Wet doesn't fear rain! An unusual film about the Civil War. Unusual in that it tells about an amazing phenomenon, completely uncharacteristic of those “troubled years”. The Rudobel Partisan Republic (RPR) (Rudobel Soviet Republic) occupied the volosts of the Bobruisk, Mozyr and Rechitsky districts. In December 1917, Soviet power was established in Rudobelskaya volost and a volost revolution committee was created. During the German occupation (February-November 1918), the volost revolutionary committee was transformed into a sub-district committee of the RCP (b), its chairman was appointed Alexander Romanovich Solovy. Several partisan detachments were created on the territory of the republic (the first consisted of 400 people), which defended the territory from the occupiers. Agitational work was also conducted among peasants and German soldiers. After the surrender of Germany in the First World War, partisan detachments under the command of Nightingale entered Bobruisk and did not allow the occupiers to take out the property looted from the population. On November 28, the Red Army liberated Bobruisk and Bobruisk from German troops and restored Soviet power there.
At the end of February 1919, Polish troops began an offensive in Belarus. Vilna and Minsk were captured. Moving east, the Polish troops came to the Berezina River. After the attack of Polish infantry, accompanied by tanks on August 28, the city of Bobruisk and the fortress were taken. Thus, the Rudobel volost was again under occupation, but now under Polish. Partisans raided the railway station, wagon trains, destroyed bridges. All this caused damage to the Polish troops, and the Polish leadership decided to eliminate the partisan detachments. In January 1920, the Polish command sent a punitive detachment to the RPR, which on January 16 burned Rudobelka and nearby villages. Several dozen guerrillas were killed in the fighting. Despite the punitive expedition, the partisan movement could not be suppressed. July 4, 1920 began the July offensive of the Western Front. The 16th Army on the night of July 7 went on the offensive in the Minsk direction and crossed the Berezina. July 10, 1920 Soviet troops liberated Bobruisk.
All this is the official history of those distant events, about which the laureate of the State Prize of Belarus Sergey Ivanovich Grakhovsky told in his documentary story “Rudobel Republic”. Nikolai Figurovskiy wrote the script on it, and Nikolai Kalinin made an interesting movie, inviting famous actors to the main roles. Not all characters seemed equally interesting to me. Juozas Budraitis is certainly a great actor, but in the role of Commissioner Alexander Nightingale, he looks too calm and balanced, sometimes even emotionless. The character clearly lacks light, enthusiasm, “revolutionary flame”. But the sailor Rogach, played by Yuri Kamorny, is the perfect "Baltic" - a charming merry man and a balagur. An interesting role in Immanuel Vitorgan, although the duels between the captain Zvonov and the Commissioner Nightingale could be given less time. Many bright episodic roles: Drapesa (Pavel Kormunin), Tereshka's grandfather (Leonid Kmit), Gelena (Vaiva Mainelite), Marina (Natalia Chemodurova), Wrangel (Nikolai Grinko), Teletsky (Boris Klyuev).
Maybe not everything turned out perfectly in the picture, but what can you do – this is how the director saw those distant events. Events that are a bright page in the history of the Republic of Belarus.