BALLAD OF A SOLDIER [RUSSIAN: BALLADA O
SOLDATE] (1959)
Synopsis
Ballad of a Soldier is a Soviet war film directed by Grigori Chukhray and starring
Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko. Set during World War II, the film is
about the adventures of Alexei Skvortsov (Ivashov), a 19- year- old Red Army sol-
dier who travels home from the front on a six- day leave to re unite with his mother
and repair the roof of their homestead— his reward for knocking out two Nazi
panzers.
Background
Drafted into the Soviet Army in 1939, Grigor Chukhray (1921–2001) initially
served as a signalman with the 134th Rifle Division. Soon after Nazi Germany
invaded the USSR in the summer of 1941, Chukhray volunteered to join an air-
borne unit. Thereafter he participated in numerous battles, including the defense
of Sta lin grad. He was wounded four times, much decorated, and eventually pro-
moted to lieutenant. After the war, Chukhray studied filmmaking at the All- Union
State Institute of Cinematography (now known as the Gerasimov Institute) in Mos-
cow; joined the state studio, Mosfilm, in 1955; and made The Forty- First (1956), a
well- received film adaptation of Boris Lavrenyov’s 1926 anti- Stalinist novel.
Chukhray then drew on his own war experiences to co- write (with Valentin Yezhov)
and direct Ballad of a Soldier, his moving tribute to the estimated 8.7 million Soviet
soldiers killed in World War II.
Production
Chukhray originally wanted to make a film about the Battle of Sta lin grad but he
was unable to secure funding and the army’s help, so he sought to make Ballad of
a Soldier instead. When he presented his script to Alexander S. Federov, head of
production at the Cinematography Council, for state approval in 1957, Chukhray
met with a cool reception. The screenplay centered on the six- day leave of a young
soldier who goes home to repair the roof on the family homestead before return-
ing to the front. Federov found the story “trifling” and advised Chukhray not to
produce the film. Soon thereafter, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a
series of nationalistic speeches (collected and published on 28 August 1957 as
For Close Ties between Lit er a ture and Art and the Life of the People). In the words of
Chukhray himself, Khrushchev urged Soviet artists to make accessible patriotic