Lenin's Will (TV series 2007) - Russian TV series from 2007. Biographical drama about the fate of Varlam Shalamov
Production: McDos, Etalon-film, Russia, 2007
Director: N.Dostal
Scriptwriter: Yu. Arabov, A. Sirotkin
Starring: V.Kapustin, I.Klass, E.Lyadova, E.Rufanova, I.Oboldina, A.Trofimov, I.Muravyova
Duration: 12 episodes of 45 minutes each
Plot of the series Lenin's Testament (2007 series):
In the late 60s, the magazine "Youth" published poems by a little-known poet Varlam Shalamov. These poems created a real furor in Soviet literature, and Shalamov was invited to the Union of Writers of the USSR. However, there was one circumstance that clearly hindered the career of the aspiring writer.
In the West, his "Kolyma Tales" were published in the anti-Soviet press, which could be considered as discrediting the Soviet system. The leadership of the Writers' Union suggested that Shalamov renounce these works, but he never renounced his convictions.
The first time this happened was in 1929. Then still a student at the law faculty of Moscow State University, Varlam Shalamov found himself in a story that determined his entire future life.
The student circle came into possession of the so-called "Lenin's Testament." This is a letter to the 12th Party Congress, in which the leader of the world proletariat asks his comrades to choose Trotsky, not Stalin, as their new leader.
This letter was not published, and very few people knew about its existence. Thus, Varlam Shalamov learns about "Lenin's Testament" and organizes its distribution with his university comrades.
Soon all members of the underground organization were arrested. But if Shalamov's comrades got off with a symbolic punishment, Varlam himself paid dearly. By the standards of 1929, he received a harsh sentence of three years of imprisonment to be served in a concentration camp.
Of course, he could have gotten off easy if he had told the investigation about his accomplices. But Shalamov didn't give anyone away.
He did not yet know that this three-year term would be only a prelude to seventeen agonizing years in Kolyma. After Stalin's death, he would be released and write his world-famous "Kolyma Tales" about them...