The History of the Civil War

Director /1921/: Dziga Vertov

Director of Restoration /2021/:

Nikolai Izvolov

Documentary, History / Russia, Israel

94 min

Completed

‘The History of the Civil War’ was released in 1921. The documentary film covers the events of the Civil War in Russia (1918 – 1921) which appear in chronological order: “White Terror”, “Suppression of counter-revolutionary uprisings”, “Partisan movement”, “Wrangel front”, “Suppression of the Kronstadt riot”, and others. Just like in Vertov’s previous film, “Anniversary of the Revolution”, we see a grandiose cinematic work capturing one of the most important historic events of the 20th century.

Furthermore, it includes several historical characters, leaders of the Soviet government and of the Red Army such as: Leon Trotsky, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Innokenty Kozhevnikov, Fedor Raskolnikov, Larisa Reisner, Nikolai Kazadanov, Ivar Smilga, Philip Mironov, Sergey Kirov, Konstantin Mekhonoshin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Nestor Makhno and others. Many of them were later executed or imprisoned in 1937, some committed suicide or emigrated.

Since then, no one has seen the film in 100 years. Even Vertov himself wrote that by the end of the 1920s, he was unable to locate a single complete copy of his film. It was brought back to life in 2021, the year of its centenary.

Born in Białystok on January 2^nd, 1896, by the name of David Kaufman, he is better known as Dziga Vertov, a soviet avant-garde filmmaker, news head editor and film editor, then a documentary filmmaker and theorist that passed away on February 12^th, 1954. He developed the “kino-glaz” (“film-eye”) theory claiming that the camera, much like the human eye, should be an instrument best used to explore the actual events in real life. During the 1920s his theory influenced the international development of documentaries and cinema realism, while Vertov attempted to create a unique cinema language, free from theatrical influences and artificial studio staging. His notable works include filmed newsreels (“Kino-nedelia”, “Kino-Pravda”), feature films “cine-objects” (“Kino-Glaz”, “The Sixth Part of the World”, “The Eleventh Year”, “The Man with a Movie the Camera”). He also contributed to the establishment of a new sound cinema (“Enthousiasm”, “Tri Pesni o Lenine”). Vertov’s films and theories have widely influenced the documentary cinema history.

Nikolay Izvolov is a historian and cinema theorist, researcher of film archives and specialist in reconstruction of the “lost” old films.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, he has been teaching the course “Practice of work in film archives” for students of the film studies department of VGIK (All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography).

Author of the books “The Phenomenon of Cinema. History and Theory“ and “Unknown pages of Russian Avant-garde Film History”.

This film was screened just once - in June 1921 during the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern (“The Communist International » organization) in Moscow that received not more than 600 delegates.
This film can be considered as one of Vertov's first author's experiments, and he himself called it a steppingstone to “Kino-Pravda”, the newsreel series launched in 1922.
Dziga Vertov witnessed many events in the Civil War in Soviet Russia as he visited the front several times to direct the filming under combat conditions.

The film was restored by Nikolai Izvolov from the stock of materials preserved by the Russian cinematographer Grigory Boltyansky (1885-1953) in the Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow. The 35-mm films were scanned and then assembled according to the description of the film left by Boltyansky.
The quality of the film is sometimes quite poor as from the early 1920s many films were countertype (meaning they were printed from the positive and not from the negative). The projection speed is 18 frames per second, best adapt to the projection speed of films of that time.

Above all an archival triumph. Of rediscovering what seemed lost. Of fighting against time, against disappearance, against oblivion.

"A triumph of filmmaking over censorship" - Orwa Nyrabia, artistic director of IDFA

The History of the Civil War is an intriguing look at the future as it was seen by those fighting and dying for it a century ago.

Long lost film on the Russian civil war screens for first time in 100 years >>

— euronews (Europe) —

A new century of war >>

— Modern Times (Norway) —

IDFA on Stage: The History of the Civil War by Dziga Vertov >>

— Interview with Nikolai Izvolov, Business Doc Europe (UK) —

IDFA on Stage review: The History of the Civil War (1921) by Dziga Vertov >>

— Film review, Business Doc Europe (UK) —

IDFA: ‘THE HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR’; VAN D.VERTOV/NIKOLAI IZVOLOV >>

— amsterdamsdagblad.nl (Netherlands) —

The History of the Civil War (1921) IDFA >>

— Filmuforia (UK) —

IDFA 2021 | The History of the Civil War >>

— Universal Cinema (Canada) —

History of the Civil War >>

— TIFF (Canada) —

FILME “PERDIDO” DE DZIGA VERTOV SERÁ EXIBIDO 100 ANOS DEPOIS >>

— C7nema (Portugal) —

Впервые за 100 лет. Утерянный фильм Дзиги Вертова покажут на фестивале в Амстердаме >>

— Novoye Vremya (Ukraine) —

Ледяной взгляд Колчака и улыбка молодого Кирова >>

— Meduza (Russia) —

Много Троцкого и ни одного Сталина >>

— Voice of America (USA) —

“Contra o ‘terror branco’, responderemos com o ‘terror vermelho’”/ “Na Rússia, tudo de importante é decidido em Moscou”: entre uma e outra frase, mais de cem anos! >>

— A Pátria (Brazil) —

Artigo | Documentários trazem imagens inéditas da Revolução Russa >>

— Brazil de Fato (Brazil) —

DZIGA VIÉRTOV – ESCRITOS DO HOMEM COM A CÂMERA >>

— Folha de S. Paulo (Brazil) —

Director /1921/: Dziga Vertov

Director of Restoration /2021/:

Nikolai Izvolov

Documentary, History / Russia, Israel

94 min

Completed

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