THE YOUTH OF MAXIM

After the main film: VSTRECHA S MAKSIMOM / A MEETING WITH MAXIM (dir. Sergey Gerasimov, USSR 1941, 9 min.)

The birth of a cult figure: Maxim, a simple working-class boy who matures into a professional revolutionary. The completed human being who was once stumped by difficult words but now writes Bolshevik pamphlets. Often viewed as Kozintsev and Trauberg’s enforced move from FEKS to Social Realism, but in fact the pair do more: they create vast expanses and depths in which the new realities of day-to-day revolutionary life could unfold in detail. By 1941, Maxim was a figure authentic enough to call on the Russians to fight against the Germans without losing credibility.