The Unknown War

There are many kinds of comfort viewing in this time of quarantine and social distancing and mine has been to revisit The Unknown War, a 1978 documentary series about the Second World War from the Soviet perspective.  

Yes, I know.  How can this be comforting? 

Well, for one thing it is comforting seeing Nazis get destroyed.  Very comforting. 

And it's hosted and narrated by Burt Lancaster. 

Now, I am not an uncritical fan of this series.  It was made with the cooperation of the USSR and like any film made with the cooperation of a state apparatus it means there is some serious "message control" going on.  It's a work of propaganda.  But then, so is Top Gun, which was also made with the cooperation of a state organization, only one without a hammer and sickle.  

The Unknown War is propaganda.  As such it is, on its own a piece of history.  It also contains within it a real story that is worthy of study and also a lot of visual imagery that was only accessible because of this unique work.  

Let me begin with the big caveats.  

This is how the film deals with Soviet repression and the horrors of Stalin:

Yes.  That was a blank space.  

And this is how it approaches the famine in the Ukraine caused by forced collectivization that killed millions of people: 

Yeah, another blank space. 

And in creating both of those blank spaces the series also completely skips over the difficult issue of the many groups that collaborated with the Nazis.  This is not a series that deals well with difficult issues.  It's not trying to.  If you want a point of comparison, you don't have to look far: this is a documentary equivalent of a yellow ribbon bumper sticker.  

Finally, and we will come back to this one later as well, the way the series deals with the massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest is so terrible that it is an object lesson of a different kind.  It is a perfect example of muddying the waters and both-sides-ing that should be familiar to anyone who has to sit through interviews with Iowa Nazis about their "economic anxiety" over their morning tea. 

Nonetheless, this is a series worth looking at, both because it's worth looking at as a historical record of the war and also as a historical record of the reception of the war.  And of course, it's of some comfort to see Nazis being pounded into dust.  Sorry, Nazis.  (Not sorry.)

Oh, and did I mention that it's a 20 part series?  Yeah, this isn't some History Channel digested nonsense.  This is a journey. So, buckle up folks, Uncle Burt is about to take us back to 1941 by way of 1978.