RUSSIA
Medieval Russia
X Legenda o knyagine Olge (The Legend of Princess Olga) (1983) – one of the founders of Christianity in Russia
X Rus iznachalnaya (1986) -- VI century Russian tribes unite to repel the Khazar invaders & the Byzantine empire collaborators
Thirteenth Warrior (1999) -- 10th century Arab shocked by Viking behavior in Russia
X I Tartari (Tartars) (1961) -- Burundai, head of Tartar invasion of Volga River area
X Didgori: Land of Sacrificed Knights (2009) – 1121 AD, 56,000 Georgian warriors under King Davit IV battle 500,000 Seljuk Turks on the Didgori battlefield
Aleksandr Nevskiy (Alexander Nevskey) (1938) -- 13th century attack of the Teutonic Knights on Russia (Sergei M. Eisenstein director)
X Aleksandr. Nevskaya bitva (aka Alexander: The Neva Battle) (2008) -- Battle of Neva, 1240; Swedes invade Novgorod controlled territory
Grand Princes of Moscow, Rurik Dynasty (1283-1547):
Andrei Rublev (1969) -- 15th century Russian icon painter (1360?-1430?)
Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1943) -- 1533-1584; Ottoman Empire troubles, among others; by Sergei Eisenstein
Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1946) -- Sergei Eisenstein
X Tsar Ivan Grozny (Tsar Ivan the Terrible) (1993) -- Ivan the Terrible
Tsar (2009) -- Ivan the Terrible
RUSSIA & TURKEY TO FRENCH REVOLUTION & BEYOND
Tsars of Russia (1547-1721):
Rurik Dynasty (1547-1598): second part of Ivan the Terrible's reign & reign of Feodor I
X Borus Godunov (1986) -- de facto regent of Russia , 1584-1598, and then the first non-Rurikid tsar, 1598 to 1605
X Mest shuta (A Fool's Revenge) (1993) -- 1500s Russia
Times of Troubles (1598-1613):
Gudonov Dynasty (1598-1605): Boris Gudonov & Feodor II
Usurper I: False Dmitry I (1605-1606)
1612: Khroniki smutnogo vremeni (aka 1612) (2007) – Russian film set in the Time of Troubles and the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618)
Shuysky Dynasty (1606-1610): Vasily IV Shuysky
Usurper II: False Dmitry II (1607-1610)
Council of Seven Boyars (27 July 1610 – 4 November 1612)
House of Vasa -- Włladysłlaw IV Vasa (1595-1610)
Council of All the Land (17 April 1611 – 26 July 1613)
House of Romanov (1613-1721):
X September Eleven, 1683 -- siege of Vienna by the Turks
Peter the Great (1689-1725):
Peter the Great (1986)-- 1689-1725, Russian Czar; 1710-11 war with Ottoman Empire
X Yunost' Petra (Peter's youth) -- young Peter the Great
V nachale slavnykh del (At the Beginning of Glorious Days) (1981) -- Peter the Great and the build up of the Russian Navy
X Sluga Gosudarev (The Sovereign's Servant) (2007) -- 1709 during war between Russian and Sweden (The Great Northern War, 1700-1721) -- (currently unavailable)
X Epitaph für einen König (1969) – epitaph for a king; Karl XII of Sweden (1697-1718)
X Isoviha (1939) – story set in 18th century Finland when the country was occupied twice by Russia, during the Great Northern War (1700-1721) and the Lesser Wrath (1741–1742)
Catherine the Great (1762-1796):
X Young Catherine (1991) 1762-1796, Catherine the Great of Russia; 1768 war with Turkey ($46)
The Scarlet Empress (1934) -- Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great (1934) -- with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Flora Robeson
X Caterina di Russia (Catherine of Russia) (1963) -- Italian film (currently unavailable)
X Catherine the Great (1995) -- with Catherine Zeta-Jones
A Royal Scandal (1945) -- love life of Russian Czarina Catherine the Great (with Tallulah Bankhead)
X Tempest (1959) -- Pugachev peasant uprising during the reign of Catherine the Great
Russkiy bunt (Captain's Daughter) (2000) -- during the Pugachev uprising, the love of Masha Mironova and Pyotr Grinev is threatened
X Kapitanskaya dochka (The Captain's Daughter) (1959) -- Pugachev uprising of Cossacks and peasants in 1774-1745 under Empress Catherine II (aka Catherine the Great)
Napoleon in Russia:
War and Peace (1956) -- Napoleon's invasion of Russia, 1812 (from Tolstoy's great novel)
X War and Peace (1972) -- ditto, but with Anthony Hopkins
X Война и мир; Vojna i mir (War and Peace) (1968) -- expensive Russian version of War and Peace
X Pushkin: Poslednyaya duel (2006) – Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), considered greatest Russian poet
X Poslednyaya doroga (The Last Road) (1986) – death and the 'last road' of Aleksandr Pushkin
1814 (2007) -- mystery story in the time of Pushkin
X Nezrimyy puteshestvennik (1999) – December of 1825, last days of the Russian Emperor Aleksandr I (known for the victory over Napoleon in 1812)
CRIMEAN WAR -- Russia (under Nicholas I & Alexander II) vs. Turkey (Ottoman Empire), England and France (under Napoleon III)
Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) -- Crimea, 1854-1856
Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) -- love triangle in India solved by British involvement in the Crimean War
Charge of the Lancers (1954) -- affairs set against the Crimean War
Florence Nightingale (1986) -- the great nurse at work during the Crimean War fighting against prejudice to be of service to the soldiers
Lady with a Lamp (1951) -- nurse-crusader Florence Nightingale
X The White Angel (1936) -- Florence Nightingale ($45)
X Bronte (1983) -- Irish film
X Les Soeurs Bronte (Bronte Sisters) (1979) French film
X Devotion (1946) -- Bronte sisters
X The Brontes of Haworth (1973) -- TV mini-series about the Brontes
Alexander II (1855-1881):
X Nas venchali ne v tserkvi (We Weren’t Married in Church) (1982) – love story of young woman wanting to get away from her small town and join a revolutionary group (as the one in Petersburg named "chaikovtsy", 1869-1874)
X Geroite na Shipka (Heroes of Shipka) (1955) -- Bulgarian/Soviet Union film about the Battle of Shipka Pass during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78)
X Yuliya Vrevskaya (1978) – for reasons of love Russian nurse Yuliya Vrevskaya follows the troops in the war between Russia and Turkey (1877-1878)
X The Turkish Gambit (2005) -- spy story set in the War between Russia and Turkey (1877-1878); no English subtitles
X V nachale slavnykh del (At the Beginning of Glorious Days) (1981) -- Russo-Turkish War
X Pervye radosti (1977) – life in Saratov, Russia before the Bolshevik revolution
X Pervye radosti (No Ordinary Summer) (1956) -- intellectual joins a revolt and then becomes a professional revolutionary
X I Demoni di San Pietroburgo (The Demons of St. Petersburg) -- Russian writer Dostoevsky just finished 10 years hard labor in Siberia; he wants to stop a plot to kill the imperial family; the problem is that the young terrorists were inspired mainly by his writings
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, CIVIL WAR & THE SOVIET UNION Back to Chapter X Back to Contents
Russian Ark (2002) -- time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history
X The Cossacks (1959) -- 1850s Russia; Cossack and son clash in loyalties to Czar Alexander II
X Il figlio di Aquila Nera (1968) – Cossacks plan an uprising against Gen. Volkonsky, governor of the Caucasus
X Dauriya (Dauria) (1971) -- love story set among the Cossacks of Siberia at the time of the Russian Revolution
X Yermak (1996) -- Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich explored Siberia (starting 1579 or 1581) which opened that land to Russian expansion
Dersu Uzala (1975) -- 19th century Russian expedition to Siberia
X Mat (Mother) (1926) -- a woman struggles against Tsarist rule during the 1905 Russian Revolution (new for $55)
X Sveaborg (1972) -- 1906 bloody revolt by Russian garrison (in Finland)
Sibirskiy tsiryulnik (Barber of Siberia) (1998) -- Czar Alexander III
Bronenosets Goyokin (Battleship Potemkin) (1925) -- classic Eisenstein silent film about revolt in Russia of sailors on the battleship Potemkin
Zvezda plenitelnogo schastya (Captivating Star of Happiness) (1975) -- Tsar Nicholas I and rebellion of officers in the Decembrist Revolt, 1825
X Strike (1924) -- Sergei Eisenstein; a strike in Czarist Russia, brutally suppressed
X Lenin v Parizhe (Lenin in Paris) (1980) -- Lenin's four years in Paris (1909-1912)
X Lenin v Polshe (Lenin in Poland) (1966) --
X Lenin v oktyabre (Lenin in October) (1937) --
X Lenin: the Train -- on his return trip to Saint-Petersburg Lenin goes from Zurich, through Germany, through Sweden to Saint-Petersburg
X Scarlet Dawn (1932) -- Russian officer caught up in the troop revolts in WWI (includes a love story)
X Moonzund (1987) -- Soviet film is a love story set against the Russian Navy in the 1915-1917 WWI battles at the Moonzund Islands in the Baltic Sea
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) -- 1894-1917 of Russia; fights Germany and Turkey in WWI
X 120 (2008) – Turkish film about the Battle of Sarikamish between Russia and Ottoman Empire from December 22, 1914 to January 17, 1915
X Romanovy: Ventsenosnaya semya (The Romanovs: An Imperial Family) (2000) -- last year and a half of the life of the royal Romanovs before their execution in 1918 by the Bolsheviks (currently unavailable)
X Rasputin (1996) -- the mad Gypsy adviser to Alexandra; Greta Scacchi, Alan Rickman
X Rasputin (1985)
X Rasputin - Orgien am Zarenhof (1984) --
Agoniya (aka Agony: The Life and Death of Rasputin) (1981) -- very good Russian film on the fall of Rasputin and the Russian monarchy
X J'ai tué Raspoutine (I Killed Rasputin) (1967) --
X Rasputin - the Mad Monk (1966) -- the Hammer Studios version of Rasputin
X Nights of Rasputin (1960)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932) --
Fall of Eagles (1974) (TV miniseries) -- fall of Habsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanov dynasties in WWI
Reds (1981) 1917, Am. reporter Jack Reed, sympathizes with Bolsheviks
X Diadi gantiadi (They Wanted Peace; Great Glow) (1938) -- Lenin and the 1917 Russian Revolution
Dr. Zhivago (1965) -- Russian Revolution 1917
X October (1928) -- Sergei Eisenstein; Russian Revolution
Tikhly Don (Quiet Flows the Don) (1957) -- covers Russian history from 1912 to WWI to Bolshevik Revolution, to the Russian Civil War
Sibiriada ( Siberiade) (1979) -- two families, one wealthy and the other proletariat, through six decades from WWI to Bolshevik Revolution, to WWII and to the era of modernization
X Khleb - imya sushchestvitelnoe (1988) -- three generations living around the Volga river beginning in 1902 and going through the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War and Stalin’s rule
X Pod znakom skorpiona (1995) – writer Gorky’s positive, then negative view of the Russian Revolution
The End of St. Petersburg (1934) -- worker abuse leads to the Russian Revolution
X Dauryia (1997) -- life of Cossacks in Siberia during time of the Russian Revolution
X Esperanza (1988) -- Russian man flees the Russian Revolution and goes to Mexico
X Gosudarstvennaya granitsa: My nash, my novyy... (1980) – a Russian and his mother try to flee Russia following the Russian Revolution of 1917
X I leoni di Petersburgo (Lions of St. Petersburg) (1972) – Italian film about two brothers who are rivals in the Russian Revolution
X Baltiyskaya slava (The Baltic Glory) (1957) -- Baltic Fleet sailors join in the action in revolutionary Petrograd, autumn 1917
Anastasia (1956) -- story of the young lady who pretended to be one of the children of the executed family of the Tsar
X Anastasia (1997) --
X Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) -- Anastasia is played by Amy Irving\
X Animal Farm (1955) -- animated version of George Orwell's story of the corruption of the communist system in Russia
X Animal Farm (1999) -- uses real animals in the portrayal of the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union
X His Wife's Diary -- life of Russian writer, Nobel Laureate and critic of the Russian Revolution Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953) (currently unavailable)
Russian Civil War
Sorok pervyy (The Forty-First) (1956) – Soviet film of the romance of a female Red Army sniper and a White Army officer in the Russian Civil War
X Yunost (1937) – 1920, fisherman’s son Andrei recruited on the side of the Whites versus the Reds; he and his father are killed for hiding a Red officer; the family plans revenge
Admiral (2008) -- Russian film about a love story involving the general of the White Army Alexander Kolchak who became the supreme governor of Russia
X Lenin v 1918 godu (Lenin in 1918) (1939) – Soviet film giving the background of the Russian Civil War
X Vikhri vrazhdebnye (Hostile Whirlwinds) (1953) – Soviet film about the first years of Soviet government, 1918-1921, as seen by Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Bolshevik Secret Police
X Sedmoy sputnik (The Seventh Companion) (1968) – Soviet film dealing with the years following the Russian Revolution (currently unavailable)
Beloe solntse pustyni (White Sun of the Desert) (1970) – in today's Turkmenistan a Red Army soldier who fought in the Russian Civil War is going home but has to fight some bandits first
The Red and the White (1967) -- civil war in post-revolutionary Soviet Union
Arsenal (1928) -- Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy" (along with Zvenigora and Earth)
Chapaev (Chapayev) (1934) -- Russian movie about Vasili Ivanovich Chapaev (1887 - 1919) Commander of the Red Army's 25th Division
X Nenavist (Hatred) (1975) -- the Russian civil war tears a family apart
X The Adjutant of His Excellency – Soviet mini-series set in the Russian civil war where a Soviet secret policeman spies on the White Army
X Бумбараш (Bumbarash) (1971) – Russian film about Pvt. Bumbarash as he tries to survive the Russian Civil War to return to his village and his love
X Pervaya konnaya (First Cavalry) (1984) – Russian Civil War
X Knight Without Armor (1937) – English spy gets caught up in the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War
X Nezabyvaemyy god 1919 (The Unforgettable Year 1919) (1951) – Stalin's cruel suppression of the 1919 anti-communist uprising in St. Petersburg, Russia
X Sedmaya Pulya (The Seventh Bullet) (1972) -- set after the Russian Civil War (in the wake of the Basmachi rebellion)
X Neobyknovennoye leto (1979) – life in city of Saratov in 1919 during the Russian Civil War
X Neobyknovennoye leto (1957) -- ditto
Бer (The Flight) (1970) – Russian film about the defeat of the "White Army" in the Russian Civil War of 1918-21 and emigration to Constantinople
X Lyubov Yarovaya (1970) – Soviet film about the Russian Civil War
X Svoya chuzhaya zhizn (To Live for Another) (2005) – Bolsheviks set up House of Art in Petrogard of 1921 to control the intellectuals
Russian Front:
Katyn (2007) -- three women search for relatives killed in the spring of 1940 in a Stalin ordered genocide of 15,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in Katyn Forest
Djariskatsis mama (Father of a Soldier) (1964) -- following Russian soldier Gregory all the way to Berlin during WWII
Idi i smotri (Come and See) (1985) -- resistance to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Byelorussia
The North Star (1943) -- a Ukrainian village under Nazi invasion, June 1941
X Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu vidznakoyu (White Bird with Black Mark) (1971) -- Ukrainian film, set in 1937-1947, where one brother joins the Red Army and another the UPA (Ukrainian insurgent army)
X Shchors (Shors) (1939) -- Russian/Ukrainian film, commissioned by Stalin, about the partisan leader and Ukrainian Bolshevik Nikolai Shchors
Days of Glory (1944) -- guerrillas fight back against the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia
X Posledniy bronepoezd (The Last Armored Train) (2006) -- Russian resistance against Nazi attack in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa
Attack on Leningrad (2009) -- Nazi siege of Leningrad in the winter of 1942
X Baltiyskoe nebo - 1 seriya, 2 seriya (Baltic Skies, Part I & II) (1960) -- fighter pilots fight against the blockade of Leningrad by German army during 1941 -1943
X Wheels of Terror (The Misfit Brigade) (1987) -- 27th Panzer Division fights the Russians on the Eastern Front in 1943
Hong ying tao (Red Cherry) (1995) -- two Chinese students sent to Russia experience the German invasion of that country
A zori zdes tikhie (The Dawns Here Are Quiet) (1972) – young Russian women up against a larger group of German soldiers in Karelia (North-West of Russia, near Finland) in 1941
Zvezda (The Star) (2002) -- summer of 1944, facing certain death, a group of seven Russian snipers named "Zvezda" does reconnaissance behind enemy lines to stop a planned Nazi tank offensive
Voskhozhdeniye (Ascent) (1977) -- two Soviet partisans fight against the Germans
X Prikhodi svobodnym (1984) – Russian war film
Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying) (1957) -- a girlfriend of a Russian soldier nearly loses her mind desperately waiting for his return
Russia under Stalinism:
Piry Valtasara, ili noch so Stalinym (Baltazar's Feasts or the Night with Stalin) (1989) -- Stalin and his brutal purges
X Prorva (Moscow Parade) (1992) – first Russian, post-Soviet view of Stalinist excesses
X Dreszcze (Creeps) (1981) -- excesses of Stalin and their effect on a man and his two boys
X Est - Quest (East-West) -- Stalin invites Russian émigrés to return home and then double-crosses them
The Assassination of Trotsky (1972) -- story of the last days of the theorist of the Russian communist revolutionaries, hunted down by his once communist allies
Frida (2000) -- assassination of Trotsky in Frida's home
Post-War Soviet Union/Russia Back to Chapter XIII Back to Contents
Stalin (1922-1953):
Ballada o soldate (Ballad of a Soldier) (1960) -- A sort of Russian road movie about a young Russian soldier's four day trip to go home to see his mother
X The Chekist (1992)-- brutal Cheka security forces (currently unavailable)
Utomlyonnye solntsem (Burnt by the Sun) (1994) -- the paranoid era of the evil Stalin
Przesluchanie (Interrogation) (1989) -- Polish film about Stalinist terror in the early 1950s; Tonia, a sleazy cabaret singer, is imprisoned without explanation
Khrushchev (1958-1964):
Serye volki (The Gray Wolves) (1993) – power struggle; Nikita Khrushchev (in position 1958-1964) is ousted by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964 and his goes from 1964 to 1982
The Inner Circle (1991) -- a true David and Batsheba story in the Soviet Union
X One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1970) -- Russian gulag penal system ($119 for new, $27 for used VHS tape)
Gulag (1985) -- a reporter is framed by the KBG and has to spend time in the gulag penal system
Sakharov (1984) -- Russian dissident
Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982):
Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991):
Perestroika (2009) -- astro-physicist returns after 17 years of exile to the Soviet Union during the period of "restructuring" starting in 1968
X Moy luchshiy drug, general Vasiliy, syn Iosifa (My Best Friend, General Vasili, the Son of Joseph Stalin) (1991) – Lt. Gen. Vasili Stalin commander of Army and Air Force sports teams befriends a sports talent; but what will happen when the general’s father dies?
Boris Yeltsen (1991-1999):
Vladimir Putin (1999-2008):
Chechen Wars: First Chechen War (Dec. 1994 - August 1996) and Second Chechen War (August 1999 - 2009)
Aleksandra (Alexandra) (2007) -- a feisty, elderly woman visits her Russian army officer grandson inside Chechnya during Second Russian-Chechen War
Prisoner of the Mountains (1997) -- drama set in First Russian-Chechen war (1994-1996)
X Dom Durakov (House of Fools) (2002) -- about psychiatric patients and combatants during the First Chechen War
X War -- about the realities of the Second Chechen War
Dmitry Medvedev (2008-present)
Other:
X Song from the Southern Seas (2009) -- a Russian and a Kazakh couple live in harmony until the white Russian couple have a dark-skinned baby and the fight begins; draws on history of Kazakhstan
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