53 years At War as at War

 On February 23, 1969 in the USSR the all-Union premiere of the movie "At War as at War" by Viktor Tregubovich took place. The premiere of the film was dedicated to the holiday, which at that time was called "Day of the Soviet Army and Navy."

Viktor Tregubovich’s film was based on the eponymous novel by Viktor Kurochkin, published in 1965 in the journal "Young Guard". The editorial office of the "Young Guard" became the fifth in a row where Viktor Kurochkin brought his story for publication. Before this, editorial offices of 4 journals refused to publish it. And this is not surprising: Kurochkin’s novel was a typical example of the so-called “lieutenant prose”. It was non-official name of the direction in Soviet military literature, whose representatives personally went through all the horrors of the war, saw all its realities, not from headquarters or newspaper editorial offices, but from the trenches on the front lines, being ordinary soldiers or junior officers. In their works, written from the heart, and not on the instructions of political and party organizers, there was no custom gloss and parade, cheers-patriotism, all that was called "varnishing of reality." The initiator of this trend was Victor Nekrasov. This direction also included Grigory Baklanov, Yuri Bondarev, Vasil Bykov, Konstantin Vorobyov, Vyacheslav Kondratiev.

Victor Kurochkin, who was born in the Tver region in 1923, ended up in Leningrad at the beginning of the war. In 1942, in an extremely exhausted state, he was evacuated from the besieged Leningrad to Yaroslavl, where he was treated for dystrophy for 2 months. Then, in an accelerated manner, he graduated from a tank school in Ulyanovsk and from June 1943 to January 1945 he fought on the fronts of World War II with the rank of lieutenant, commander of self-propelled guns. In January 1945, while crossing the Oder River, he was seriously injured.

After the war, having received a law degree, he worked as a judge, journalist, writer. In 1968 he was brutally beaten by the "valiant Soviet police." The beating resulted in a stroke and disability until the end of life in 1976.

The film was shot in the summer of 1968 near the border of the USSR with Czechoslovakia. This circumstance allowed the British company BBC to voice the assumption that the shooting of the film was conceived as an operation to cover the introduction of Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia, carried out on August 21, the 68th year. Well, not paranoia?

Victor Kurochkin in cameo role in the movie "At War as at War"

The film of Viktor Tregubovich is practically not known to the mass foreign cinema viewer. Confirmation of this is practically absent reviews on the film on the IMDB website. Of course, this fact can be explained by the reluctance of Western film distributors to allow Soviet war films to reach the western cinema viewer. But, apparently, this is not the only reason. In fairness, we note that in the USSR this film also did not receive the due and deserved attention: no prizes, no awards, no nominations for any festivals. Even the number of copies is not available. Yes, and the Soviet professional film critics produced almost no reviews. (However, the Russians also.) Perhaps the reason is the lack of pathos and praise for the "Communist party-organizer of all our victories". Perhaps the reason was the scandal caused by the brutal beating of the author of the script of the film by those who protect me. Who knows?

And all the more valuable is the review of the Spanish film critic Guillermo Sanchez Ferrer, who wrote: "At War as at War" (1968) is a famous Soviet war movie, which tells the story of a small group of soldiers in charge of a tank during the offensive in Ukraine in 1943. The film is directed by Viktor Tregubovich and we are faced with an imperishable piece of cinema, which no matter how many years go by it is still superior to other war movies that are currently releasing in Russia. Just putting this film next to Russian contemporary works such as "Tanks for Stalin" (2018) or "T-34" (2018) show us very clearly the difference in objectives that each cinema had and has." 

By the way, the film "T-34" is widely and unhindered presented in the Western film market. Those who determine which Russian-language films about the war are allowed to enter the Western cinema market, and which do not, are well aware that there is no more truth in this film than, say, in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds". It is no accident that one of the viewers after watching said: "I went to a film about the war, but got into fantasy." 

Reliable data on the number of viewers who watched the movie "At War as at War" in Soviet cinemas are missing. Only in the book of Fyodor Razzakov "The death of Soviet cinema" (not the most reliable source) is the figure 22 million. Quite possibly.

Be that as it may, 74% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users worldwide rated this film 8 to 10. And thanks to this indicator, the rating of the film, according to FilmGourmand version, was 8.246. That allowed it to take 452nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.