The Village Teacher
About The Village Teacher
Varvara meets the Bolshevik Martynov at a graduation ball, then goes to a remote Siberian village to teach. The peasants are cold to her until she wins over the gold miners as well. Her student Prov Voronov passes his exams and is refused by the gymnasium because he is poor. Martynov comes back from exile, marries her, and is arrested again. The First World War and the October Revolution follow. Varvara gets Prov to a city vocational school. Martynov dies while serving as a commissar. She fights the kulaks. After the Great Patriotic War her old students gather, and Prov, now a scientist, comes to see her.
Cast & crew
More about The Village Teacher
Mark Donskoy directed. Mariya Smirnova wrote the script. Sergey Urusevsky photographed it. Lev Shvarts wrote the music. Wikipedia credits Gorky Film Studio. A release date in the records is 30 October 1947. It runs 100 minutes. Vera Maretskaya plays Varvara Vasilievna Martynova. Daniil Sagal plays Martynov. The film received the Stalin Prize, first degree, in 1948.
Themes
Background
Varvara arrives under the tsar, teaches through the First World War and the October Revolution, and is still in the village after the 1941–1945 war.
Making
Donskoy and Smirnova keep one teacher in place while the village changes around her: exile, war, revolution, and the return of a student after 1945.
Look
Sergey Urusevsky photographed the village school, the gold miners, and the reunion after the war.
Music
Lev Shvarts wrote the score.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- Pavel Olenev plays the school custodian Igor Petrovich. Rostislav Plyatt plays the gymnasium headmaster who rejects Prov.
- Vladimir Belokurov plays the gold miner Bukov. Roza Makagonova plays Mashenka.
- The Russian title is Сельская учительница.
- The story runs from a tsarist graduation ball through 1945, with the same teacher in the classroom.
- Wikidata also lists screen dates of 10 April, 7 May, and 3 July 1948.
Awards
- Stalin Prize, first degree, 1948
Scenes
- The gymnasium director turns Prov away for being poor.
- Martynov returns from exile and marries Varvara, then is arrested again.
- After the war, Prov the scientist comes back to the old teacher.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1947. Сельская учительница.webm)
