Birth of a Nation

To make the film Birth of a Nation in 2010, Cahen visited Cadet School #9 in Moscow. The school is part of the patriotic education programme of Vladimir Putin’s government. Here girls aged 11 to 17 march in parade uniform, carry out field exercises, take part in target shooting and learn to cook, to sow, to do their hair and make-up, to prepare for military action and to sacrifice themselves for the Motherland. Birth of a Nation offers a cross-section of Putin’s contemporary Russia.
The question Cahen’s work poses is how far forms of patriotism require giving up any possibility of independent thought and action. Fifteen years on, the images of these young women can be called visionary for the way they lay bare the system that builds Russian youth into heroes. Daya Cahen’s research focuses on forms of political conditioning, with a particular interest in the power of the mass media and its use in building forms of propaganda and indoctrination.