The huge work of Ivan Stadnyuk's “War” (unfortunately, not finished due to the death of the author) was transformed into the epic “War in the West” in 1990. The author of the script for the famous film "Maxim Perepelitsa" managed to reach his story only in the autumn of 1941. These were the worst pages of the history of World War II for our country.
The war began at dawn.
Unsuspecting residents of the then Land of Soviets woke up one of the next summer Sundays happy and calm.
But this day turned out to be a countdown of such a confrontation, which even in a nightmare would not be dreamed of. “On June 22, at exactly 4 a.m., Kiev was bombed, we were told that the war had begun” ... The words of a half-forgotten song return us to those June days when the very existence of the Slavic nation was at stake. Hitler for some reason did not particularly like the Slavs. Well, of course, gypsies and Jews. He wanted to wipe out these peoples from the face of the planet or to leave some of their particularly talented representatives for his special purposes. The war in the western direction began with the siege of the Brest Fortress. Some movement on the other side of the
Western Bug had long troubled the commanders, but they were told not to worry. Either the traitors did their part, and the command remained in pink dreams of the invincibility of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or simply no one thought of such an audacity of Adolf Hitler.
Summer of 1941
But the fact remains. And those who now, in our days, have been to the museum into which the territory of the Brest Fortress has been turned, have no illusions.
They either cry or think soberly about what the war in the western direction was like in the summer of 1941. Many who come here specifically to find the trail of their dead relatives who served on the then border receive comprehensive answers. What the series “War in the Western Direction” shows, a small film consisting of only 6 episodes, is only a small fraction of what the people and their soldiers experienced then. The main character in the film is the commander of the mechanized corps Fedor Chumakov. This is a collective image of several generals of that great era. The defeats of the summer of 1941 were not his fault, but primarily the commander-in-chief’s guilt, with whose name our soldiers died on the lips, and his staff, who did not believe that the Nazis could attack so treacherously and so suddenly.
Actors and roles
The role of Chumakov was played by Viktor Stepanov, who became famous for the image he created of the mature Mikhail Lomonosov in the eponymous saga. "War in the Western direction" was another milestone on the stellar path of this untimely deceased artist.
He played this image honestly, without too much bragging, honor and praise. Archil Gomiashvili embodied Joseph Stalin in the 1990 War in the West film. This actor was not lucky from the very beginning, he almost became a hostage to his starring role in the comedy "12 Chairs" by Gaidai. Just as Alexander Demyanenko once became Shurik forever and ever, so Gomiashvili was almost forever a great con artist Ostap Bender. It’s great that the authors of the mini-series “War in the Western Direction” gave the performer the opportunity to become this mustachioed “father of peoples”. In other roles, no less eminent Mikhail Ulyanov, Nikolai Zasukhin and
Andrei Tolubeev were engaged
.