Kashtanka (1926)

Olga Preobrazhenskaya: Каштанка / Kashtanka (SU 1926).

Olga Preobrazhenskaya: Каштанка / Kashtanka (SU 1926). The carpenter Luka Aleksandrovich (Antonin Pankryshev), his son Fedyushka (Yura Zimin) and their dog Kashtanka.

Каштанка / Fedus pes.
    SU 1926. Director: Olga Preobraženskaja. 76 min
    Sog.: from the eponymous short tale (1887) by Anton Pavlovič Čechov.
    Translated into Finnish as "Kashtanka" by Matti Lehmonen in Valittuja kertomuksia ja novelleja 1 (1945, Smia).
    Scen.: Jurij Bolotov, Ol’ga Preobraženskaja. Ass. regia: Ivan Pravov, N. Zubova. F.: Grigorij Giber. Scgf.: Dmitrij Kolupaev.
    Int.: Nikolaj Panov (clown Georges), Evgenija Chovanskaja (affittacamere), Antonin Pankryšev (Luka), Naum Rogožin (Mazamet, suonatore d’organetto), Leonid Jurenev (Chiodo, vagabondo), Jura Zimin (Fedjuška), Elena Tjapkina (Nastas’ja, lavandaia), Michail Žarov, B. Snegirev (Agafon), Gulja Koroleva. Il cane Jackie.
    Prod.: Sovkino. 35 mm. Bn.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Early Women Directors in the Soviet Union
    Print from: Národní filmový archiv (print made in 1995)
    Czech intertitles
    E-subtitles in English and Italian by Violetta Zardadi.
    Digital piano: John Sweeney.
    Introduce Mariann Lewinsky.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 31 Aug 2020
Kashtanka is the name of a dog. "Kashtan" means "chestnut".

"Anton Chekhov's story was first published in Novoye Vremya's No. 4248, 25 December (old style) 1887 issue, originally under the title "In Learned Society" (В учёном обществе; V uchyonom obschestve). Revised by the author, divided into seven chapters and under the new title it came out as a separate edition in Saint Petersburg in 1892 and enjoyed six re-issues in 1893–1899. Chekhov included it into Volume 4 of his Collected Works published by Adolf Marks in 1899–1901. In 1903 the story came out illustrated by Dmitry Kardovsky and in such form continued to be re-issued well into the end of the 20th century." (Wikipedia)

Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): “Kashtanka by Olga Preobrazhenskaya, print 1995, a film of winter, of night and snow, of children and animals, a film about loss, a masterpiece”, read my viewing notes from 2012. My Prague colleagues had it screened for me because they knew I was interested in colour in silent cinema, and they knew a tinted Soviet silent film to be a rare item. I had never heard the name of the director. My encounter with her work was enhanced by the shock of discovering that a major director who had reached international audiences with Baby ryazanskie and Tikhiy Don (The Quiet Don) around 1930 could disappear without a trace from official film history. In 2013, Il Cinema Ritrovato dedicated a retrospective to her." Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Natalya Nusinova (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "In the original story by Chekhov, Kashtanka is a little dog that gets lost following the trail of his drunken owner. In the film he is stolen, sold, tossed out into the street and saved by a clown. The boy Fedyushka gets lost looking for the dog and ends up a prisoner of the sinister Mazamet who compels him to rove from house to house to make money, while Fedyushka’s father wanders through the streets in search of his lost child. The film was approved by the censors in 1926 and received the authorisation for international distribution the following year. Before the Czech print was discovered in 2012, Kashtanka had been considered lost in Russia, following the decision by the Central Committee of film censorship to ban the film in 1932 (“the underclass is portrayed as evil, lacking in class consciousness and social awareness”)." Natalya Nusinova (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: In Anton Chekhov's oeuvre, Kashtanka was published during an extremely important and productive year, 1887, just before his great turning-point, the long story The Steppe. Olga Preobrazhenskaya's Kashtanka was the first of six film adaptations of Chekhov's beloved story.

For several generations the film was missing, believed lost. Then a Czech print was preserved from apparently the sole surviving source, battered, in low definition and low contrast and with a lot of "rain", but still conveying an idea of the original film.

Anton Chekhov's story has been completely changed, but a core idea remains: the ordeals of a little dog in the hands of several owners. In the movie the dog's tale is mirrored by a parallel adventure of the little boy Fedyushka who loves it more than anything else.

There are memorable aspects in the movie. The desolate winter, with snow, wind and a freezing cold. Luka Aleksandrovich's infinite sorrow when his son Fedyushka goes missing (kidnapped by underworld figures). Nikolai Panov's magisterial performance as the Clown Georges. Electrifying long shots of the circus by Grigori Giber.

The story belongs to a distinguished lineage about a child's love to a pet animal. From Bologna we remember William A. Wellman's Good-bye, My Lady. Olga Preobrazhenskaja conveys this central theme with sincere emotion, eliciting fine performances both from Yura Zimin as Fedyuschka and the dog Jackie as Kashtanka.

On the other hand, the tale belongs to another great tradition: an animal's adventure with different owners as a mirror of humanity. Several models have been quoted as Chekhov's real-life inspirations. I suspect that he might have also been inspired by Leo Tolstoy's masterful horse saga Kholstomer (1886), published the year before. In the cinema, a parallel masterpiece is Robert Bresson's Balthazar. The concept remains fruitful for fresh and original interpretations such as Anca Damian's animation Marona's Fantastic Tale (2019). And looking for an even wider context, one may even think about the novel The Golden Ass by Apuleius (late 2nd century BC), where a human protagonist, metamorphosed into an ass, has to endure all its ordeals.

Dmitri Kardovsky (1866–1943): Kashtanka, Fedyushka and his father, the carpenter Luka Aleksandrovich, an illustration to Anton Chekhov's Kashtanka. Charcoal and India ink. «Каштанка» А. П. Чехова. Илл. Д. Н. Кардовского. Уголь, тушь, 1903. slovari.yandex.ru