Dauria (film)

Dauria
Directed by	Viktor Tregubovich
Written by	Konstantin Sedykh
Starring	Vitali Solomin Petr Shelokhonov Yefim Kopelyan Vasily Shukshin Yury Solomin
Cinematography	Yevgeny Mezentsev
Music by	Gennady Portnov
Production company	Lenfilm
Distributed by	RUSCICO
Release date	1971 (1971)
Running time	182 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Dauria (Russian: Даурия) is a 1971 Soviet historical adventure drama set in Siberia, Russia. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Konstantin Sedykh and directed by Viktor Tregubovich.

While the movie was criticized by some Soviet critics for its historical inaccuracies, its epic scope and intense battle scenes won wide praise and has been credited with affecting the political landscape of Siberian Russia.

Plot

Epic film about traditional life of Cossacks in the Siberian province of Dauria at the time of the communist revolution. Focused on a Cossack village that lives under the guidance of a strong leader - an Ataman (Kopelyan) as well as their way of life and its effect on Roman Ulybin (Solomin) a member of a Cossack village who is mistreated because of his brothers affiliation to the communist movement who later joins the revolutionary war as well.

Young Cossack Roman Ulybin is in love with beautiful Dashutka (Golovina). Roman is asking his father, Severian Ulybin (Shelokhonov), to send a Matchmaker (Shukshina) before it's too late. But father Severian has no money, while wealthy crook has already hired the Matchmaker, and his son gets married at the lavish traditional wedding with singing, dancing and drinking in the Russian style.

So, frustrated Roman Ulybin leaves his father's home to follow his big brother Vasili, a Communist leader. During the war Roman is sent to protect their seized treasures, however, a previously allied anarchist group, fearing an incoming White Army advance, raid the treasury so they can escape for Manchuria with riches. As Roman was injured in the raid, his brother assigns him and a smaller group of men to hide in the taiga as the White Army attacks their current base. In the taiga Roman and his men are captured by a group of Cossacks who sentence them to death by shooting, Roman manages to escape by jumping into a small lake before getting hit. After his escape Roman finds the farmhouse of his previous love Dashutka who cares for him until he heals, after reconnecting with her and healing he goes to visit his parents and finds out his father was forced into service into the White Army. After nearly being caught in his parents house, Roman finds a member of a partisan group and ends up reuniting a small army of Cossack revolution sympathizers, with them he begins taking out the White Army stationed at the region. After a while, a small detachment of the white army lead by executioner brutally beats and humiliates the village Ataman. Roman's father, Severian, is murdered in trying to defend member of the community accused of aiding the revolution, and Roman arrives right as the soldiers escape, enraged, he and his man mount their horses and leave to continue their fight.

Cast

• Vitali Solomin as Roman Ulybin. The son of Severian
• Petr Shelokhonov as Severian Ulybin. The father of Roman
• Yefim Kopelyan as Ataman Kargin, the leader of Cossacks
• Vasily Shukshin as Vasili Ulybin, the leader of Communists
• Yury Solomin as Semen, a Communist agent
• Mikhail Kokshenov as Fedot, the neighbor of Ulybins
• Arkadi Trusov as Grandfather Ulybin
• Vera Kuznetsova as Ulybina. The wife of Severian
• Viktor Pavlov as Nikifor, a hard core Cossack
• Svetlana Golovina as Dashutka, the love interest of Roman Ulybin
• Zhenya Malyantsev as Roman's little brother
• Fyodor Odinokov as Dashutka's father
• Lyubov Malinovskaya as Dashutka's mother
• Yuri Nazarov as a runaway prisoner
• Vsevolod Kuznetsov as Cossack Platon Volokitin
• Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina as Matchmaker
• Zinovi Gerdt as Tsarist General Semenov
• Georgy Shtil as Anarchist Revolutionary
• Igor Yefimov as Cossack
• Dmitri Masanov as Cossack
• Vladimir Losev as Cossack
• Sergei Polezhaev as White Russian officer
• Aleksandr Demyanenko as Executioner
• Igor Dmitriev as Executioner

Crew

• Director: Viktor Tregubovich
• Writers: Konstantin Sedykh, Yuri Klepikov, Viktor Tregubovich
• Cinematographer: Yevgeny Mezentsev
• Composer: Gennady Portnov
• Production Designer: Grachya Mekinyan

Production

• Produced by Lenfilm studios.
• Filming dates 1969–1971.
• Filming locations: Siberia, Trans-Baikal region, Narva, Estonia, Lenfilm studios, Leningrad, Russia.
• Over 5 hundred extras took part in filming.
• Leading actors took horseback riding classes for several months before and during filming.
• A unique stunt was performed for the character of Severian Ulybin: live horse with a mannequin in a Cossack costume jumped down from 70-meters-high cliff into the cold river.

Release

• 1971 theatrical release, Soviet Union
• 1975 theatrical release in Finland and other European nations
• 1985 VHS release, Soviet Union
• 2002 DVD release, worldwide

Reception

• Attendance: 47 million, theatrical, in the Soviet Union.

DVD release

• 2002 DVD released by RUSCICO. It is based on the shorter 182 minute version, which was edited for European release in 1975. Dubbing for DVD in three languages was made by professional actors in English, French, and Russian. Subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, English, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
• Defects on DVD include errors in sequence of scenes and wrong listing of scenes in the DVD cover booklet. There are some mistakes and discrepancies between English and Russian versions of the DVD.

External links

• Dauria at IMDb
• Filming Dauria scenes in Siberia [1]