Generation of Victors
About Generation of Victors
Vera Stroyeva’s film follows underground work in Moscow from 1896 to the armed rising of workers at Krasnaya Presnya in December 1905. Petersburg students Alexander Mikhailov (Boris Shchukin), son of a convicted man, and Yevgeny Svetlov (Nikolai Khmelyov) arrive with Varvara Postnikova (Vera Maretskaya), a policeman’s foster daughter from the countryside. Around them are Stepan Klimov (Nikolai Plotnikov), a hand at the Maxwell factory, the Baku worker Niko Gotseridze (Vladimir Kandelaki), and Sofia Morozova (Ksenia Tarasova), a student at the Bestuzhev courses. The meetings give way to the Presnya fight.
Cast & crew
More about Generation of Victors
Stroyeva directed and wrote the script with Serafima Roshal. Leonid Kosmatov photographed, Nikolai Kryukov wrote the music, and Iosif Shpinel and Alexander Zharenov designed the sets. V. Sakharov was the sound engineer. Mosfilm opened the picture on 5 November 1936.
Themes
Background
The story stops at the December 1905 fighting on Krasnaya Presnya, the workers’ district in western Moscow, after a span that starts with revolutionary circles in 1896.
Making
The script credit is shared by Stroyeva and Roshal. Kosmatov, Kryukov, Shpinel, and Zharenov are the camera, music, and design names on the Mosfilm titles.
Look
Leonid Kosmatov shot the black-and-white picture, covering the student circles and the Presnya street fighting as staged for Mosfilm.
Music
Nikolai Kryukov wrote the score.
Preservation
A black-and-white print circulates, including the copy on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Shchukin’s Mikhailov is identified in the cast lists as the son of a convicted man. Maretskaya’s Varvara is an orphan brought up in a policeman’s household.
- Plotnikov’s worker is employed at the Maxwell factory. Kandelaki plays a Baku worker, Niko Gotseridze.
- Osip Abdulov is billed as a professor. Maria Sinelnikova plays Roza Shtein, Vladimir Solovyov plays Andreyka, and Georgy Chernovolenko plays Kartuzov.
- A Russian film encyclopedia times the black-and-white picture at 105 minutes; Wikidata and the Ukrainian Wikipedia infobox say 100.
- Catalog blurbs sometimes call the Presnya rising Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was the Petersburg shootings of 9 January 1905; Presnya was the Moscow rising that December.
Scenes
- Mikhailov and Svetlov come into Moscow with Varvara and fall in with the circles.
- Klimov is placed on the floor of the Maxwell works.
- The film ends on the armed workers at Krasnaya Presnya.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1936 Поколение победителей.webm)