Excellent Students (1938)
Description: A sixth-grade history class in Moscow School 114 demonstrates the pedagogical style of the Stalin-era classroom. The students repeat the patriotic lessons of the recently released Aleksandr Nevskii. Pioneriia no. 12.
Vladimir Petrov: Peter the Great (1937)
Starring Nikolai Simonov, Alla Tarasova, Nikolai Cherkasov, Mikhail Zharov.
Scenario: Aleksei Tolstoy and Vasili Petrov.
Description: Peter the Great confronts his own son Aleksei, who hates the new modern Russia, and dreams of reviving the old, religious Russia. Peter perseveres in his reforms, and ultimately defeats the rival kingdom of Sweden with his reformed army and navy. His forcefulness and forthright enmity to the church made the implied analogy to Stalin obvious.
Sergei Eizenshtein: Aleksandr Nevskii (1938)
Asst. Director Dmitri Vasiliev. Starring Nikolai Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Valentina lvashova, Dmitri Orlov, Vladimir Yershov, Varvara Massalitinova
Description: The famous battle on the ice. Nevsky here is presented as a paragon of Russian nationalism and leadership, sentiments that would have been out of place in the thirteenth century, but were entirely appropriate to Stalin’s era.