Nina Agadzhanova (Shutko) (27 October / 8 November 1889 – 14 December 1974) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
revolutionary,
screenwriter, and film director. She is most widely recognized for writing ''The Year 1905'', the original screenplay from which ''
Battleship Potemkin
'' Battleship Potemkin'' (russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», ''Bronenosets Potyomkin''), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent
drama film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by S ...
'' was created.
Biography
Political work
Agadzhanova first joined the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (which would later become the
CPSU
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
) in 1907 while studying philosophy and history at university in
Ekaterinodar.
From 1907 to 1914 conducted illegal work for the party, helping to create
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
networks between
Voronezh
Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on ...
,
Oryol,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
,
Iranovo-Voznesensk, and
Petersburg.
From 1914 to 1915 Agadzhanova was a member of the Vyborg Committee of the Bolshevik party in the
Petrograd Soviet
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (russian: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, ''Petrogradskiy soviet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of P ...
.
During this time, she also functioned as the executive secretary of
Rabotnitsa
''Rabotnitsa'' (russian: Работница; en, The Woman Worker) is a women's journal, published in the Soviet Union and Russia and one of the oldest Russian magazines for women and families. Founded in 1914, and first published on Women's Day ...
, a periodical dedicated to the issues of women workers.
It is estimated that Agadzhanova was arrested a total of five times and exiled twice during her time working as a
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolutionary before the
Russian Revolution in 1917.
Agadzhanova participated actively in both the
February and
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
s of 1917.
After the revolution, she was drafted to participate in an underground propaganda mission among the
White Guard forces in
Novorossiysk and
Rostov-on-Don.
She later wrote a screenplay based on her experiences during the mission titled ''
In The White Roses
IN, In or in may refer to:
Places
* India (country code IN)
* Indiana, United States (postal code IN)
* Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN)
* In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Businesses and organizations
* Independ ...
''.
In 1919 she served as a member of the underground
Don Oblast
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
* Don (river), a river in European Russia
* Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
* Don, Benin, a town in Benin
* Don, Dang, a ...
committee of the
CPSU
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
, until she was drafted to become the executive secretary of the
Byelorussian Revolutionary Military Committee in 1920.
From 1921–22 she was drafted to work at the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
embassy in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
.
Work in film
Agadzhanova began to work as a screenwriter in 1924 at the suggestion of her husband
Kirill Shutko, a high-ranking Soviet cultural functionary.
She wrote her first screenplay the same year, entitled ''In The White Roses'' (also referred to as ''In the Whites' Rear'' or ''Behind White Lines''). A semi-autobiographical account of her time infiltrating the
White Guard in
Novorossiysk and
Rostov-on-Don, the screenplay was commissioned for production in the spring of 1925, and was co-directed by
Boris Chaikovskii
Boris may refer to:
People
* Boris (given name), a male given name
*:''See'': List of people with given name Boris
* Boris (surname)
* Boris I of Bulgaria (died 907), the first Christian ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, canonized after his ...
and
Ol'ga Rakhmanova.
''The Year 1905'' and ''Battleship Potemkin''
On 17 March 1925, Agadzhanova was contracted to write a screenplay by a government commission established to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the
Revolution of 1905.
The committee was headed by
Anatoly Lunacharsky
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...
, the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
People's Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Ea ...
for Enlightenment, and members of the committee included Agadznahova's close friend
Kazimir Malevich and her husband
Kirill Shutko.
Agadzhanova was to write a treatment, which was in turn entrusted to filmmaker
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
to be collaboratively developed into a screenplay by Nina, Sergei, and
Valeryan Pletinov.
Pletinov later dropped out of the project due to a conflict over writing credit in his previous collaboration with Eisenstein on ''
Strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
''.
This left Nina and Eisenstein to draft the script together over the spring and summer of 1925 at Nina and her husband's
dacha
A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...
at
Nemchinovka on the outskirts of
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
.
Initially, ''The Year 1905'' was conceived as a coverage of several
events of 1905 including: The
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
; the
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
massacre; popular uprisings which occurred in both rural and urban areas across the nation; the
general strike and the backlash from the Russian state; a mutiny on the
Russian battleship Potemkin
The Russian battleship ''Potemkin'' (russian: Князь Потёмкин Таврический, translit=''Kniaz Potyomkin Tavricheskiy'', links=no, "Prince Potemkin of Taurida") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russ ...
;
counter-Revolutionary
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revolut ...
and
anti-Jewish pogroms
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
; and the development of a workers' resistance movement in
Krasnaya Presnya.
While Agadzhanova and Eisenstein had a positive working relationship, there was a degree of creative conflict over the screenplay.
Agandzhanova took issue with Eisenstein's desire to insert fictitious events into the screenplay, including a general strike among lifeguards, icon painters, and chambermaids.
While Eisenstein was a child during the events of 1905, Agadzhanova, ten years his senior, had participated in uprisings in
Ekaterinodar as a teenager and joined the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
in 1907.
Agadzhanova disagreed with Eisenstein's desire to take such creative liberties in their recreation of the events of 1905, and Eisenstein agreed to forego incorporating his more eccentric ideas from the screenplay.
In an essay written in 1945 for a collection to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of ''The Battleship Potemkin'', Eisenstein wrote: "
inawas the first Bolshevik civilian I had met - all the others had sat on military committees or they were 'senior staff'. She was quite simply a human being... She instilled in me a true sense of the historical revolutionary past".
Due to time constraints and budget problems, only one chapter of ''The Year 1905'' was shot by Eisenstein and his team. Eisenstein chose to focus on the mutiny on the
Russian battleship Potemkin
The Russian battleship ''Potemkin'' (russian: Князь Потёмкин Таврический, translit=''Kniaz Potyomkin Tavricheskiy'', links=no, "Prince Potemkin of Taurida") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russ ...
. The filmmaker also diverged greatly from the original screenplay during production, developing the film's now famous
Odessa Steps sequence while on set.
The film premiered on Dec 1st 1925 as ''
The Battleship Potemkin
'' Battleship Potemkin'' (russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», ''Bronenosets Potyomkin''), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent
drama film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by S ...
.'' Despite this diversion from the screenplay, Agadzhanova was ultimately very enthusiastic about the film, telling Eisenstein in a letter written after the film's premiere that cinematographer
Eduard Tisse
Eduard Kazimirovich Tisse (russian: Эдуа́рд Казими́рович Тиссэ́, lv, Eduards Tisē; 13 April 1897 – 18 November 1961) was a Soviet cinematographer.
Early life and career
He was born to an Estonian Swedish father and ...
, "is not a camera operator, he is a god".
Projects after ''The Year 1905''
An unused portion of ''The Year 1905'' developed primarily by Agadznahova was used for another anniversary film entitled, ''
Krasnaia Presnaia.'' Directed by
Abram Room Abram Matveyevich Room (russian: Абрам Матвеевич Роом; 28 June 1894 in Wilno, Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania) – 26 July 1976 in Moscow) was a Russian film director. He was a People's Artist of the RSFSR and winner of the ...
and
Leo Mur, the film chronicled an armed workers' uprising in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
.
In 1929 Agadzhanova co-wrote a script for ''
Two-Buildi-Two'' with
Lev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (russian: Лев Владимирович Кулешов; – 29 March 1970) was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film theorist, one of the founders of the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. He ...
. Kuleshov was set to direct the film, but lost interest in the project once re-shoots were ordered. Agadznahova took over direction on the re-shoots, earning a co-director credit on the film.
In 1933, Agadznahova co-wrote ''
The Deserter
The Deserter or Deserter (s) may refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Deserter'' (1912 film), a silent film by Thomas H. Ince
* ''The Deserter'' (1933 film), a film by Vsevolod Pudovkin
* ''The Deserter'' (1971 film), a film by Burt Kennedy
...
'' alongside Aleksandr Lazebnikov and M. Krasnostavsky. The film was directed by
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin ( rus, Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин, p=ˈfsʲevələt ɪlərʲɪˈonəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈdofkʲɪn; 16 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwrite ...
.
She collaborated on Pudovkin on another project in 1934 titled ''The Intervention,'' but this film did not make it to production.
Between 1930 and 1936 Agadshanova worked as a script consultant at the
Mezhrabpomfilm
Mezhrabpomfilm (russian: Межрабпомфильм), from the word ''film'', and the Russian acronym for Workers International Relief or Workers International Aid (russian: Международная рабочая помощь, was a German-Ru ...
studios in Moscow.
In 1945, she began teaching screenwriting at the
All-Union State Institute of Cinematography
The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning
''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...
, where she worked for several years.
Filmography
References
External links
Nina Agadzhanova-Shutkoon the Women Film Pioneers Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agadzhanova, Nina
1889 births
1974 deaths
20th-century screenwriters
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Soviet women film directors
Soviet screenwriters