For Soviet Filmmakers, There Was No Glory in War
In contrast with Hollywoodâs approach to World War II, Soviet filmmakers avoided triumphalist images of warfare, depicting the conflict as a brutal necessity that should never be repeated.
Still from Andrei Tarkovskyâs 'Ivan's Childhood' (1963). Photo: Criterion Collection
History27/Jun/2021
On New Yearâs Eve 1940, my great-grandfather Aleksandr Afinogenov held a dinner party at his Moscow apartment. At one point the guests, probably writers and other literary intellectuals, played a game: writing on sheets of paper, they tried to predict what the coming year would be like. Some of them thought theyâd change their hair colour; others thought theyâd get married or divorced.