How do artistic texts mediate the past?

Martti Helde "In the Crosswind" (2014)

This is an experimental historical feature film based on documentary material, dedicated to the deportation in June, the year 1941. The director of the film is Martti Helde. The film's script won the Documentary Film Competition 2010 held by the Estonian Film Foundation, the Estonian Cultural Endowment and the Estonian National Broadcasting "Estonian Institute of Historical Memory" program.

In the beginning of the 1940s, Erna, a philosophy student at the University of Tartu, was the mother of a young daughter in a happy marriage. The 27-year-old woman's family was deported to Siberia with thousands of other Estonians in June of the year 1941. Her husband was sent to a prison camp, Erna and her daughter were sent to uninhabited areas of Siberia. The historical feature film is based on Erna's diary notes, also on her letters, memoirs, archival materials, drawings, photographs and interviews. The time stopped for Erna the moment she was violently taken away from home. The film's audio-visual solution (tableau vivant) helps to reflect on that period: people seem to be frozen in time, in the three-dimensional picture only the camera moves.

Sources:

• Estonian Film Database
• Wikipedia 

FILM TRAILER:

Armando Iannucci "Stalin's Death" (2018)

Armando Iannucci, born in Glasgow, Scotland, who in recent years enjoys his great success in his career and who is an uncrowned king of the satire genre, from whom neither the United Kingdom’s nor the United States’ political landscape has escaped. [...] Now this man has taken under his surveillance Mother Russia and its former leader, Jossif Vissarionovich Stalin, and demonstrates everyone that his sharpness has not disappeared, on the contrary, it has become even sharper.

Armando Iannucci directs the camera to the events that precede and immediately follow Stalin's departure from this world. In front of us opens theatre of the absurd and the struggle for power, which one must see with his own eyes to believe it.

It's year 1953. Stalin is seemingly in good health and his unbreakable terror against his country's citizens does not diminish, the trains that go to Siberia are crowded, and from the cellars of some government buildings people often hear scary revolver shots. However, this idyll ends sharply one morning when Stalin's closest confidants find their “Father” on the floor "in his own undignified pool". But his closest circle, which includes, among others, comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Beria, Zhukov (not to forget Stalin's drunkard son Vassili and his badly-behaved daughter Svetlana) have no time for thorough mourning. It is necessary to take decisive actions in order to ensure good and safe dwelling in the future in the highest possible government positions in the coming regime, perhaps even at its absolute peak. However, the main thing is that their career reputation does not break all of a sudden...

Source:

PÖFF 

FILM TRAILER:

Andrus Kivirähk "Memoirs of Ivan Orav or the Past as Azure Mountains" (1995)

Ivan Orav is a literary figure created by Estonian writer Andrus Kivirähk, who emerged in 1992 in the Estonian daily newspaper’s humour rubric and whose fictitious memories appeared in the book under the heading "Memories of Ivan Orav or the Past as Azure Mountains" (1995). In his memoirs, he recalled both the pre-war period of the Republic of Estonia and the Soviet occupation, doing all this in the pseudo-historical absurd humour way. Orav always was a real patriot of Estonia, fought against the Soviet power and its toadies, and the whole ECB Politburo was afraid of him, Johannes Käbin most of all.

Source:

Wikipedia  

Anatoly Rybakov "Children of the Arbat" (1988)

Rybakov wrote his most famous tetralogy "Children of the Arbat" and promised to distribute it through the “samizdat” (a secret publishing house) in the 1960s. The book was finally published in 1987, although the author attempted to publish it in 1966 and 1978. Both times the publication of the book was stopped at the last minute. The "Children of the Arbat" is the first book of the tetralogy, the rest of which include the novels "1935 and Other Years" (1989), "Fear" (1990) and "Dust and Ashes" (1994). The character of the tetralogy, Saša Pankratov, makes the novel semi-autobiographical.

The novel by Anatoly Rybakov observes the life and destiny of a 20-year-old youngster in Arbat, the heart of Moscow in the years 1933-34. The novel drew great attention since for the first time in the Soviet literature it depicted Stalin's personality cult more extensively and deeply than ever before.

Sources:

 Wikipedia

FILM ADAPTATION:

Enn Vetemaa "Pillimees" (1967)

Enn Vetemaa began literary activity as a poet, later he also published short novels, plays, scripts and translated works of the other authors. The protagonist of his second short novel "Pillimees" (“The Musician”) (1967) describes his actions and decisions during the years of his activities, including his slanderous article written during Stalin’s reign that sent his teacher to the death. Was this betrayal, intentional or unintentional, whom to repay or peach was a blame and also other moral conflicts people had to go through in the Estonian SSR?

Literature researcher Jaan Undusk: Poet Ruuben Illime, the protagonist of “The Musician”, is a professional drunkard, and his story is about how he, in the 1949 anti-cosmopolitan campaign, betrayed his old teacher, a literary scholar. Already the style of his work, self-fluttering “me” form, influenced politically humiliating. The time of personal cult was, of course, beaten from the outside, but the contemporary view of the essence made Stalinism stand out as a permanent state of the homeland. There was not much going on: there was only a modest request to evaluate his teacher's views. The system worked until the teacher was deported. Vetemaa attacks the system’s wickedness: there is no proud KGB, there are only small human offences that pile up in their total violence. The deportation is trivial like a pool of pee that appeared as the result of stroke at the moment of the teachers’ imprisonment. The Great Patriotic War did not strengthen men, on the contrary, it ruined them: with a knife rubbing his hand on the hook. The "The Musician" is about the game and aphorisms ("It's a bit embarrassing to see Lenin in the station building"), but its main message is depression. The society is depression."

Source:

The story of Estonia: introduction to the book (Enn Vetemaa "Monument. The Musician") series of the Estonian daily newspaper.

Vera Muhhina "A Worker and a Collective Farmer" (1936) 

"One of the most well-known sculptures of the 20th century "A Worker and a Collective Farmer" by the sculptor of Soviet Latvia Vera Ignatyeva Muhhina (1889-1953) who was born in Riga and studied art in Moscow and Paris. [...] V: Muhhina's main artwork, the 25-meter steel sculpture "A Worker and a Collective Farmer" was completed for the Paris World Exposition of 1937, where it reached 35 meters above the USSR pavilion. [...] V. Muhhina's sculpture group was considered to be the representative peace of Soviet art and, as such, was repeatedly duplicated.

[…]

The Constitution of the USSR of 1936, proclaiming the complete victory of socialism, gave the confirmation to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s vision that the last exploitative class disappeared from the Soviet Union during the collectivization process of 1929-1932 and the deportation of kulaks, resulting in only the class’ of workers and peasants; remaining. Their interests, however, are not contradictory but rather consistent.

[…]

V. Muhhina’s sculpture group expresses gender dualism, the contradictions are defeated: The working class and the peasants complement each other, some inessential differences exist but all contradictions are neutralized while existing in adjacency.

This applies not only to the class but also to the gender differences. The worker and the collective farmer in V. Muhhina's sculpture group look like they are “nearly of the same gender”. Their gender difference is also just symbolic: industry (in the Soviet Union, especially heavy industry) is of male gender (inventors and discoverers of machines are men, it is metallurgy symbolised by a hammer, it requires manpower), female symbolise agriculture (original conception of land and fertility, the goddess Demeter, "from mother to land"). Just as the gender and gender differences make life unity as a whole, the diverse classes of workers and peasants also form a social unity. The inevitable nature of the peasants’ class-conscious lagging behind the working class symbolizes the femininity of the peasant class in V. Muhhina’s sculpture. In the Patriarchal ("Sexist") society, the female gender has been construed as "the weak gender" and the woman as "a weak being".

Source:

Linnar Priimägi „Vera Muhhina „Tööline ja kolhoositar“ (1936). Nõukogude kunsti esindusteos“. Ajakiri „Kunst.ee“ 2000 (1), lk 86-93

PHOTO OF THE SCULPTURE:

Vahur Afanasyev "Serafima and Bogdan" (2017)

Poet Veiko Märka: In the novel "Seraphim and Bogdan" the communist ideology and consumer society mentality put their shoulders to the wheel to destroy the heritage culture that had been created during three centuries.

Vahur Afanasyev won the best novel competition held by Writers' Union in 2017 by presenting his novel "Serafima and Bogdan”. Firstly and for more, it is a book on adaptation and the most successful survival strategy, both at the individual and at the community level. The specificity of the adaptation is the fact that the activity takes place mainly in Peipsiveere, the living area of Russian Old Believers.

Since the birth date of the twins is in the year 1927 and quite a lot is reflected on their contemporaries, the focus remains on the life and views of post-war youth throughout four decades. Then started a new era, mixing the communist mentality and the Old Believers’ mentality: the starovers read "The Communist Party Manifesto," and the militiaman puts a cross at their wedding. In the villages, newcomers appear on both Peipsi sides, adapting to them and practising with them."

Source:

Veiko Märka "Õnnistatud ja neetud Peipsiveer". Sirp.

Communist Victims Memorial and Officers Memorial "Journey" (2018)

Triin Ojari, Architectural Investigator, has described the memorial in Maarjamäe in Tallinn as follows: "The winning project was chosen unanimously: a simple monumental form and materials, also the motif of the journey, which does not impose excessive ideological burden, was acceptable for all jury members. From Pirita road, right next to the “Murdmaa” monument ceremonial site, starts a slowly rising path that runs through the hill. Boarded by over 11 meters high black concrete walls, leaving only the names on the walls in the visitor's field of view, and at the end of the journey a welcoming exit - a large apple tree garden. This memorial is to commemorate people who have never returned to their own gardens. "A journey is a spatial experience that manifests itself as a powerful system that selects, arranges and decides on the fate of a person. A person seems small and powerless as compared to this system. The journey is not a place of being, but rather a place of progressing. The journey is a ritual that helps to experience the past," say the authors. The monument is made up of a 200 meter long path and a square at the end of the path composed into Maarjamäe Plateau, surrounded by groves of decorative on the slopes. On the outer side of the concrete wall, in the area opening to the sea, a site has been found for the officers' monument - a grim figure in front of which there will be paved area for commemorative events. The sculpture is planned as a separate author's artwork."

Source:

Triin Ojari "Maarjamäe is being complemented by a memorial to victims of communism". Sirp.

VIDEO:

Authors: Kalle Vellevoog, Jaan Tiidemann, Tiiu Truus, Martin Prommik and Lidia Zarudnaja

Anna Ahmatova "Requiem" (1963)

Anna Ahmatova (birth name Gorenko) was born in Odessa in 1889 and her first collection of poetry, "Evening," was published in 1912. Having started her poetry as narrowly intimate poet, Ahmatova then courageously turned to the motives of civil poetry, the war and revolution, reflecting Russia’s tragic history and philosophical notions.

Since the mid-1920s, Ahmatova was increasingly been accused of counter-revolutionary acts, and the publication of her poetry became increasingly difficult in the Soviet Union. In spite of everything, Ahmatova showed resistance to the inhuman Stalinist regime and continued fruitful creative work, although many poems remained in the drawer for many years.

In the 1930s, A. Ahmatova’s son, Lev Gumiljov, was arrested and imprisoned in the camp for many years. Arrested was also A. Ahmatova's third husband - art historian N. Punin. These terrible years of mass repression inspired the poet to start the tragic poem "Reekviem" in the 1930s that appeared in the Soviet Union only in 1987. During the years of Stalin's fearful rule, Ahmatova was under constant observation and numerous thorough searches were carried out in her flat, she did preserve the "Reekviem" manuscript, though her closest friends stored the poem in their memory.

Source:

V. Bezzubov 1990. "In the shade of the tree: poetry / Nikolai Gumiljov, Anna Ahmatova, Ossip Mandelstam", p. 149-150.

Excerpt:

Foreign skies were not my fate surrounding,

Shelter found I not ’neath alien wings –

I embraced my people’s pain abounding

Here, where they endured its bitter stings.

1961

In place of a preface

In those dreadful years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months in Leningrad’s prison queues. On one occasion someone “recognised” me. A woman standing behind me, who of course had never heard of me, awoke from the stupor we all shared and murmured in my ear (for we all spoke in whispers there):

“So can you describe this?”

And I said:

“I can.”

And as I answered, something resembling a smile slipped briefly across what had once been her face.

1st April 1957, Leningrad.

Dedication

This is grief that turns the hills to furrows,

Mighty river ceases in mid-flow,

But the sturdy prison gate view narrows,

And behind it wind the convict burrows

Theatre of deadly woe.

Fresh, the wind may blow in people’s faces,

Others wallow in the sunset’s blaze –

We, however, cannot see such places,

Only hearing hateful keys and paces

As the heavy-booted soldier strays.

[...]

Epilogue

I

So now I know how faces start to crumble,

How terror from beneath the eyelids peeps,

How cuneiform’s sharp strokes begin to chisel,

How suffering cuts the cheeks of one who weeps,

How curly hair, that once was black and ashen,

All of a sudden turns to silver grey,

How fades the smile on lips bereft of passion,

How trembles fear in laughter dry, not gay.

Not only for myself I utter prayer,

For all who with me stood, their sad watch keeping,

Who bitter cold and summer heat did share,

Beneath unseeing red partition weeping.

II

The hour of remembrance has come round again.

I see you and hear you and feel you with pain.

The one whom the window just couldn’t beguile,

The one who won’t trample beloved earth’s mile,

The one who with shake of her beautiful head:

“The gate of this prison’s become home,” she said.

I’d like to record all the names in a book,

They’ve taken the list, there is nowhere to look.

I’ve woven a shroud that will cover them all

From words of the wretched ones heard at this wall.

Wherever I am I’ll remember them yet,

Whatever new pain, I just cannot forget,

And if they’re successful in sealing my lips –

The lips from which millions’ and millions’ cry trips –

Let this be the thing that the bastards reminds

As yearly the day of my leaving unwinds.

If Russia decides – an unlikely event –

To put up a statue as my monument,

I’ll grant my permission for project’s design

As long as this stricture they all underline:

The seafront’s no longer the place it should be –

I’ve severed connections, from sea I’m now free –

And nor in Tsar’s garden at stump where we met,

Where desolate shadow’s awaiting me yet,

But here, where three hundred long hours I stayed

Where no one would open the latch as I prayed.

For I am afraid that when comes blissful death

Police-wagon’s rumble will cease with last breath,

That then I’ll forget how the hateful door slammed –

That like a wild beast did I cry with the damned.

And let from bronze motionless eyelids then flow

In place of my teardrops the fresh melting snow,

And coo let the dove of the jail from afar,

And ships pass by silent along the Neva.

Translation by Rupert Moreton.

Juhan Smuul "Poem to Stalin" (1949)

Juhan Smuul (1922-1971) was one of the leading Soviet poets. The “Poem to Stalin”, written in 1949, was awarded the Stalin Prize and gained a worldwide reputation. The poem corresponds to the basic requirements of socialist realism: faithfulness to true life, conscious orientation to the Communist Party ideology, servicing the socialist homeland, the ability to see the tomorrow's day of his people and, more generally, follow the literature practices of that era, which became more and more ritually Stalin-centred. Smuul wrote in his autobiography, that he gave up writing and claimed that he did not even get orders from social to create poems.

When analysing the "Poem to Stalin", the Estonian writer and literature scholar Jaan Undusk brought out the sad destiny of this work: "Poetry as a literal political statement has always had a great value of a political argument: a technically flashy publication with handwritten texts and afterwards crowned with the Soviet Estonia's prize were flashing traffic lights directed towards the central power that were supposed to prove the loyal development of Estonian literature. Later, the poem became a parade example of another aborted artwork during Stalin era. Both in one case and the other, they were treated with a conventional honour or shame badge and nobody was concerned about the work itself. So, "The Poem to Stalin" belongs to the works that was initially related to the primitive imperial, commanding-prohibiting literary existence, works that, according to the ideology of the era, were considered compulsory or intolerable in literature. This is an unfortunate destiny for literary works - to be initially commanded to come to existence and did not have the freedom of existence that inherently belonged to it.

Sources:

• Jaan Undusk "Mythical and magical signs of Stalinism: Juhan Smuul “Poem to Stalin in his Rhetorical Surroundings". Academy of 1994 (9). 
• E. Annus; L. Epner; A. Järv; S. Olesk; E. Süvalepp; M. Velsker "Estonian Literary History". Publis

Vasily Yefanov "An Unforgettable Encounter" (1937)

Vasily Yefanov (1900 - 1978) was an honoured Soviet painter, five times laureate of Stalin's prize and a master of ceremonial portrait. His work "An Unforgettable Meeting" is a sample of a socialist realistic picture, an iconic story with correctly placed accents.  On the picture of Victor Efanov (originally called by the author simply - "The Unforgettable"), the unemployed wives of engineering and technical personnel of heavy industry enterprises meet with the leaders of the Soviet state. In the centre of the composition is Joseph Stalin, surrounded by flowers and exulted people. In this work, the artist combines the elements of a group portrait and historical painting, popular in socialist realism. "An unforgettable meeting" seems like a theatre scene with characteristic "posed" details - the rhythm of applauding hands, a flower, fallen on the Chairman's papers, an unsteadily inclined chair.

The painting was made in 1936-1937.

Source:

Arzamas

PICTURE:

Vasily Yefanov "An Unforgettable Encounter"

Andrey Platonov "The Foundation Pit" (1969)

Andrei Platonov (1899 - 1951) wrote the novel "The Foundation Pit" in the early 1930s. Most likely, it depicts the hardest stage of Soviet collectivization, which took place from the beginning of 1929 to April 1930.

Workers are digging a foundation pit for a great building in which workers of the whole world can live. However, the construction is delayed, the building project is constantly changing, and it becomes clear that there will be nothing but a huge expanding earthen pit. Having not finished the construction, the workers head to the village to organize a collective farm there. "The Foundation Pit" is one of the most terrible works about the building of socialism, the transformations in the Russian village and Soviet life in general.

The story is written with a special superfluous and intentionally "wrong" language, in which the clichés of official propaganda are mixed with vernacular and vulgar expressions. It is as if the author sees the world for the first time and hardly chooses the words to describe it. It is the language that sets the contours of the realm of “The Foundation Pit” - where everything is directed towards the highest goal and, at the same time, penetrated with the spirit of doom.

Meanwhile, Andrey Platonov was a man, fully integrated into the Soviet system - in the early 20s as an engineer, then as a journalist and a writer - he never expressed a public disagreement with the party line, and at the end of his life was repressed precisely for his literary works.

Source:

Polka 

Excerpt:

In the library hut stood previously organized collective farm women and girls. 

"Good day, comrade activist!" they all said in chorus. 

"Greetings to the cadres!" thoughtfully replied the activist and stood there in silent consideration. "And now we will repeat the letter 'a' —listen to my statements and write..." 

The women lay down on the floor because the entire library hut was bare and they began to write with pieces of plaster on the floor planking. Chiklin and Voshchev also sat down, desirous of strengthening their knowledge of the alphabet. 

"What words begin with the letter 'a?' " asked the activist. 

One fortunate girl rose to her knees and replied with all the swiftness and sprightliness of her intelligence. 

"Avantgarde, activist, advance, archleftist, antifascist! All of them to be spelled with a hard sign, except for archleftist!" 

"Correct, Makarovna," the activist remarked. "Write those words down systematically." 

The women and girls assiduously lay on the floor and began to work hard at  drawing the letters, making use of the scratchy pieces of plaster. During this period the activist gazed out the window, pondering some further path, or else, perhaps, wearied by his lonely political awareness. 

"Why are they writing hard signs there? There aren't supposed to be any there!" said Voshchev. 

The activist looked about. 

"Because Party lines and slogans are designated by words, and because a hard sign is more useful than a soft sign. It is the soft sign which has to be abolished, and the sign is something inevitable;it makes for harshness, and clarity of formulations. Does everyone understand?" 

"Everyone," replied all of them. 

"Now write next concepts with a 'b,' Makarovna!" 

Makarovna rose and trusting in science she said: 

"Bolshevik. Bourgeois, the collective farm is the benefit of the poor peasant, 

bravo, bravo, Leninists! Hard signs are put on Bolshevik and also at the end of 

collective farm, but everywhere else there are soft signs." 

"You forgot 'bureaucratism,' " the activist pointed out. Well go ahead and write. 

And you, Makarovna, run on over to the church and get me a light for my pipe." 

"I'll go," said Chiklin. "Don't tear the people away from the mind." 

The activist pressed burdock crumbs into his pipe and Chiklin went over to get it lit from the flame.

English translations copyright 1978 by Ardis

Alexander Deyneka "Future Pilots" (1938)

The picture of the deserved Soviet artist Alexander Deyneka "Future Pilots", written in 1938, is rightfully considered one of the best works of socialist realism. In the picture there is no official attitude and pathos, customary for socialist realism, but it shows a bright "tomorrow", which was sung of by the creators of this style. A hydroplane flying over the sea is a metaphor for a beautiful future, which teenagers are in the forefront are dreaming of. The name of the painting and its composition indicate the dream of the heroes to become pilots, at that time this profession was highly respected and was surrounded by a romantic glory.

Source:

Arzamas

PICTURE:

Alexander Deyneka "Future Pilots"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" (1962)

The famous Soviet dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 - 2008) was in 1945 sentenced to eight years of forced labour camps and eternal exile at the end of the term. His novel “One Day of Ivan Denisovich” is the first work about the life of Soviet prisoners, published in the USSR and widely known. The text was planned by Solzhenitsyn in the camp in 1950-1951, written in 1959 and printed during the political thaw in 1962.

The story about one day of the prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shuhov describes the routine life of the camp life from wake-up to retreat. Solzhenitsyn specifically resorts to limitation: during one day in the camp happen a lot of dramatic events. These events are common to Shuhov and are constantly repeated, «there were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his term.» Obviously, only one day is enough to show the reader the entire camp life. The narrative adjoins the tradition of the folklore story-telling, that is, the of an oral, non-book speech. Thus, we see everything through the eyes of the main character.

Former prisoners, who read the story, rated "One day ..." high and wrote Solzhenitsyn letters of thanks.

Source:

Polka 

Excerpt:

The snow on the road was packed tight and firm underfoot — none had fallen for a week.  As they rounded the camp, the wind hit their faces from the side. Hands behind backs, heads lowered, the column moved off as if to a funeral.  All you could see were the legs of the two or three men in front of you and the patch of trampled ground on which you were about to tread. From time to time a guard would yell: "Yu-40!  Hands behind you! B-502! Close up!" Then the shouts became less frequent: keeping tabs wasn't easy in that cutting wind. The guards weren't allowed to tie rags around their faces, mind.  Theirs wasn't much of a job, either.

When it was a bit warmer, they all talked on the march, however much they were yelled at.  But today they kept their heads down, every man trying to shelter behind the man in front, thinking his own thoughts.

A convict's thoughts are no freer than he is: they come back to the same place, worry over the same thing continually.  Will they poke around in my mattress and find my bread ration? Can I get off work if I report sick tonight? Will the captain be put in the hole, or won't he?  How did Tsezar get his hands on his warm vest? Must have greased somebody's palm in the storeroom, what else?

Translated from Russian by H.T. Willet.

Ivan Pyriev "The Rich Bride" (1937)

The musical comedy has become one of the most significant genres of the Soviet cinema in the Stalin times. On one hand, the films depicted utopian, fantastic life, on the other hand, the values of the new Soviet culture were reproduced and broadcasted. Comedy of the 30-50-ies were given beautiful background music and songs performed by the main characters. According to the philologist and publicist Marietta Chudakova, 70-80 % of nostalgia for the USSR era is due to precisely to the talent of the Soviet songwriters and composers.

The film is a classic of the Soviet comedy, directed by Ivan Pyriev "The Rich Bride" was produced in 1937, it tells about the love between a collective farmer Marinka and a tractor driver Pavlo. Young people decide to get married, but their plans are ruined by the accountant Kovynko. He deceives Pavlo, telling him that Marinka is working poorly, evading work in the collective farm in favour of her own garden. Everything is adjusted when lovers understand that they are both advanced workers of the collective farm, so in Stalin's comedies happy love becomes a reward for honest work and professional growth. In the film "The Rich Bride" the songs of the famous Soviet composer Isaak Dunayevsky are given the words of Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.

Sources:

• Arzamas
• Colta

FILM TRAILER:

Mikhail Sholokhov "Virgin Soil Upturned" (1932)

Mikhail Sholokhov (1905 - 1984) – established Soviet system writer, screenwriter and journalist, Nobel Prize laureate. The first volume of the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov "Virgin Soil Ploughed" was written and published in 1932, the second volume was completed and was published only in 1959. The novel is considered a classic of Soviet literature and was awarded with the prestigious and important at the time Lenin Prize. Sholokhov describes the collectivization of 1930, and in general the novel corresponds to official Soviet ideology. Positive characters, devoted to the ideals of communism, are trying to build a collective farm in the steppe, are opposed by the enemies of Soviet power - former white officers, a local rich, a church warden, wealthy peasants and a dispossessed bandit. The struggle ends both tragically and happily at the same time, the main characters die, but communism wins.

Despite the fact that the novel remains true to the formal requirements of socialist realism, Sholokhov showed collectivization as a complex and bloody process, not only the negative characters of the novel are opposed to unification, but the frightened and doubting peasants as well. And if the harsh and cruel methods of collectivization should arouse acceptance by the Soviet reader, today they look more self-revealing.

Source:

Polka 

Film adaptation:

Nikita Mikhalkov "Burnt by the Sun" (1994)

Nikita Mikhalkov (1945) is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, winner of prestigious cinematographic awards, a public figure known for his conservative views. His famous film "Burnt by the Sun", filmed in 1994, was nominated for an Oscar and awarded a grand prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

Through the history of one family, the film director realizes the tragedy of Russian history of the 20th century. The action takes place in 1936, just before the beginning of the Stalin’s repressions. The legendary commander of the Red Army, Sergei Kotov, is married to a woman from the family of former noblemen, so in one country house the character of revolution and the people who are yearning for the old pre-revolutionary life get along. Ideological disagreements result in small family disputes and squabbles which do not overshadow the carefree life of the household. In Mikhalkov's film, the new reality is shown ridiculous, happy and very heterogeneous. Everything collapses when an old friend of the family Mitya, a former member of the white movement recruited by the NKVD, brings the pain of emigration and the horror of Stalin's terror. The film ends with the arrest of the commander Kotov and the suicide of Mitya.

As a metaphor for death and destruction around the characters, a ball lightning, similar to the sun, circulates. This image correlates with the widespread comparison of Stalin and the sun, explaining the name of the film and its main musical theme – a "Tired Sun" tango, popular at that time.

FILM TRAILER: