Respublika SHKID
(1966)
AKA: The Republic of SHKID
Country: Soviet Union
Genre: Drama
Synopsis
In the St. Petersburg of the 1920s, homeless boys on the streets are rounded up and sent to the Dostoevsky School (Shkola imeni Dostoevskogo, or ShkID for short). The head of the institution is the wise educationalist Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin - or 'Vikniksor', as he is called by the boys, an abbreviation formed from the first syllable of each of his names, very much in accord with the fashion of the times. 'Vikniksor' tries a new approach to dealing with his unruly charges: rather than treat them as simply delinquents in need of re-education, he decides to endow them with responsibility and trust, and to this end he forms the school into a 'republic', run by the boys themselves...
Notes
- Based on the classic 1927 autobiographical novel of the same name by L. Panteleyev and Grigori Belykh (a novel which, in 2013, was included in a list of '100 Books for Schoolchildren' recommended by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science).
- Panteleyev, who co-authored the novel, also wrote the screenplay for this film, though he later expressed some disappointment over the result. The novel is based on the authors' own boyhood experience of the actual 'SHKID' school, where, says Panteleyev, "school theft, card games, and usury flourished. There were violent fights. Not for a moment did the war between 'SHKID' members and the 'Chaldeans' [teaching staff] abate. But there was something else ... We also read a lot with enthusiasm. Learned foreign languages. Wrote poems. There was a time when in our tiny republic of sixty people about sixty newspapers and magazines were released ... a museum existed. There was a theatre where 'Boris Godunov' and contemporary revolutionary plays were staged. None of this (or almost nothing) is depicted in the film. ... [the] life of SHKID on the screen looks poorer and rougher than it actually was."
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- English
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Cast
- Sergei Yursky
(Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin, AKA Vikniksor) - Julia Burygin
(Ella Andreevna Lyumberg, AKA Elanlyum) - Pavel Luspekayev
(Konstantin Aleksandrovich Mednikov, AKA Kostalmed) - Alexander Melnikov
(Alexander Nikolaevich Popov, AKA Alnikpop) - Anatoly Pillars
(Pavel Ivanovich Arikov, AKA Palvan) - Titova Vera
(Martha) - Leo Weinstein
(Grigori Chernykh, AKA Yankel) - Anatoli Podshivalov
(Nikolai Gromonostsev, AKA Gypsy) - Victor Perevalov
(Goga) - Aleksandr Kavalerov
(Kostya Fedotov, AKA Mummy)
BoyActors Reviews
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Page Last Modified: 13th October 2017
Page Added: 27th June 2010
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This is a completely wonderful movie. I'm just in awe at how good it is. The story of the institute for juvenile offenders and homeless boys is told in a sequence of segments, with wonderful and believable characters, such as the one-eyed 'Mummy' (Aleksandr Kavalerov). It is an anti-authoritarian movie, as well (made at the tail end of 'The Thaw', roughly 1954-66), suggesting that the only way of making useful citizens out of people is to allow them to govern themselves. To give the movie anything less than 10 out of 10 would seem churlish. Also highly recommended, from the same period of Soviet cinema, "Welcome, or No Trespassing" (1964), with a similarly anti-authoritarian message.