I stumbled upon a French documentary on
Russian revolution which helped me realise how little I know about that event. It’s made solely of the authentic footage of
that tormented period, which makes it even more enriching, because an ordinary
viewer has little chance to ever see it on the national tv (apparently tv
serials are more intriguing). Theme music is simple and genius, somehow it links
perfectly with the Russian culture and with a period of difficult times.
At
first, viewers can admire splendor of Romanov’s life, orthodox priests, before
religion was completely suppressed, tragic living conditions of the working
class.
Some film frames struck me more then others :
one at the beginning, when fields are covered by thousands of members of cavalry during
attack, then agonizing children soon to be dead because of the famine that ravaged the country, next the celebration
of the tercentenary of Romanov dynasty and creepy Rasputin eyes.
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| Rasputin and Tsar Nicolas II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin/ http://en.ria.ru/ |
Before the revolution (at the beginning of the
20th century), peasants made up 80% of the Russian population. Hardship
of their lives was due to low efficiency of land cultivation. When they
were freed from their masters’ oppression (in the 70. of the 19th C.)
, their situation got even worse. Those who were unemployed decided to leave their
village and join working-class people- proletariat- and drudge at grim factories
during the heyday of Industrialization. They were worth less than draft
animals to their employers because if they died, thousands of others came to
replace them. Tolstoy was the writer who spotted and described that hell on
earth. When workers organized a peaceful demonstration in Saint Petersburg and marched towards the Winter
Palace in order to
beg the Tsar for better work conditions, troops shot at them- that day is engraved in Russian memory as the
Bloody Sunday. Unfortunately, Nicolas II was more concerned about his defeat
with Japanese people than his own compatriots’ demands. As a result, soviet committees were formed throughout the country, but they were brutally oppressed. Tsar
responded to that by creating Duma, copy of the French Assemblée constituante of 1789. As a consequence, political
parties were established. Subsequently, some prime minister attempted to create a new
social class- kulaks (middle-class farmers)- but he failed tragically and was assassinated. Russia went bankrupt, so Tsar was forced to borrow money from British
and French lenders in exchange for the army alliance. Lenin lied in wait in
Switzerland, Germany and France for the advantageous moment to crawl back to his
homeland and take the power. In 1912 employees of some factories revolted and the
country was traumatized one more time. On the top of all that, Russian public
was shocked by a Russian monk, Rasputin, who was allegedly possessed by the Devil. He managed to discredit completely Nicolas II and his kins. The movie
covers the Russian history up to the Lenin’s death, but I won’t summarise every
bit of information. The documentary was definitely worth watching for me.
