The Unforgettable Year 1919

The Unforgettable Year 1919 is a 1951 Soviet historical drama film directed by Mikheil Chiaureli. Plot May 1919. The city of Petrograd, the Bolsheviks' stronghold in Russia, is attacked by the counter-revolutionary White Army of General Nikolai Yudenich, who is supported by the imperialist British, and especially by the warmongering Winston Churchill. The city's High Soviet is demoralized and about to order an evacuation, while the White fifth column inside it plots an insurrection. The Krasnaya Gorka fort dispatches a detachment of Baltic Fleet sailors to assist Petrograd, among them the young Vladimir Shibaev. As the Red Army faces defeat by the Whites, Joseph Stalin arrives on the battlefield, rallies the communists and routs the enemy, saving the city. Cast Boris Andreyev as Shibaev Mikheil Gelovani as Joseph Stalin Pavel Molchanov as Vladimir Lenin Gavriil Belov as Mikhail Kalinin Boris Olenin as Grigory Zinoviev Nikolai Komissarov as General Neklyudov Vladimir Kenigson as Paul Dukes Yevgeny Samoylov as Aleksandr Neklyudov Andrei Popov as Nikolai Neklyudov Muza Krepkogorskaya as Liza the housemaid Sergei Lukyanov as General Rodzyanko Pavel Massalsky as Colonel Vadbolsky Boris Dmokhovsky as Augustus Agar Ivan Solovyov as Walter Cowan Viktor Stanitsyn as Winston Churchill Hnat Yura as Georges Clemenceau Viktor Koltsov as Lloyd George L. Korsakov as Woodrow Wilson Vladimir Ratomsky as Potapov Gleb Romanov as commander of the armored vehicles Mikhail Yanshin as Colonel Butkevich Nikolai Garin as Aleksandr Rybaltovsky Anastasia Georgyevskaya as Darling Marina Kovalyova as Katya Danilova Angelina Stepanova as Olga Butkevich Yevgeny Morgunov as Anarchist Vsevolod Sanayev as Boris Savinkov (uncredited) Georgiy Daneliya as guitar player (uncredited) Production The script was adapted from a play by the same name, that was composed by Vsevolod Vishnevsky for Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949 and won the Stalin Prize. Ronald Hingley wrote that Vishnevsky's play "magnified Stalin's Russian Civil War record beyond all recognition". Chiaureli's work was one of the only nine Soviet pictures produced during 1951. With a budget of nearly 11,000,000 roubles, it was also the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union up to that time. In addition, it was the last of Chiaureli's "super-productions about Stalin."