The Great Dawn
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| The Great Dawn | |
|---|---|
 Konstantin Müfke as Vladimir Lenin and Mikheil Gelovani as Joseph Stalin | |
| Directed by | Mikheil Chiaureli |
| Written by | Giorgi Tsagareli |
| Screenplay by | Pyotr Pavlenko, Giorgi Tsagareli |
| Produced by | L. Totadze |
| Starring | Mikheil Gelovani |
| Cinematography | Aleqsandre Digmelovi |
| Edited by | E. Gabrieli |
| Music by | Ivane Gokieli |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 73 minutes |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| External image | |
|---|---|
 1938 poster of The Great Dawn. |
The Great Dawn (Georgian: დიადი განთიადი, trans. Diadi Gant’iadi; Russian: Великое зарево, trans. Velikoe Zarevo. English-language title: They Wanted Peace.) is a 1938 Soviet Georgian film directed by Mikheil Chiaureli. It is considered a representation of Joseph Stalin's cult of personality.
In 1917, the people of the Russian Empire are no longer willing to fight Germany, but the bourgeois government of Alexander Kerensky is unwilling to defy its imperialist allies and stop the war. Only Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party is resolute in calling for peace. In the front, the soldiers of one battalion elect three delegates to travel to St. Petersburg with donations the troops collected for the Pravda newspaper: Gudushauri, Panasiuk and Ershov. The three arrive in the capital and describe the horrendous conditions in which the soldiers live to Joseph Stalin, Lenin's trusted aide and colleague. They join the Bolsheviks and take part in the storming of the Winter Palace, led by Stalin and Lenin. Stalin announces that the great dawn of revolution has broken.
Cast
- Konstantin Müfke as Vladimir Lenin
- Mikheil Gelovani as Joseph Stalin
- Spartak Bagashvili as Georgi Gudushauri
- Tamara Makarova as Svetlana
- Nutsa Chkheidze as Gudushauri's mother
- Anna Smirnova as Svetlana's mother
- Basil Matov as Ershov
- Dmitry Ivanov as Panasyuk
- Georgi Sagaradze as Tsereteli
- Michael Chikhladze as Colonel Mikeladze
- Ivan Perestiani as general
- Alexander Zhorzholiani as surgeon
- Shalva Gambashidze as Karkumidze
- Georgi Shavgulidze as Paul Gudushauri
- Piotr Morskoi as Deryugin
- Boris Poltavtsev as Yakov Sverdlov
Production
The Great Dawn was part of a group of films made in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, which also included Lenin in October and The Vyborg Side; since Sergei Eisenstein's October, it became customary to release pictures about the revolution with each decade anniversary to it.[1] The Great Dawn was the first in a series of four films directed by Chiaureli with Joseph Stalin as their main theme. It also marked actor Mikheil Gelovani's first appearance on screen as Stalin, a role he would play in thirteen other productions.[2][3]