Film as a public service. How Russian power explains itself in the historical blockbuster «The Birth of an Empire»

“This is a story about faith and loyalty, unbending will to victory, and our great ancestors”, the service imposed on the potential viewer explains. Vladimir Putin has already personally taken part in promoting the film product, calling “The Birth of an Empire” a work of art. However, in the first not-quite two weeks of release, box office receipts amounted to about 600 million rubles. Industry analysts consider a final gross of over 1 billion rubles in Russia and the CIS quite likely. The sum is impressive in itself, but very modest relative to the film’s budget of 2.12 billion, of which 800 million are non-repayable state subsidies.

Rosneft acted as the general partner, and among the producers are Nikita Mikhalkov, Leonid Vereshchagin, and Anton Zlatopolsky. A rather imposing state-corporate conclave for dissecting hot Russian history with the cold hands of cultural Cerberuses. Of course, it did not go without the patronage of presidential culture adviser Vladimir Medinsky.

And it is highly likely that profitability of the historical blockbuster is not the main thing for this company.

The plot of this public-service film covers the years from Peter’s return from the Grand Embassy to the Battle of Poltava — the Northern War, the defeat at Narva, the building of a new army and St. Petersburg, the victory over Charles XII. In between, the tsar loves, suffers, and gives orders. Historical events follow one after another with the businesslike efficiency of slides in a presentation. A fortress, a cannon, a state necessity, the next fortress, and when there is free time — a little love.

At first, he is not very lucky in love — Anna Mons (Yulia Peresild) is obsessed with dresses about as much as Medinsky is obsessed with Russia’s greatness, which saddens Tsar Peter, who wants someone by his side in bed in his own image and spirit (or at least in Medinsky’s image and spirit). So Anna, who has barely had time to chirp about dresses, is dismissed, and Martha Skavronskaya (Ksenia Utekhina) takes her place.

While Peter’s brood is running history, Martha ensures the uninterrupted operation of the main historical engine. The future empress has been reduced to a court sedative — take it for headaches and excessive responsibility for the Fatherland.

As for Peter himself, played by Alexander Gorbatov, everything human is alien to him — he carries on his face such uninterrupted responsibility for the state that any ordinary, not brutally serious expression would look like a violation of the job description. This is, in general, a feature of Russian patriotic cinema: the positive characters are always frowning. And yet even in the 1937 film “Peter I”, the tsar in his most patriotic incarnation, played by Nikolai Simonov, changed his facial expression and sometimes smiled. But Gorbatov was evidently told that if even one muscle twitches on his face, Russia will twitch with it. So no leniency for the face — let all the muscles work in “I’m an evil and terrible gray wolf” mode.

In truth, once Peter-Gorbatov does smile — in the scene where Menshikov enters the tsar’s bedroom on his hands, because the tsar ordered that his feet should no longer be there. He was forgiven the first time, and it never happened again.

The dramaturgy is arranged with astonishing economy and linearity. The tsar is right in advance and always, and subsequent events only confirm his rightness.

Peter Alexeyevich is completely devoid of reflection, and any doubts that occasionally break through the thickness of his righteousness can only delay victory, but its moral meaning is always unshakable. Besides, what reflection can there be if the main argument is cannons? For example, the boyars ask for a respite from wars for the country, but Peter knows better: “It’s too early for us to rest!” — and, of course, in the finale Poltava issues him a certificate of unconditional rightness. In one interview, screenwriter Andrey ZolotaryovScreenwriter of dozens of TV series, the most famous of which is “The Boy’s Word. Blood on the Asphalt” said that he can write anytime, anywhere, and in any state — and once even edited text while standing on a cliff drunk. It seems we now know which film’s script this is about.

Europe, according to the film’s creators, is arranged in an interesting way. For Peter, it historically was a source of knowledge, technologies, and models for reorganizing the country, but today’s official patriotism needs Europe as a territory populated by freaks from whom one should turn away in disgust. So the Europeans on screen received the standard package from the creators: affectation, smugness, unreliability. Diplomacy has been turned into a costumed briefing: there are traitors everywhere. The familiar “if we hadn’t attacked, they would have attacked” is right there, like a rabbit pulled from a magician’s hat.

Allies are mainly useful for demonstrating how dangerous it is to trust allies.

And here he is, the main ally, who is also the traitor — Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa (Alexander Yatsko). Any competent historian will confirm that Mazepa was not a traitor — as a contractual vassal, he changed his suzerain when the latter failed to fulfill the terms of the agreement, as was the case with Peter, who was supposed to protect the Hetmanate from the Poles, as the treaty required. After Peter said, “I won’t give you even ten soldiers, defend yourselves”, Mazepa had no obligations to Peter left. But in the minds of film propagandists, any independence from Moscow is read as betrayal.

But that’s not what this is about now — now it’s about the nightmarish, maximally clichéd portrayal of Mazepa himself. Naturally, he is always frowning too. Only if Peter is forever scowling from awareness of the greatness of the future empire, then Ivan Stepanovich does so out of hatred for Rus’ and readiness for betrayal. But Mazepa was also allowed to smile once, or rather to smirk crookedly, so that everyone would understand what treacherous plans his traitorous little soul was hatching. His cynicism is off the charts — when Peter worries that much Russian blood will be shed, the hetman calmly reassures him: “Women will give birth!”

Humanism remains with the imperial center, while cynicism is kindly handed over to the Ukrainian hetman.

Moreover, the creators did not bother to teach the actor to pronounce in Ukrainian the few lines the script had prepared for him. “Palianytsia”, in which the hetman makes three mistakes, is simply devastating. If this Mazepa had run into a Ukrainian checkpoint in 2022, he would have been in serious trouble. In “The Birth of an Empire”, the hetman does not even speak surzhyk, but a wild mix of Russian and Ukrainian with an unknown dialect — stubbornly repeating “Malorossiya”, for example. Guys, this is a disgrace. Couldn’t they have set aside a modest sum for an editor out of more than 2 billion?! And while they were at it, let that editor teach Menshikov not to shout “oh my God!”

By the way, about Menshikov (Miloš Biković). Did you think he was some kind of statesman under Peter? You were fooled — he was a court jester. In the film, this courtier is needed mainly to dilute the ominous pathos. His relationship with Peter boils down to a simple scheme: messed up, repented, forgiven. Biković has become so attached to his role in “The Serf” that they decided to leave him with it.

But with the Swedish king, there was an ideological oversight: while Peter carries the full weight of state greatness on his face, Charles sometimes allows himself to be human. The Swedish king is the only one in the film who looks like a living person rather than a caricature, and he even got some character development, unlike all the other characters. If at the beginning he is simply a young arrogant monarch, a victor accustomed to military success and convinced that the Russian tsar is no match for him, by the end he reveals the traits of a real leader. This is due in no small part to 26-year-old Italian actor Mate Cabe, who, unlike the others, the seasoned ones (he is only starting his career), did not bother to stay within the bounds of the offered clichés. The rest of the Swedes and other Europeans have been generously treated with a remedy for removing historical half-tones.

To list the historical manipulations, one would have to write a small book. The main one is well known: we are forced, we are hindered, all that remains is to gather as one and win.

There is no military-political calculation here — it is dissolved in the sovereign’s righteous anger. Want a great empire? To hell with borders, blood, diplomacy: roll out the cannons and fire. We are always right. We have a historical mission, the enemy has a bad character. We have greatness, the rival has a corrupt nature. Russia’s natural form of existence is empire, and we can do it again. Soon it will be five years since they started doing it again, and women are still giving birth. There is no way to take pride in the present — so let’s prop up the past, and if it starts resisting, we’ll edit it for 2 billion and add it to the register of public services.

But now Kravchuk has made “The Birth of an Empire”, which declares submission a virtue, war of conquest a destiny, and another people’s desire to control their own fate a vile act and betrayal. All this garbage is packaged in an outrageously expensive historical wrapper and delivered on time to cannon fodder as a special state service — to satisfy the demand for imperial greatness.