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Acknowledgements: This study was carried out at IWL RAS with a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 23-18-00303 (https://rscf. ru/project/23-18-00303/).

Abstract:

The article reflects the initial stage of shooting the first episode of Peter the Great movie, which laid the conceptual foundation for the historical image of Emperor Peter I in the Soviet cinema. The obstacles the movie crew overcame to successfully release the film are emphasized: firstly, unrealistic deadlines for the completed work delivery, secondly, institutional changes in the State Administration of Cinematography that affected the order of script control and censorship, thirdly, production difficulties at Lenfilm. A comparative analysis of two scenarios for the movie (May and July 1935) allowed us to draw a parallel between the edits of literary texts about Peter the Great and the script. Shifting the emphasis in the script, A.N. Tolstoy reinforced Peter’s social loneliness in his noble environment, his attempt to rely on the merchant class, the similarity of the tasks of the Petrine era and Soviet modernity. The motives of strengthening Old Believers and the image of unpreparedness of the Russian army for the first battles of the Northern War, which were removed from the latest version of the script, turned out to be undesirable.