This is not an adaptation of the famous Soviet novel. It is a meditation on the creation of a myth. A historical and cultural myth created at the expense of human lives. It is an attempt to recreate and make sense of the birth of a heroic story that inspired millions to carry out acts of bravery, and of history itself as a chain of events. What do we know about the underground resistance movement of the small town of Krasnodon? What do we want to know about them? What actually happened to those young partisans? Who killed them so cruelly and why? And what was it like for those who survived? How did they live within the confines of a myth?
The first part of the show is Maxim Didenko's interpretation of that myth through movement, with pathos, thundering music and exaggerated characters. With a minimal amount of text, it is almost a ballet performed by groups of sculptures come to life. As is fitting for high tragedy, the audience feels pity and horror, that their souls might be cleansed.
The second part of the show is based on real documents – records from archives and museum collections, old photographs and the memoirs of relatives of the Young Guard. Dmitry Egorov investigates the history of Krasnodon resistance movement and the events that led to the myth's creation in order to remove the “textbook lacquer,” the bronze, and free those people from their monuments. Those young people, vivid, loving, fearful, hopeful and hating, not their heroic incarnations. People whose tragic fate was used for the creation of a morale-boosting legend, and about whom we actually know nothing apart from that legend. It is an attempt to take a peek inside the history of the Young Guard by means of theatrical journalism.
PRODUCTION TEAM: Stage and Costume Design – Evgeny Lemeshonok Multimedia Director – Natalia Naumova Composer – Ivan Kushnir Sound Design – Dmitry Bachinsky Light Design – Dmitry White Stage Managers – Alena Parshina and Svetlana Povalyaeva