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We have found some movies in which Young Pioneers are depicted. Here we include both films made in Communist countries and those made in other countries about Communist countries. As HBC expands we are gradually adding additional films to further our assessment of Young Pioneer films.
Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin: Usual and Incredible (Soviet Union, 1982)
The movie “Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin: Usual and Incredible” (“Priklucheniya Petrova I Vasechkina, obyknovennye I neeroyatnye”) was made in 1982. This is another film about 4th graders. Children play, sing, write love notes to girls, make a school preformance (in French) on the “Little Riding Red Hood”, have a rest on the sea shore and so on. Here there is no heavy-handed ideology. The children are realistically depicted. They wear Pioneer Scarfes, but this is just a uniform item, nothing more. The film focuses on school, but there is very little attention to the Young Pioneer program. They do go to a Pioneer summer camp.
The early section of the film when Solly, the main character, escapes to the Soviet occupied area of Poland. He joins the Komsomal, the Communist Youth Organization. We see the Komosol youth directing younger boys in the Young Pioneers. The uniform shown is white shirts with red neckerchiefs and blue short pants. A few boys wear long stockings. The children are depicted as wearing a very standardized uniform similar to that worn after World War II, We are not sure how accurate this depiction is for 1940-41. Certainly the red neckerchiefs are accurate. If I remember correctly, the depiction was at a camp or orphanage, perhaps the uniform might have been more standardize there than in the general population. Some of the boys wear knee socks, others wear long stockings. This photograph shows younger boys, but the same uniform was worn by boys as old as 16 and 17, and the older boys, as shown in the film, wear both knee socks and long stockings. Long stockings are probably not accurate for boys over 13-144 years of age.
A Russian reader tells us about a late-Soviet movie, "I Am a Pioneer Leader" (Ya Vozhatyj Forposta). I was made in 1986. The movie is based on the novel of Nikolay Ognev >i>Kostya Ryabtsev's Diary. The book is set in the early-1920s just after the Russian Revolyution and Civil War. Young (16 or maybe 17 years old) Komsomol member Kostya becomes a leader of one of the first Young Pioneer groups. The costuming in the movie is very accurate. As fae as we can tell, this was a rare Soviet film about the Young Pioneer movement. Pioneers appear in quite a number of Soviet films, nut not very many Soviet films focused to such an extent on the Pioneer Movement.
This is a charming Soviet children's fantasy. A little girl steps into a magic mirror and meets her double in a magic kingdom. The girl is a Young Pioneer and she is pictured in her school uniform and red Young Pioneer scarfe. The film is not about the Pioneers, but there are scenes with the Young Pioneers and a few ideological statements, but basically the film is free from ideological propaganda. This was a major departure from the 1950s. The depiction of the children, depite the fantasy involved, is much more realistic than the depictions of the 1950s.
While we know very little about movies, we have found one Soviet TV program in whih the Young Pioneers are depicted. A Soviet TV serial entitled "Nikolay Vavilov" was broadcast in 1990. One scene from the shows shows a a squad of Young Pioneers that participated in the Young Naturalists program (Yunnaty). They are shown participating in the opening ceremonies of the the annual meeting of the USSR Agricultural Sciences Academy (VASHNIL) in 1938. Vavilov was a notable botonist that ran afoul of Stalin. The Pioneers appear for a formal occassion and wear white shirts, red scarves, and blue short pants with white long stockings. White long stockings would have only been worn for formal occassions.
The movie “Vasyok Trubachev and His Class-mates” (“Vasyok Trubacherv I yego tovarischi”) was made in 1956 and is a standard Stalinist era film. The main heroes were three boys from 4th grade, very good friends. Vasya is the true leader of the Pioneer squad. He is very responsible, athletic, learns good, can use instruments (like axe, saw etc.) and dreams to be a train locomotive driver like his father. (Note the choice of a working-class biy.) Kolya is very disciplined, principle, active, learns good. He is an older brother in a big family, so he can to make a dinner, care for children and even sew. Sasha is the smallest and weakest boy in the class. He is depicted as the only boy in the class still wearing short pants with long stockings, but he learns good (again), knows a lot about sciences, communications and so on. All the children in the movie are depicted schematically, they are so serious and in my opinion are more like small adults or even a small robots. They all tell long and boring speeches about “duty of a Soviet pioneer”, “being a true Soviet pioneer” and so on. Adults, the class teacher and the school Pioneer leader are depicted as “true communist” and “true comsomol member”. The plot of the movie is very primitive and liveless. This reflects Soviet film making during the Stalinist era. Imagination and complexity were not characteriztics that were highly prised in film making and literature. In fact they could get you in a lot of trouble. Stalin died in 1953 and Khruchev denounced him at the 20th Party Congress (1956). It took longer for the impact of Stalin to loosen his grip on Soviet film making.
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