Some notes
by Alan Kimball
for KIMBALL FILES
on the
Stalin-era movie
D: Vladimir Petrov [after Alexei Tolstoy novel]. 203m (parts one and two)
Nikolai Shcherbachov, music
Table of Contents =
Characters
General Considerations: the novel and the making of the
movie
Part one: Completed in 1937
Part two: Completed in 1939
General considerations
Modern viewers should be cautioned that the film sometimes seems a comic opera.
Casting of
cliché types, design of costumes, and slap-stick routines contribute to
this impression.
However, the production values are remarkable in the context of the late 1930s.
Hollywood too took up the theme of swashbuckling derring-do, and these films
were popular in the USSR.
PART ONE
Scene one (of about 26 scenes in part one)
*--Film opens with Baltic wars between Russia and Sweden.
*--The Battle of Narva is confused and at night. Russia is defeated and humiliated.
*--Peter and Menshikov assess the damage: Maybe a good thing to be taught a tough
lesson.
*--But Russia needs money and artillery.
*--Where will Russia get cannons? Behind the sound of this question one hears the
tinkling of church bells.
Scene two
Church scene predicts Peter’s anti-church attitudes. Opens
with monks gathered around tsarevich Aleksei
*--Peter chases “mad monks†from around son Aleksei, ordering them to contribute
money and manpower to the battle
*--Peter upbraids Aleksei for failing to prepare defense of Novgorod (e.g.,
"fosses" or defensive ditches) as Swedes advance.
*--Notice that the messenger addresses tsar Peter as "Mr. Bombardier", the lowly
rank that Peter so often preferred.
*--Strong leader will soon mobilize the church and melt down bells for something useful.
Scene three
Old aristocratic elite resisted Peter. Members of the Boyar
Duma won’t give 2 million rubles.
*--Boyars—bickering about noble precedence [mestnichestvo]. Who is more
well-born than the next.
*--Boyars have a good laugh about Menshikov's humble origins as a pie-salesboy in
the Foreign Quarter
*--Learn to fight and learn to work. Peter is not tsar of
parasites, beggars or fugitives.
*--Nobleman Buinosov says to Peter, ruin us and then who will you rule—peasants and
merchants?
*--Peter does not hesitate to invite rich merchants into this assembly.
*--We meet Demidov, the industrialist, and Shafirov
(who serves as translator for English merchants)
*--He's shaking them all down for money to support his wars.
Scene four
Buinosov's great old log house with its primitive flax, linen manufacturing.
*--In Russian tradition, animals, in this case geese, are inside with the people.
*--Buinosov annoyed that the smell of coffee, which Peter ordered all to drink,
stinks up his house.
*--This the first clear sign that Peter intends to change personal habits of
Russian elites.
*--Buinosov refuses coffee (and we see a beautiful, luxurious traditional ceramic
stove [space heater] in the background)
*--Menshikov arrives to extract money and provisions from Buinosov, according to
Peter's dictate.
*--“Auf Wiedersehenâ€, he says to Buinosov and his daughters as he departs.
*--Walking past group of Buinosov serfs about to be whipped, Menshikov suggests to
strapping Fedka that he join the Dragoons
Scene five
Crowds in great poverty gather in church courtyard,
*--Tsarevich Aleksei cries as bells are about to be removed to make artillery.
Church music in background.
*--Medieval, enraged peasants, perhaps retarded or deranged, appeal to Aleksei.
*--Aleksei's character symbolized by his thin stringy hair.
*--The peasants are inchoate festering scum, crawling to the window to appeal to
Aleksei.
*--They are confident he will crush the anti-Christ Peter I who had come
back from Europe pretending to be
authentic Peter
*--A great bell drops from its tower and breaks at the feet of the enraged mob
Scene six
The military is a very different story, a fundamental
contrast with primitive peasantry.
*--Soldiers are peasants “mobilizedâ€, organized for the future. Peter personally
works in the recruitment hall.
*--When peasants take off their rags, the serf identity sheds off their backs
(though Fedka keeps his crucifix).
*--When peasants take on the uniform of a powerful state, they gain dignity and
become praiseworthy.
*--There follows manly wrestling. Fedka throws Peter I himself. Peter admires his
strength and prowess.
*--Soldiers compete to become dragoons, to join Peter's own original Preobrazhensky guards.
Scene seven
Peter joins Field Marshall Sheremetev,
The siege of a Swedish fortress on the Gulf of Finland is stymied.
*--Peter is impatient and urges quick action.
*--Foreign experts caution Peter, quoting European military experts, but Peter disdains foreign
finesse.
*--He overloads cannon in a manly Russian way.
*--We see clear sign of Peter's manic intensity and perhaps feel a bit
uncomfortable with it..
*--Battle appears to be lost, but when Menshikov promises wine and women, real Russian manly men
rally.
*--They respond with manly whistling and many manly hurrahs.
Scene eight
Night. The battle has been won. Folk songs fill the air, and, sure enough,
there are wine and
women.
*--Sheremetev inspects battlefield, expresses contempt for soldiers' drinking,
looting, raping.
*--But he then sees Katerina struggling with the sturdy peasant Fedka. Sheremetev takes her away
to his tent.
*--Fedka resists and is arrested, to be sent to labor punishment brigade.
Scene nine
Katerina works for Sheremetev as a scullery maid.
Three-stringed Balalaika music fills the night.
*--Menshikov takes her from the Field Marshal. What a guy.
Scene ten
Now we see Peter with his face to the sea, a famous pose.
He looks out over the Gulf of Finland toward Finland.
*--He will found a future great capital, Saint Petersburg.
*--We hear it pronounced in its non-Slavic form: “Piterburkhâ€. The final "g" in
"burg" is aspirated
in the Dutch fashion.
*--Menshikov will be the mayor of this new metropolis.
*--Tsarevich Aleksei stands glumly in the quiet surf of the Gulf.
Scene eleven
Princes and boyars disapprove of this new capital, and seem
out of place among the skilled peasant dock builders.
*--Peasants die working in the swamps of St. Petersburg.
*--Fedka's punishment brigade is there. Demidov sees him and decides he would like
to buy him for his Ural mines.
Scene twelve
Peter works as a foundry apprentice to make an anchor. The foreman scolds him
Scene thirteen
Here come Moscow boyars from the old capital Moscow.
*--This erstwhile political elite symbolizes dysfunctional medieval ways.
*--Their long-sleeved gowns contrast with busy modern construction.
*--Yet boyars too get snared in all the busy work inaugurated by Peter.
*--(Like rascally peasants, effete aristocrats can also be mobilized to good
effect.)
Scene fourteen
Peter at the foundry again. He receives visit from boyars.
He invites them to a dance a Menshikov's place
*--They must all be in western dress.
He cuts Buinosov's beard.
Dress and grooming regulations will be
enforced
Scene fifteen
Peter discovers Menshikov’s bad cloth and rushes off to
confront him personally.
*--Menshikov has been drinking too much, but Katerina, now his
housekeeper ["ekonomka"], takes tender care of him.
*--Menshikov has become a corrupt military procurement millionaire, taking big
government contracts, worth millions, then delivering shoddy, cheap
goods.
Peter arrives in great violent anger and beats up Menshikov.
*--Then Peter falls for Katerina.
Scene sixteen
Menshikov's "riot" (dancing party; ball) attended by Russians dressed as “westernersâ€.
*--Many European merchants in attendance. Dutch shipbuilders seek Russian
contracts.
*--Peter (as the head businessman of Russia) makes deals to sell Russian timber to
build English masts.
*--Peter pulls tools from his tunic to pry open a window to freshen a stuffy room.
The wind blows wigs off guests.
*--Danish
ambassador announces that Peter has just opened a window on Europe. Peter grins
wildly, his hair blowing.
*--A courier arrives to announce that floods threaten St. Petersburg, but
Peter is like a fabled “party-animalâ€.
*--Revelers dance in the windy hall, hair and clothes whipped by the rising storm.
*--Aleksei scowls.
Scene seventeen
Menshikov's party winds down. Peasants sing at a corner
table.
*--Peter moves in on Katerina. Menshikov is not happy. He overfills Peter’s glass
in a familiar splashing gesture.
*--Peter asks Katerina to see him to his bed.
*--Menshikov is hurt, but he bargains with Demidov and allows him to purchase
workers for his Urals mines.
*--Katerina returns and slaps Menshikov, but the drunken revelers acknowledge her
new status. They flock to admire her.
*--Tsarevich Aleksei shouts "bitch" [suka].
*--[Aleksei is son by Peter's first wife who now languishes in a monastery.
He senses the dynastic implications of Katerina's new status.]
Scene eighteen
Flood. Workers rebel. Katerina awakens Peter.
*--Aleksei and his associates glory in God's judgment against St. Petersburg.
Peter, in a fine boat, goes to the rescue.
*--A drowned young girl is taken from the flood.
Scene nineteen
Peter's venture into the flood has made him sick.
Aleksei comes to Peter. Notice ship model above bed.
*--Does Aleksei seem to gain character in Peter’s presence, like
everyone else? Does he simply hope his father will die?
*--Aleksei crosses himself and leaves.
Scene twenty
At door of church, Aleksei attracts a crowd, all confusedly
concerned about their tsar Peter's health.
*--Aleksei's provocateurs, a clutch of scheming old long-beards, chase the rabble
away
Scene twenty-one
Aleksei brings "good news" to
Yevrosiniia. "What joy", he says.
*--He lists reactionary possibilities [proposed by long-beards] = Move throne back
to Moscow, overturn Peter I.
*--Just then Menshikov arrives to say Peter is much better and wishes to see
Aleksei
Scene twenty-two
Peter opens a window again [the scene appears to be set in
his simple Summer Garden palace]
*--Katerina asks him to close
the window. "This is no time to die". Peter needs fresh air.
*--In slinks Aleksei, assuming a
pose made famous in a painting by a Russian nineteenth-century artist Nikolai Nikolai Ge.
*--Peter interrogates his son [does he say in German "Sohn" or in Dutch "zoon"].
Aleksei sobs feebly. Peter is almost sympathetic.
*--"Syn moi" [my son] he says, now clearly in Russian. Forgive me for bringing
suffering to the people, BUT HELP ME.
*--Aleksei does not respond to this appeal. He asks to go abroad instead, to become
an exile, an émigré.
*--Peter loses his composure, again showing an explosive and potentially monstrous
side.
*--"Run away!?" Either accept the painful challenge or go to a monastery
*--Katerina sends Aleksei away. She puts Peter's hand to her stomach. She's
pregnant. Another heir was in the offing.
Scene twenty-three
Peter is the instructor at his school for naval navigation.
He smokes his long Dutch clay pipe.
*--Buinosov's son is a student back from Amsterdam. He is all decked out in wig
and very fine European attire.
*--But that superficial "Westernization" is not enough. Furthermore, he spent too much time
in taverns.
*--His servant, Abdurakhman, actually learned much more than he.
*--Peter recognizes all this. "Well, you son-of-a-bitch", he says of Abudrakhman
and forthwith makes him a naval officer.
*--Buinosov's son will serve as a sailor under Aburakhman's command
Scene twenty-four
*--Aleksei in bed with Yevrosiniia receives a message from his long-beard
conspirators that Katerina has given birth to a son, in other words, a potential heir to the
throne.
*--Aleksei sobs. The couple plans to go to Rome. Aleksei suggests they murder Peter.
Scene twenty-five
Feast with baby. Peter recapitulates the main themes of the
film.
*--Peter reminds Menshikov of the gloom after Narva. Then the
question was whether Russia would prevail.
*--Now we have all this. Peter kisses the baby's rump and proposes a toast to the
new General-Admiral.
Scene twenty-six
Demidov takes possession of criminals he purchased through
Menshikov, Fedka among them.
*--Dark clouds still cover the horizon = Aleksei flees by closed carriage into the
black of night..
PART ONE ENDS.
PETER THE FIRST
(VT480) D: Vladimir Petrov [after Alexei Tolstoy novel]. 203m
Part one: 1937
*--Part two: 1939
PART TWO
Scene one
We hear music, faulty trumpet and drums, smoke fills the
air.
*--1709je27:Poltava battle, unlike
Narva at the beginning of
part one, takes place in daylight and in summer.
*--Now not confused skirmishes but a massive clash of disciplined national military forces.
*--Peter says the fight is not for Peter but for the state [gosudarstvo] and for the
fatherland [otechestvo].
*--Charles XII of Sweden (who seems to be suffering from gout) says the fight is
for God and King.
*--Russia prevails. Peter wipes his forehead. Tough work, but someone’s got to
do it.
*--Swedish commanders are humiliated captives, but Peter embraces them and
shows mercy = He returns their swords.
*--Peter greets the troops and gives credit where credit is due.
Scene two
Zaporozhian cossacks ally with Sweden. Charles XII, a young
but dignified king, is hiding out in a cossack hut at night.
*--Mazeppa advises Swedish King Charles XII about Aleksei = “snake in the grass†(even
his friends say this).
*--Mazeppa advises Charles to cooperate with Aleksei and his co-conspirators, to
assassinate Peter.
*--Charles refuses = I'm a king, not a murderer.
*--Charles will go to Constantinople where he expects to be put in command of a
new, Turkish army against Peter.
*--The alarm sounds. "The Muscovites are coming!" All flee into the night.
Scene three
Dinner. Foreigners are flaky and/or syrupy academics. They
will found a Russian Academy of
Sciences and explore Asia.
*--Peter reacts in a rage. So, you would turn Russia's attention to the East,
divert us from the West?
*--You would have us pave the road to the Orient with Russian bones for the ease of
German passage there?
*--Katerina calms him. He turns the subject to drinking, but approves the idea of
the Academy.
*--A dispatch interrupts the dinner. Peter learns that Demidov is a thief.
*--By implication, Peter sought to protect workers from abuse.
*--Peter sends Yaguzhinskii to the Urals to
investigate.
Scene four
The scene shifts to Ural
Mountains and the Nev'ianskii factory there. We meet Fedka again, surrounded by
worker-comrades.
*--They want him to tell more about when he and Katerina were together "under a
wagon" for several days after Narva.
*--Fedka says she's a woman like any other woman. They taunt him = Why, you must be
a kinsman of tsar Peter?
*--[The film lampoons aristocracy and cleverly extends the genealogical complexity
of Peter's story by suggesting this relation.]
*--Demidov sends his foreman to hide all the illegally purchased workers in the
basement in anticipation of Yaguzhinskii's arrival.
*--Yaguzhinskii is certain that Demidov is hiding these workers, but Demidov claims
the basement cannot be inspected because the sluices broke and the basement
flooded. Yaguzhinskii walks away, and Demidov orders his foreman to open the
sluices, thus bringing actuality into line with his lie and, in the process,
drowning nearly all workers hidden below.
*--The foreman reluctantly obeys Demidov, crossing himself. [What is a man to do to
keep his job?]
*--Fedka and a few others escape. All workers are enraged when they learn of
Demidov's act. They rise up in rebellion.
Scene five
Rebelling workers attack Demidov's fine house where
Yaguzhinskii is dining.
*--Yaguzhinskii takes command of the regiment sent with him and orders the rebels
to disperse.
*--Among the rebels was an old-timer who appealed to the soldiers not to shoot
their "brothers". [The rebellious cause was thus extended from workers
to soldiers, and represented a tradition.] The old-timer
claimed to have been kissed by Stepan Razin.
*--Troop discipline finally holds, however, and they
fire. [Has the military-servitor virtues of Yaguzhinskii trumped the
revolutionary virtues of the workers?]
*--Some rebels escape (first from flood, now from fire), having received weapons
and horses from sympathetic troops.
*--They ride through the Siberian woods, out into the open Ural foothills to
freedom, to the wild cossack steppes.
Scene six
Peter's office is something of a workshop. He is busy with
a lathe as various official business is conducted.
*--Yaguzhinskii reports to Peter about
instances of corruption connected with Demidov's enterprises
*--Yaguzhinskii directly implicates Menshikov who stands nervously at Yaguzhinskii's side throughout the report.
*--Peter sends an expedition to the far
eastern edges of Siberia to discover whether Asia and America are linked.
*--He orders the construction of the Ladoga
Lake canal, with the aim to open the sea route from the Baltic and down the
Volga.
*--Fiddling with his clay pipe, Peter turns his anger on Menshikov, but the old
friendship holds.
*--Tolstoy arrives to report that Europe is upset with
Russia. Peter is tickled to hear the phrase "upset with Russia".
*--Europeans are plotting against Russian successes, and Aleksei in Naples exile
has become a pawn in this big game. (Aleksei's affection for the old ways now
both a domestic and international threat to Peter.)
*--Peter twitches in a way we have been growing to dread. All that power, and it
might erupt at any moment.
Scene seven
Russian merchants complain = they cannot handle foreign
merchants on their own.
*--Peter sets off for the tavern with this problem in mind.
*--Note the facade of the tavern with the fresco of a fine ship above the door and
a heart carved in the door itself.
*--Mercy, how drunk that pilot is! [A pilot is a sailor familiar with the local
port who takes the helm of
an arriving ship as it comes into harbor.]
*--Peter attended the Christening of the pilot's child a day or so earlier, and the
pilot is still drunk.
*--Peter confronts the foreign merchants sitting in one corner, drinking, smoking
Dutch pipes, gaming with dice
*--He’s a tough bargainer. Russian merchants may not be up to the task, yet, but
Peter is.
*--The foreigners balk, so Peter turns to the peasant Brovkin and makes him a
powerful merchant with a simple wave of the tsarist hand. Of course there is
also the hefty state subvention, the "start up fund" or "venture capital" out of
state coffers. [Demidov has proven a disappointment, but Peter moves ahead to
elevate Brovkin, always trustful of his narod.]
*--Peter asks that Brovkin divulge his fathers name, thus to attach it as his
second name, the Russian "patronymic", in old times a sign of aristocratic
family origins. Like the terms "Mister" or "Mistress" in English-language
cultures, the patronymic has become standard for all Russians in our time. Peter
was Petr Alekseevich Romanov (Peter, son of Aleksei, of the Romanov family).
*--Foreigners hop to their feet, but it is too late. Brovkin, rather than they,
will fill this commercial need. Foreigners are no longer needed. How sweet this turn of events. Brovkin makes a rude gesture.
*--A courier informs Peter that a foreign ship with an important ambassador needs
the pilot.
*--But the pilot is smashed. What to do? Peter strips the pilot's windbreaker, puts
it on, and
bolts for the door.
Scene eight
Now we see what a fine pilot Peter is, an accomplished
sailor.
*--Peter has the foreign sailors clambering up the sheets, even though they are
ignorant of the Russian language.
*--With alarm, the ambassador and his assistant study the well fortified Kronstadt
Island on the sea approaches to St. Petersburg.
*--Peter, performing the pilot's duties, overhears the arrogant and threatening
talk of the Ambassador and his assistant.
*--Leibnitz has an opinion about Russia = their desire for European culture is
unnatural, a crime against nature.
*--The ambassador foolishly lays out the whole plan to block Russia in its desire
to join the global sea routes and world trade.
*--As he disembarks, the ambassador tips Peter a few guilders, a moment of great
irony and future embarrassment.
Scene nine
Good laugh at expense of European refinement. The
ambassador is made to wait in the reception line for the tsar to appear.
*--He notices a tall fellow laughing with friends (Menshikov, for one) in the
corner and remarks how much he looks like their pilot.
*--When the ambassador discovers the truth, he is much embarrassed.
*--Peter explains how he has “regained our Baltic landsâ€. He takes the ambassador
to an open window to show his huge navy, firing salutes in a great display of
power. The ambassador is humbled. Peter grins.
Scene ten
Reception continues. Peter challenges the ambassador = we
can fight or trade. Don't bully us.
*--Peter puts ambassador in difficult position [famous in the annals of Russian
diplomacy], handing him a gigantic and potent drink, proposing a toast, drink to
the bottom, of course, in honor of the ambassador's monarch. The ambassador
cannot refuse.
*--Note the black man at the table, very possibly representing A. P. Hannibal,
Peter's servant from Africa (Arap Petra Velikogo) and the great-grandfather of
Russia's greatest writer, Aleksandr
Pushkin. This seating arrangement also discomfits the stuffy "Western"
ambassador.
Scene eleven
In Naples, Aleksei dispatches conspiratorial letters to
various of his allies, including foreign governments.
*--He mentions Buinosov and England, among others. He has become an émigré
conspirator.
*--Italian fruit looked luscious to Yevrosiniia, but was tasteless. [Western fruits
are deceptive.]
*--Tolstoy arrives, but Aleksei flees the room in a disordered scramble.
*--Tolstoy wheedles and threatens Yevrosiniia before the awesome Italian fireplace.
She spills much useful information.
Scene twelve
Later that night, Yevrosiniia and Aleksei argue.
He strikes her and calls her "bitch".
*--She misses the gooseberry blossoms and playing on the swings at home.
*--Aleksei doesn't know what he misses. Yevrosiniia threatens to leave him
*--She coaxes him into an agreement to return to Russia with Tolstoy.
Scene thirteen
Aleksei and Yevrosiniia return to Russia with Tolstoy in a
cushioned carriage. A frontier guard checks their passports at the Russian border
*--In an ambiguous gesture, Aleksei tries to engage the border guard in
conversation, to no avail.
Scene fourteen
Peter greets Aleksei with feeling.
*--Peter is willing to let Aleksei live in Moscow and live the life he wishes, but
hopes or even expects that Aleksei will not do that.
*--Peter explains how evil forces latch onto a person like Aleksei. His analogy is
to the false Dmitries in the Time of Troubles
Scene fifteen
Aleksei appears in a Moscow church. He opposes the
teaching of mathematics.
*--Expressing disgust with German sausages, the conspirators nonetheless eat them. These old-timers
are mendacious.
*--Aleksei learns that Yevrosiniia has been arrested by the Secret Chancery and
fears she was put on racks.
*--Events force Aleksei firmly into the camp of old boyars.
*--He arouses the cossacks with an edict. Church Music in the background.
*--The Muscovite conspirators are not ready to put tsar Aleksei Petrovich on the
throne.
Scene sixteen
Cossack village with dancing and whistling, sunny and warm
atmosphere. We see that Fedka is the cossack hetman [ataman] here.
*--Fedka's old master, Buinosov, arrives to recruit the
cossacks into the plot against Peter. The Prince is surprised to see Fedka, but
quickly condescends to "forgive him".
*--Fedka says he will not forgive Buinosov and prepares to give him a caning just
as Buinosov so often caned his serfs.
*--Instead, he drags Buinosov before the whole cossack village and asks them to
decide.
*--He explains that Buinosov offers them for their service forgiveness for past
obligations to their masters, the nobility.
*--Fedka adds that this may not include forgiveness for future obligations.
*--Cossacks have a good laugh and drag Buinosov out of the village for some well
deserved roughhouse.
Scene seventeen
Back to Moscow, Aleksei is arrested and taken to the Admiralty Tower and questioned.
Scene eighteen
Long pauses in interrogation as Yevrosiniia was brought in to testify: “Tell the
truthâ€, says Tolstoy. She tells all.
*--Aleksei is all weakness, sitting beside Peter, who is all strength. Peter casts
a sharp shadow, Aleksei, none.
*--Peter is hesitant to accept Aleksei's guilt until he refuses to name his
co-conspirators. The torture begins.
Scene nineteen
Peter’s Senate (over twenty in number) gathers at a round
table hear an address from Peter, standing =.
*--Europe wants to force the great empire Russia back to the days of scattered
principalities and voevody.
*--Aleksei wants this too; boyars and priests will support him in this to extend
their parasitic lives.
*--The Senate must decide Aleksei's fate [and thus the fate of Russia].
Scene twenty
Peter with Katerina. Peter laments: “my son [syn moi]â€.
He is flesh of my flesh, yet a snake in the grass.
*--Peter needs another window open. He hints at
failing health, “Katya, it’s stuffy in here“ [Katia, dushno!].
Scene twenty-one
Menshikov questions Senators. Sheremetev, Tolstoy, Yaguzhinskii, and others; the Senate unanimously passes a death sentence on Aleksei. [NB! suggestion of formal legal procedures, a noteworthy idea in the era in which the film was made.]
Scene twenty-two
Peter's last visit to his pitiable son. The feelings of a father are subordinated to the ideals of a visionary leader.
Scene twenty-three
England sends ships into the Baltic in apparent support of
the Swedish fleet, but Russia responds.
*--Russian sailors are urged not to spare their lives in defense of their country.
Scene twenty-four
The English commander draws back from the battle after determining that Russia will likely win. [The English cannot be trusted, but they do understand the meaning of preponderant power and will act with practicality.]
Scene twenty-five
Much high seas derring-do follows. Abdurakhman plays an active role in this victory. Swedish ships are forced to self-destruct, but Russian sailors prevent this. Abdurakhman accepts the sword and surrender of the ultra-European, blond, Swedish commander. Abdurakhman salutes his fallen enemy with great dignity. [A commoner, a foreigner at that, is as capable of nobility as any well-born commander.]
Scene twenty-six
The English commander gets the news of the Russian victory
and high-tails it.
*--[The general manner (e.g., constant drinking) of the English commander might be a
portrayal of Winston Churchill.
*--At this time Churchill was known for his role as English Admiralty Lord. He
would become Prime Minister and, however reluctantly, ally of the Soviet Union
in World War Two.]
Scene twenty-seven
The war is then over. Now there will be eternal peace.
*--Menshikov is a pie-man again, offering pirozhki to Peter and the jubilant
throng.
Scene twenty-eight
Peter hugs Abdurakhman as victorious navy comes to the docks. The throng grows suddenly silent =
Scene twenty-nine
Peter delivers a speech in which he admits that he has been severe, but
he tells his
audience, it was all for your sake.
*--Peter implores Russia [and the film audience as well] to guard and augment the
nation’s wealth.
FINI