17 Moments Spring
Reviewed by DAVID VINEYARD:17 MOMENTS OF SPRING. Gorky Film Studios, USSR, TV Mini-Series, 12 x 70m episodes, 1973.
Original title: Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny. Vyacheslav Tikonov, Oleg Tabakov, Rotoslav Plyatt, Yekterina Gradova. Narrated by Yefim Kopelyan. Screenplay by Yulian Semyenov, based on his own novel. Director: Tatyana Lioznova.A man and an elderly lady stand in the wood and discuss the beauty of nature and the glory of spring after a long winter. We are in Germany, outside Berlin in February 1945 in the last days of WWII and it has indeed been a long winter.The man, Mr.
Bolyan, is also Standartenfuherer Otto Von Stirlitz, a decorated and trusted intelligence officer in the SS who has the ears of Walter Shellenberg a popular and important officer with ties to Hitler, the general staff, and Reichmarshall Himmler of the SS. Darkly handsome and Nordic, Stirlitz seems the perfect Nazi and for six years he has been.
For six years he has buried his real identity as Colonel Maxim Isayev of Soviet Intelligence while working in German intelligence and rising to an important position in SS intelligence.So begins the low key Soviet spy drama from 1973 that brought to life the adventures of Stirlitz, the creation of novelist Yulian Semyenov in a twelve part mini-series that rocked Soviet television and popular entertainment to its core. Power shortages happened whenever 17 Moments of Spring aired because ninety percent of television sets in Russia were tuned to Stirlitz’s adventures. Even today Stirlitz jokes are common in post Soviet Russia (and simply don’t translate into English — I tried) mostly drawing on the dour deliberate Stirlitz glacial resolve to show no emotion whatsoever and his plodding ways.Yulian Semyenov was the Russian Ian Fleming, like his British counterpart a journalist with intelligence ties from the war and well known by his superiors. His creation, known as Stirlitz rather than Isayev, is no James Bond however. Stirlitz is stoic, sexless, dour, brooding, self sacrificing (at one point he sees his wife he has not seen for six years and cannot reveal himself and we are treated to three minutes of baleful sad eyes), and there is precious little violence in his adventures.That isn’t to say Semyenov was unaware of Fleming and Bond. 2 Responses to “A Russian TV Series Reviewed by David Vineyard: 17 MOMENTS OF SPRING (1973).”. Steve Says:Thanks for this review, David.
Prelude 17 Moments Of Spring Piano
My horizons broaden every day I do this blog. This series is a rarity: it has 9.0 stars out of 10 on IMDb, with over 2000 viewers voting.I’ve just ordered a copy of series on DVD from Amazon. (Same price on eBay.).
17 Moments Of Spring Music
David Vineyard Says:It is not to all taste, but a well done spy story with an attractive hero, and it is surprising for the time it was made the Germans are presented as humans and not cartoons a la Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS or even VALKERIE. Stirlitz is presented as an attractive hero, far from infallible, and deep undercover in an unnerving situation.A relatively low budget and lots of black and white newsreel footage works to the series advantage, and while it moves deliberately there is enough fascination and suspense — or at least tension — you can binge watch it easily.I was very impressed, though at the time less so of the one novel in the series I read in what may have been a hasty translation.