In the early 20th century, Russia underwent a series of drastic and devastating changes. After centuries of imperial rule, the 1917 Russian Revolution put an end to the Romanov dynasty and hailed the start of a new era under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, head of the Bolshevik Party. This government body eventually became known as the Communist Party, and Russia was dubbed the Union of Soviet Social Republicans, or the U.S.S.R.
In 1927, everything changed again. Lenin died that year, and a new leader maneuvered into power: Joseph Stalin. Fundamentally a dictator, Stalin ruled through terror and used violence and oppressive tactics to instill a government-controlled society. His approach essentially defines totalitarianism, in which the state asserts absolute dominance over every aspect of people’s lives and livelihoods.
In 1937, 10 years into the Stalinist period, the short film “Father’s Letters” opens. Written and directed by Alexey Evstigneev, the animation traces a narrative of correspondence between a real-life father, Professor Vangengheim, and his daughter Eleonora, who he calls Elya.
Vangengheim was a weather forecaster for Stalin, and he headed up the U.S.S.R.’s meteorology department—a role that had great implications for the success of socialist agriculture practices. When a ruinous famine hit between 1932 and 1933, Vangengheim was scapegoated with a claim that he had falsified weather forecasts to sabotage the crops. In January 1934, he was arrested and transported to the remote Solovetsky Islands, near the Arctic Circle.
Eleonora, who lived in Moscow, witnessed nationalist demonstrations and was largely shielded from the knowledge that her father was banished to a remote outpost of the Soviet Gulag. In his letters, written on cigarette-rolling paper, Vangengheim details his “expedition,” describing how he is researching plant life in the Arctic. The real letters were preserved by Eleonora and later published.
The Gulag system was established shortly after the Russian Revolution, and Stalin actively expanded it. It’s estimated that around 18 million people passed through the Gulag, and more than than a quarter did not survive. The film’s emphasis on 1937 marks a particularly terrible time during Stalin’s rule known as the Great Purge, or the Great Terror, of which the sole purpose was eradicating people who disagreed with the fascist dictator’s philosophy.
Those thought to be traitors of the state were arrested, imprisoned, and executed—often without trial—in a wholesale expulsion of people who threatened Communist ideals and Stalin’s absolute power. This included persecuting political rivals, bureaucrats, and intellectuals—because only the state could determine what information, art, or “truths” the public had access to.
Stalin’s secret police, known as the NKVD, officially counted more than 680,000 individuals who were shot between 1937 and 1938, but scholars estimate that the entire number of fatalities during the Great Purge could be double that.
For Evstigneev, this horrific period sets the stage for a poignant tale of love, innocence, and hope as well as a stark reflection of the cruelty of the Gulag. A team of animators and producers worked with the director to create a painterly world that combines hand-drawn pastel elements, a two-dimensional vector-based technique, and stop-motion.
While imprisoned, Vangengheim is forced to work on a portrait of Stalin made of dandelions, however when he damages the tribute, he meets a grisly fate. In real life, his family didn’t learn of his death until nearly two decades later.
In Evstigneev’s film, Elya reads of her father’s “explorations” in the north and is reminded of the life cycle of flowers and their floating seeds, encouraging her to focus on future growth. Find the film on Vimeo.
