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This thesis addresses the gap in research on Soviet trickster-women, examining the portrayal of female tricksters in Soviet films of the late Soviet period, looking specifically at two TV- films that achieved cult-status: Pro Krasnuyu Shapochku (1977) and Mary Poppins, do svidaniya (1983). The study challenges the suggestion in Lipovetsky’s Charms of the Cynical Reason: Tricksters in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture, that female tricksters appearing in Soviet cultural products were always negative, due to the patriarchal nature of the society. Specifically, I look at how trickster traits and functions such as mediation, transgressiveness and liminality are expressed by the characters Krasnaya Shapochka and Mary Poppins, and to what effect.

By relying on principles of cine-semiology, I analyse the symbols appearing in the mise-en- scene, as well as the signs conveyed by other technical and formal aspects such as sound and editing, then place the findings in the cultural context of the Soviet 70s and 80s. To the current conceptualisation of Soviet trickster, I add the dimension of the trickster as facilitating healing by addressing existential anxieties in society, bringing them to light. In capturing these anxieties, they have a cultural function as healers, mediating between aspects of the self, and bridging conflicting divisions in society, such as gender differences or more abstract concepts such as “us and Other.”