The “Before the Bar of History” directed by Fridrikh Ermler was screened and debated in the Presidential Library

The Presidential Library screened a reviewed a documentary released in 1965 by Friedrich Ermler entitled “Before the Bar of History.” Next in turn scheduled Cinema Club has met within the framework of the retrospective screenings focused on “Revolution on the screen,” running in the course of the “Beginning” XVI International Film Festival of debut films. It seems symbolic that, instead of another “textbook” work about, for instance, Lenin and October, the beginning filmmakers are invited to appraise a very serious and even controversial movie, in which the belief positions of the “old” and “new” worlds have collide.

Prior to viewing the movie, the General Director of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin appeared with his greeting via a video conferencing connection from the “Lenfilm” Studios movie theater: “Since its very beginning, the Presidential Library has been cooperating with the film production studios, with film archives, and film festivals. “Lenfilm” is our long lasting partner, we are deeply connected by joint publications, exhibitions, film projects, including some of them abroad. There is some in common between film studios and us — we are also “screening” the documents. Today’s show is interesting: a movie of Ermler is shown; by the way, there will be Friedrich Markovich’s 120th birth anniversary next year, and 140th of his most beloved hero — Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin. The Presidential Library has the digitized movie poster of “Before the Bar of History,” as well as some archive files, newspapers, transcripts, correspondence and the book of the politician Shulgin, as well as his father, the famous Russian historian Vitaly Yakovlevich Shulgin.”

As presenting at the viewing senior lecturer of St. Petersburg State University, PhD of Historical Sciences Andrey Ivanov pointed out “the movie in focus of today’s review could be released only during the short Khrushchev’s thaw. The movie’s plot has been ripening in the KGB offices at the end of the state administration of Nikita Khrushchev and frightened many with its boldness and innovative approach.”

The screen action is based on the dialogue of the historian-actor with Vasily Shulgin, the leader of the State Duma, one of the organizers of the White Army and an opponent of the Bolsheviks. It was this discussion about the events of 1914—1945 that became the basis of the film, although it is all filled of acting and shooting on location. As the director wrote, the movie’s objective is to prove that the former monarchist and white emigrant “Shulgin is condemned by the history itself, and that he understands this today, he only does not want to accept this and to agree.” The movie was screening in Moscow and Leningrad theaters at the end of 1965 for only three days, after which they have withdrawn it, although never bunned.

Friedrich Markovich Ermler — one of the furthermost acclaimed film directors of the Stalin epoch — began his career in the heyday of silent movies. Of course, he was a representative of the propaganda cinema, which, first of all, glorified personally Stalin and the successes of the country under his leadership. A four-time recipient of the Stalin Prize (in 1941, twice in 1946, and in 1951), the Knight of the Order of Lenin (1935) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1950), Ermler was a great master who has literally given his life to the cinema.