Costa-Gavras (short for Kōnstantinos Gavras) was born in Loutra Iraias, Greece, in 1933, but at the age of 22 moved to Paris to study at the IDHEC film
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.
How Soviet poets performed in football stadiums in front of thousands Dmitry Donskoy/Sputnik “A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a leading author of his time, famously stated. He knew what he was talking about. During Nikita Khrushchev’s cultural years of Thaw, Soviet poets were public figures like rock stars. They performed to sell-out crowds, predicted the future and helped get over the past.
Soviet poets were rewarded with public recognition for what they did best – inspire hope and change in the USSR. They rocked in their own, intellectual way.
Poets of the Thaw