Читаем блокадную книгу

It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told.

It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told.

It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told.

This communist history film recalls the heroism of Soviet soldiers fighting the Nazis in World War II. Forty of the 236 cameramen used for the feature were killed during their mission filming the Red Army.

A double portrait of two dictators who were thousands of miles apart but were constantly fixated on each other.

It was one of the great crimes of the Second World War: from 1941 to 1944, a total of 872 days, the siege and starvation of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht on Hitler's orders lasted. Over a million people fell victim to the blockade, most of them dying of hunger. Countless of these starving people wrote diaries with the last of their strength, and cameramen filmed in the paralyzed city. Evidence from the hell of the siege, many of the film recordings, but above all the written memories on which this documentary on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation is based, remained under lock and key after the war. The voices of those who had suffered through this terrible time should not be heard by anyone, because they did not fit the pathos of the Leningrad heroic song that was officially sung. Most of the recordings come from women. The writers feared neither the enemy nor the Communist Party or Stalin, who often proved incompetent in providing for the population.

August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.

Autumn 1941. German tank troops are making another attempt to break through to the Uritsk and Pulkovo Heights. During heavy fighting, Soviet troops managed to stop the offensive of fascist tanks one and a half kilometers south of the Pulkovo Observatory. The 900 days of the blockade and the incredible courage of the Soviet people were approaching ...

Before the attack on the village, captured by the Nazis, the commander decides to carry out a distraction — a concert of the front-line brigade of artists. Chef Antosha Rybkin is assigned to play the role of... a German corporal. Dressed in an enemy uniform, he gets to the rear of the enemy and helps his liberate the village.

"Iskra" is the codename for the plan of the operation of the Soviet troops to break the blockade of Leningrad. In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. A corridor 8-11 km wide was formed between Lake Ladoga and the front line.