Russian historical epic The Birth of the Empire led the weekend box office after grossing 250 million rubles across domestic cinemas.
The period drama, directed by Andrei Kravchuk, arrived in Russian theaters on October 29 with an official runtime of two hours and 20 minutes. Kravchuk, who previously directed Viking and Union of Salvation, presents a modern look at Tsar Peter I as he battles Sweden and faces the betrayal of Ukrainian Cossack leader Ivan Mazepa.
Producer Nikita Mikhalkov, host of Besogon TV, backed the production alongside screenwriter Andrei Zolotarev, who wrote the television series The Boy's Word. Kravchuk made the film under the supervision of Channel One Cinema Directorate heads Konstantin Ernst and Anatoly Maksimov, continuing a partnership that earlier yielded Admiral, Viking, and Union of Salvation.
Great Northern War and the Battle of Poltava
The story begins in 1698 as the young, energetic Russian sovereign Peter Alexeyevich, played by Alexander Gorbatov, leads the Grand Embassy across Europe to build the Northern Alliance against Sweden. During his travels, the tsar unbends bent coins with his bare hands and speaks German without an accent.
Despite those efforts, allies Saxony and Austria fail to avert the Russian army's crushing defeat at Narva two years later in 1700. An enraged Peter starts preparing for revenge alongside the thievish but loyal Alexander Menshikov, played by Milos Bikovic, and field commander Count Boris Sheremetev, played by Alexei Guskov.
Peter equips his forces through gunsmith Nikita Demidov, played by Alexander Yatsenko, melts church bells into cannons, and builds Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva River for sea access. The campaign leads to the decisive Battle of Poltava, which shames King Charles XII of Sweden, played by Mate Kabe, overcomes Mazepa's betrayal, played by Aleksandr Yatsko, and lays the foundation for the Russian Empire.
Narrative Structure and Griffith Reference
The events on screen conclude more than a decade before the formal proclamation of the Russian Empire in 1721. Drawing on Alexander Pushkin's poem Poltava, Kravchuk and Zolotarev treat the victory over Sweden and Mazepa's treason as the defining moments of the era. The reviewer noted that the film portrays the conception of an empire rather than its birth, with the title serving as an offhand reference to D.W. Griffith's 1915 American film The Birth of a Nation.
A disjointed sequence of set pieces illustrates ideological points that are sometimes delivered through off screen narration. The rapid pacing skips major narrative threads, omitting Peter's eldest son Tsarevich Alexei and first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina entirely, while Saint Petersburg appears on screen as if by itself. Actors move between formal, ambivalently delivered dialogue scenes.
Portrayal of Peter and Lead Performance
Kravchuk presents Peter not as a traumatized youth or an embodiment of class movements, but as a national leader ready to do anything for Russia, including speaking German with hypocritical Western partners. Foreign deceit pushes the impulsive ruler to master cunning and political maneuvering off screen, with his intellect expanding only in military science and managing state officials.
Between strategic decisions, Peter suffers from severe headaches until meeting Marta Skavronskaya, played by Ksenia Utekhina. The historical figure, who later became Empress Catherine Alexeyevna, was known for soothing Peter's pain by resting his head on her lap, an episode recreated in the film.
Alexander Gorbatov plays Peter with broad theatrical gestures, presenting a ruler hewn with an axe rather than shaped with a scalpel. The performance resembles Gorbatov's earlier roles as opera singer Feodor Chaliapin in Chaliapin, prime minister Pyotr Stolypin in Stolypin, and a corrupt fixer in the drama series Gold Diggers, with wide stares and unintentional echoes of actor Sergey Bezrukov.
Supporting Cast and Character Roles
Kravchuk centers the production so heavily on Gorbatov that much of the imperial court fades into background extras. Milos Bikovic delivers an energetic performance as Menshikov, positioned between a comedic Chapayev anecdote and the Soviet swashbuckler Midshipmen, Forward. Bikovic previously played Peter I in the comedy Serf 3 and was initially cast as the tsar in this film before switching roles.
Alexander Yatsenko brings his familiar style from the film Arrhythmia to gunsmith Demidov while wearing an artificial beard. Sergei Garmash wears a similar fake beard as Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky, which Peter cuts off as an educational lesson in imperial discipline. Sergei Shakurov appears briefly as Patriarch Adrian, spending less time on screen than the hours required to apply his layered prosthetic makeup. Actress Yulia Peresild also features in the credited ensemble.
Historical Politics and Pokrovsky Centenary
The film's release arrives ahead of March 22, 2028, which marks the centenary of Soviet historian Mikhail Pokrovsky's lecture on social sciences in the USSR over 10 years at the First All-Union Conference of Marxist-Leninist Scientific Institutions. Pokrovsky coined the phrase stating that history is politics overturned into the past, an aphorism producer Nikita Mikhalkov later used on his program Besogon TV.
The reviewer noted that modern interpretations of the quote reflect a Mandela effect. Pokrovsky originally used the words irritably to criticize predecessors Vasily Klyuchevsky, Boris Chicherin, and Konstantin Kavelin while urging scholars to avoid ideologizing historical science. Pokrovsky died four years later, and Soviet officials subsequently condemned his academic school for the vulgarization of Marxism.
Soviet Precedents and Artificial Intelligence
The cinematic tradition of projecting politics into the past continued through Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible Part 1. Peter I previously appeared in silent films Peter the Great and Tsarevich Alexei, followed by Vladimir Petrov's 1937 and 1938 adaptations of Alexei Tolstoy's Peter the First starring Nikolai Simonov, whose harsh portrayal matched the Soviet political climate. Sergei Gerasimov later directed The Youth of Peter and At the Beginning of Glorious Days with Dmitry Zolotukhin portraying a more psychological tsar, while Ilya Gurin adapted Yuri German's novel Young Russia for television, shifting Peter behind three companions.
The production used neural network artificial intelligence to recreate early eighteenth century Moscow, depicting Red Square and the white stone Kremlin with visual effects comparable to the American action film Mayday. In promotional interviews around the release, Kravchuk said he did not want to create a monument film. The review concluded that the film still leans toward monumentality, noting that Russian audiences consistently value engaging storytelling and clarity over noble ideological goals.
