Andrei Zhdanov

This is a project that talks about the key figures in the leadership of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1953. Felix Dzerzhinsky, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrey Zhdanov, Victor Abakumov, Lavrenty Beria. Their names are known throughout the country today, but few people remember how they went down in history and what they did for their state. They were in the midst of civil confrontation and social upheaval, changing the course of history. Cities, streets and mountain peaks were named in their honor, monuments were erected to them, their victories were told in schools, but they could not know that after years their biographies would undergo careful editing, and all achievements would be forgotten.

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.

The life and work of the great Russian composer Dmitriy Shostakovich is presented in this documentary through rare images and audios from many archives, at one time censored by the Soviet government. A brief take on his life, from his transition as an early prodigy to a first rate artist, his celebrated compositions and the final years with a declining health.

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