Shchors

A depiction of the exploits of the Ukrainian civil war commander Nikolai Shchors (under whom director Dovzhenko served). The film opens during the 1918 German intervention in the civil war. Ukrainians partisans form a brigade known as the Boguns and join with the Tarashchansk regiment to oppose German and Rada forces. Thematically, the film is a heroic mission, a quest and biography of a civil war leader who was a Bolshevik icon. Stalin commissioned this film to be made and took a participatory role in the film’s production and direction. A protracted shoot proved taxing to Dovzhenko who was forced to submit every creative idea and episode for political approval. Despite its socialist-realist approach, the film contains poetic and memorable images typical of Dovzhenko’s style.