Television director : Fedor BONDARCHUK Screenplay : Nicola BADALUCCO, Robert BALCHUS Cinematography : Daniele NANNUZZI Music : Luis Enríquez-BACALOV Cast : Rupert EVERETT, Delphine FOREST, F. Murray ABRAHAM, Ben GAZZARA, Lorenzo AMATO
The action took place between 1912 and 1922 among the Cossacks of the Don. The Mélikhov family lives in the village of Tatarski. She understands Pénélieï, the father, her sons Grigori and Piotr, the wives of the latter, Natalia and Daria. Their life was peaceful but the First World War, the Revolution, then the civil war, will upset ancestral habits and traditions that nothing seemed to be able to disturb. In the village, all its classes represented from large owners to small employees. Passions and resentments are exacerbated, violence is expressed in fights in front of the enemy and in account settlements. Korchounov, the Koulak, is shot by the reds, his employee becomes an enthusiastic Bolshevik who wants to avenge the poor by exterminating the rich. Grigori disdained his wife, the good and sweet Natalia who is the daughter of Korchounov. He is passionately in love with the intrepid Aksinia who is always ready to follow him everywhere. He is a proud and courageous man: he does not hesitate to risk his life against the German enemy in 1914. Later he took the head of a squadron against the Red Army before ally with it against the Poles. Attached to the cosacher earth, Grigori refuses both Soviet power and the return to ancient order. To preserve the pride of the Cossacks, he surrounds himself with a band of companions determined to fight. For helping the counter-revolutionaries, he is hunted down and his family is decimated. Akssinia is killed by his side, his still alive fellow comedians are dispersed. Grigori returns to the village where he finds himself alone with his young son Michatka. The revolution has triumphed.
