The Fall Of Berlin

Mikheil Chiaureli’s The Fall of Berlin was released in the Soviet Union in 1949, just under five years after the end of the Second World War. Like both of the other films reviewed for the purposes of this analysis, the setting for the film is the entirety of the Second World War. The film, which was released in the Soviet Union as a two part epic, with each part spanning around seventy-five minutes, starts the viewer off with the story of the two romantic leads of the film, Natasha, a school teacher, and Alyosha, a steel worker, as they meet thanks to Alyosha’s great accomplishments in his profession and acting as a exemplar of steel workers, having greatly surpassed the quota for production. Alyosha is then honored for his work, similar to

The film quickly drops its main characters for a focus on Stalin himself and his achievements. What is depicted here is the understanding that Stalin himself was not only the most important factor in the defeat of the Germans in the Second World War, but also that he alone made all of this possible. Stalin is painted as an ethereal, almost Christ-like figure, as one character states on the warfront: “Stalin is always with us,” of course he is speaking in spirit, but the use of this phrase indicates that the film treats Stalin as some sort of perfect, all-knowing being, where he is aware of all that goes on, he is a master strategist, as “everywhere are manifestations of Stalin’s genius, Stalin’s wisdom, Stalin’s goodness and solicitude” (Babitsky, 194). The ending of the film is perhaps the most historically inaccurate part of the film, as Stalin did not go to Berlin historically, and even if he did, “it was common knowledge that Stalin was mortally afraid of showing himself among the people and was always carefully guarded from crowds” (Babitsky, 195). Stalin in this film is depicted as the “war-hero-in-chief” (Youngblood, 96). It is with this film that “Chiaureli created the first true epic about the war, with Stalin as epic hero,” and as such created a historical understanding of the Second World War that depicts the triumph of Stalin as the sole hero of the War, and the Soviet Union the true victors, without the help of the other countries fighting against the Germans (Youngblood, 97). The historical narrative of the Second World War idolizes Stalin, and embellishes and fantasizes his role in the Soviet war