The Battle of Kerzhenets

Written byIvan Ivanov-VanoProduced bySoyuzmultfilmMusic byRimsky-Korsakov10 min 12 secCountryUSSRLanguageRussian

The Battle of Kerzhenets (Russian: Се́ча при Ке́рженце; tr.: Secha pri Kerzhentse) is a 1971 Soviet animated film directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Yuri Norstein. The film is set to music by Rimsky-Korsakov and uses Russian frescoes and paintings from the 14th–16th centuries. These are animated using 2-dimensional stop motion animation.

Plot

The story is based on the legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh (made into a 4-act opera by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1907), which disappears under the waters of a lake to escape an attack by the Mongols. (Russia was under the Mongol-Tartar yoke for a period of three centuries in the Middle Ages.)

The film itself follows the legend only loosely, however, and its highpoint is a battle between the Russian soldiers and the Mongol hordes, symbolizing a clash of cultures (the Virgin Mary appears early in the film, in effect watching over the Russian side of the battle).

Awards

• 1971—Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: Prize for Best Animated Film
• 1972—Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films: Grand Prize
• 1972—Tbilisi: Prize for Best Animated Film
• 1972—Bombay Film Festival: "Diplom"

Creators

Role	Name
Directors	Yuri Norstein (Юрий Норштейн) Ivan Ivanov-Vano (Иван Иванов-Вано)
Writer	Ivan Ivanov-Vano (Иван Иванов-Вано)
Art directors	Marina Sokolova (Марина Соколова) Arkadiy Tyurin (Аркадий Тюрин)
Animators	Yuri Norstein (Юрий Норштейн) Aleksandr Rozhkov (Александр Рожков) Boris Saavin (Борис Савин) Vyacheslav Shilobreyev (Вячеслав Шилобреев)
Camera operator	Vladimir Saruhanov (Владимир Саруханов)
Composer	Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Николай Андреевич Римский-Корсаков)
Sound operator	Boris Filchikov (Борис Фильчиков)

See also

• History of Russian animation
• List of stop-motion films

External links

• The Battle of Kerzhenets at IMDb
• The Battle of Kerzhenets at the Animator.ru (English and Russian)