 19-40. Routledge, 2022.
3. “Business “for Individuals (Women Included)”: On Women Film Professionals in Early Russian Cinema.” Film History 34, no 2 (2022): 118-141.
4. “Librettos as Source Material for Film History: The Case of Early Russian Cinema”. In New Perspectives on Early Cinema History, edited by Daniël Biltereyst and Mario Slugan, 145-164. Bloomsbury, 2022.
5. [With Arina Ranneva] “Symbolism in Early Russian Cinema and the Ghost Screenwriter Alexander Kursinskii.” The Russian Review 79, no 3 (2020): 366-388.
6. “Anna Karenina (1914): Reconstructing and Interpreting a Lost Russian Film.” Translated by Natalie Ryabchikova. Film History 30, no 2 (2018): 35-78.
7. “Aleksandr Voznesenskii, the ‘Kinemo-Shakespeare’: Notes on the First Russian Cinema Dramatist.” Translated by Natalie Ryabchikova. Slavonic and East European Review 96, no. 2 (2018): 208-243.

Research Interests

Cinema of the Russian Empire
Early Soviet Cinema
Pre-cinema
Women Fim Pioneers
Adaptation studies
19th- and 20th-century Russian literature and culture

Representative Conference Presentations

1. “A Baroness Who Made Pictures: Notes on the First Female Film Director in Russia” at Women and the Silent Screen XI, June, 2022.
2. “Vsevolod Meyerhold’s Pre-revolutionary Film Trilogy” at SCMS, April, 2022.
3. “Anton Chekhov and Early Russian Cinema” at International Conference “Following Chekhov: Readings, Adaptations, Transpositions”, May, 2021 (keynote).
4. “Tears and Laughter: Filmmakers in Early Russian Cinema Press” at Domitor, November, 2020.
5. “Silent and Therefore True: The Concept of Belief in Early Russian Films about Cinema” at ASEEES, November, 2019.
6. «Русские финалы в дореволюционном кино: какими они были на самом деле?» at I Вишневские чтения, июнь, 2019.
7. «Сюжет об Анне Карениной в раннем русском кино» at XIX Тыняновские чтения, ноябрь, 2018.