''The Unforgettable Year 1919'' (russian: Незабываемый 1919 год, Nezabyvaemyy 1919 god) is a 1951 Soviet
historical drama film
A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romances, adventure films, and sw ...
directed by
Mikheil Chiaureli
Mikheil Chiaureli ( ka, მიხეილ ჭიაურელი, russian: Михаил Эдишерович Чиаурели, 6 February 1894 – 31 October 1974) was a Soviet Georgian actor, film director and screenwriter. He directed ...
.
Plot
May 1919. The city of
Petrograd, 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 ...
' stronghold in Russia, is attacked by the counter-revolutionary
White Army
The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв ...
of General
Nikolai Yudenich
Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich ( – 5 October 1933) was a commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I. He was a leader of the anti-communist White movement in Northwestern Russia during the Civil War.
Biography
Early life
Yuden ...
, who is supported by the imperialist British, and especially by the warmongering
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
. The city's
High Soviet is demoralized and about to order an evacuation, while the White fifth column inside it plots an insurrection. The
Krasnaya Gorka fort
Krasnaya Gorka (Красная Горка meaning Red Hill) is a coastal artillery fortress in Lomonosovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It is located on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, opposite Kotlin Island and the Baltic Flee ...
dispatches a detachment of
Baltic Fleet sailors to assist Petrograd, among them the young Vladimir Shibaev. As the Red Army faces defeat by the Whites,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
arrives on the battlefield, rallies the communists and routs the enemy, saving the city.
Cast
*
Boris Andreyev as Shibaev
*
Mikheil Gelovani
Mikheil Gelovani ( ka, მიხეილ გელოვანი, Russified as Михаи́л Гео́ргиевич Гелова́ни, ''Mikhail Georgievich Gelovani''; – 21 December 1956) was a Soviet and Georgian actor, known for his n ...
as
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
*
Pavel Molchanov as
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
*Gavriil Belov as
Mikhail Kalinin
Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (russian: link=no, Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин ; 3 June 1946), known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych", was a Soviet politician and Old Bolshevik revolutionary. He served as head of st ...
*Boris Olenin as
Grigory Zinoviev
*Nikolai Komissarov as General Neklyudov
*
Vladimir Kenigson as
Paul Dukes
*
Yevgeny Samoylov as Aleksandr Neklyudov
*
Andrei Popov as Nikolai Neklyudov
*
Muza Krepkogorskaya as Liza the housemaid
*
Sergei Lukyanov as General Rodzyanko
*
Pavel Massalsky as Colonel Vadbolsky
*Boris Dmokhovsky as
Augustus Agar
Commodore Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, (4 January 1890 – 30 December 1968) was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of th ...
*Ivan Solovyov as
Walter Cowan
Admiral Sir Walter Henry Cowan, 1st Baronet, (11 June 1871 – 14 February 1956), known as Tich Cowan, was a Royal Navy officer who saw service in both the First and Second World Wars; in the latter he was one of the oldest British servicemen ...
*
Viktor Stanitsyn as
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
*
Hnat Yura
Hnat Petrovych Yura ( uk, Гнат Петрович Юра, ; also Gnat Yura; – January 18, 1966) was a Soviet and Ukrainian director, actor of theatre and film, pedagogue. He directed two films, and appeared on screen six times during the ...
as
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...
*Viktor Koltsov as
Lloyd George
*L. Korsakov as
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
*Vladimir Ratomsky as Potapov
*Gleb Romanov as commander of the armored vehicles
*
Mikhail Yanshin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Yanshin (russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Я́ншин) (20 October 1902 – 17 July 1976) was a Soviet stage and film actor.
Biography
Yanshin was born in the city of Yukhnov, located in the present-day Kalug ...
as Colonel Butkevich
*Nikolai Garin as Aleksandr Rybaltovsky
*Anastasia Georgyevskaya as Darling
*Marina Kovalyova as Katya Danilova
*
Angelina Stepanova as Olga Butkevich
*
Yevgeny Morgunov
Yevgeny Alexandrovich Morgunov (russian: Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Моргуно́в; April 27, 1927 – June 25, 1999) was a Soviet and Russian actor, film director, and script writer, Merited Artist of Russian SFSR (197 ...
as Anarchist
*
Vsevolod Sanayev
Vsevolod Vasilyevich Sanayev (Все′волод Васи′льевич Сана′ев; 25 2, o.s.February 1912 in Tula, Russian Empire – 27 January 1996 in Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet film and stage actor popular in the 1960s–1970s. Sanay ...
as
Boris Savinkov (uncredited)
*
Georgiy Daneliya
Georgiy Nikolayevich Daneliya ( ka, გიორგი ნიკოლოზის ძე დანელია; russian: Георгий Николаевич Данелия; 25 August 1930 – 4 April 2019), also known as Giya Daneliya ( ka, გ ...
as guitar player (uncredited)
Production
The script was adapted from a play by the same name, that was composed by
Vsevolod Vishnevsky
Vsevolod Vitalyevich Vishnevsky (russian: Все́волод Вита́льевич Вишне́вский, – 28 February 1951) was a Soviet and Russian writer, screenwriter, playwright and journalist.
Early life
He was born in 1900 in Sain ...
for Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949 and won the
Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to:
* The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...
.
[John Riley. ''Dmitri Shostakovich: a Life in Film''. I.B. Tauris (2005). . Page 73.] Ronald Hingley
Ronald Francis Hingley (26 April 1920, Edinburgh – 23 January 2010) was an English scholar, translator and historian of Russia, specializing in Russian history and literature.
Hingley was the translator and editor of the nine-volume collect ...
wrote that Vishnevsky's play "magnified Stalin's
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
record beyond all recognition". Chiaureli's work was one of the only nine Soviet pictures produced during 1951. With a budget of nearly 11,000,000 roubles,
Soviet Cinema from the 1930s to the 1960: Facts and Figures. Part 1 -Filmmaking.
' arbinada.com it was also the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union up to that time.
In addition, it was the last of Chiaureli's "super-productions about Stalin."
Reception
''The Unforgettable Year 1919'' was heavily promoted by the Soviet press months before its release. It was watched by 31.6 million people in the USSR, becoming the country's fifth highest-grossing picture of 1952, coming behind four old American
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
movies from the 1930s.
The film won the
Crystal Globe in the 1952
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Olga Romanova wrote that Stalin was not pleased by the portrayal of his youthful self by
Mikheil Gelovani
Mikheil Gelovani ( ka, მიხეილ გელოვანი, Russified as Михаи́л Гео́ргиевич Гелова́ни, ''Mikhail Georgievich Gelovani''; – 21 December 1956) was a Soviet and Georgian actor, known for his n ...
, and therefore did not award ''The Unforgettable Year 1919'' a Stalin Prize; it was Chiaureli's only personality cult film to be denied the prize.
[Olga Romanova. ]
Divine Stalin: Chaiureli's Stalinism.
'' urokiistori.ru. In 1952, a ''
Der Spiegel'' critic wrote that, in ''1919'', "Young Stalin stands in white-silk armor and arranges the defense of Leningrad... While the traitors receive their deserved bullet in the head". He added that it was only screened in East Germany.
In 1953, the picture was criticized by the
Central Committee for "having significant shortcomings and lower ideological-artistic merits than those previously released by the director." In the summer of 1953, after Stalin's death, it was removed from circulation.
In February 1956, Premier
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
delivered a
speech condemning Stalin's cult of personality in front of the
20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...
. He told the audience: "Stalin loved to see the film ''The Unforgettable Year of 1919'', in which he was shown on the steps of an armored train and where he was practically vanquishing the foe with his own saber. Let
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov (, uk, Климент Охрімович Ворошилов, ''Klyment Okhrimovyč Vorošylov''), popularly known as Klim Voroshilov (russian: link=no, Клим Вороши́лов, ''Klim Vorošilov''; 4 Februa ...
, our dear friend, find the necessary courage and write the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how Stalin had fought." In March, the pro-Stalin protesters in the
1956 Georgian demonstrations
The March 1956 demonstrations (also known as the 1956 Tbilisi riots or 9 March massacre) in the Georgian SSR were a series of protests against Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy, which shocked Georgian supporters of Stalinist ideolo ...
included re-screenings of the film in their list of demands.
Peter Kenez
Peter Kenez (born as Péter Kenéz in 1937) is a historian specializing in Russian and Eastern European history and politics.
Life
Peter Kenez was born and grew up in Pesterzsébet, Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary . His father was arrested in March ...
noted that the film was the last made about the October Revolution and Civil War in the Stalinist period. Louis Menashe regarded ''1919'' as one of the post-war pictures in which "Stalin monopolized all heroism". William Luhr described it as "a highly elaborate and costly production... Another attempt at myth-making... In which Stalin is given the sole credit for crushing the anti-Bolshevik uprising." Ann Lloyd and David Robinson referred to the film as "the eminently forgettable ''The Unforgettable Year 1919''."
Denise J. Youngblood commented that "as absurd" as Stalin's role was in Chiaureli's last film, ''
The Fall of Berlin'', it still contained "a grain of historical truth... Stalin was the USSR's leader during World War II." But in ''1919'', he was depicted in a completely ahistorical manner: "he was not the head of the party at 1919, nor was he a Civil War hero."
[Denise J. Youngblood. ''Russian War Films: On the Cinema Front, 1914–2005''. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas (2007). . page 102-103.] John Riley added that during the relevant period in the Civil War, Stalin was stationed in Moscow, where he functioned as the People's Commissar for Nationalities.
Nikolas Hüllbusch, who researched Stalin's representations in cinema, wrote that the portrayal of premier's propagandistic "screen alter-ego" reached its "zenith" in ''The Fall of Berlin'', and "this development marked its atrophic crisis." According to Hüllbusch, the officially sanctioned artistic line took a turn already in 1952, and the attempts to use Stalin's figure were frowned upon. Consequently, ''The Unforgettable Year 1919'' and other Stalinist works from that year "had little notability... And were forgotten after the political reshuffle of 1953."
Music
A
suite drawn from the film score by
Dmitri Shostakovich, (his
Op. 89a), arranged by Lev Atomyan, was prepared in 1954 and recorded in 1956 by
Melodiya
Melodiya ( rus, links=no, Мелодия, t=Melody) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) record label. It was the state-owned major record company of the Soviet Union.
History
Melodiya was established in 1964 as the "All-Union Gramophone Record Firm ...
with
Alexander Gauk
Alexander Vassilievich Gauk (russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Га́ук; 30 March 1963) was a Russian/Soviet conductor and composer.
Biography
Alexander Gauk was born in Odessa in 1893. He recalled his first experience as h ...
as conductor. The suite's fifth movement has been described as "a mini-piano concerto, in the style of, but even more Hollywood-like than,
Addinsell's ''
Warsaw Concerto
The ''Warsaw Concerto'' is a short work for piano and orchestra by Richard Addinsell, written for the 1941 British film '' Dangerous Moonlight'', which is about the Polish struggle against the 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany. In performance it norma ...
'' of 1941.".
[Adriano (n.d.)]
The Unforgettable Year 1919"
in liner notes to Naxos Records recording 8.570238, accessed 31 December 2017 It describes the attack on the Krasnaya Gorka fort. Through mistranslation the movement is sometimes referred to as "The Attack on Beautiful Gorky".
References
External links
*
The Unforgettable Year 1919' on the IMDb.
*
The Unforgettable Year 1919' on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
.
*
The Unforgettable Year 1919' on kino-teatr.ru.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unforgettable Year 1919, The
1951 films
1950s historical drama films
1950s war drama films
Soviet historical drama films
Soviet war drama films
Russian historical drama films
1950s Russian-language films
Films directed by Mikheil Chiaureli
Soviet revolutionary propaganda films
Mosfilm films
Crystal Globe winners
Films about Joseph Stalin
Films scored by Dmitri Shostakovich
Cultural depictions of Vladimir Lenin
Cultural depictions of Joseph Stalin
Cultural depictions of Georges Clemenceau
Cultural depictions of David Lloyd George
Cultural depictions of Winston Churchill
Cultural depictions of Woodrow Wilson
Films set in 1919
Soviet epic films