Simon Esadze and Early Film Culture in Georgia

Author

Nino Dzandzava

Abstract

The history of Georgian cinema can be divided into four main historical periods: pre-1918 cinema, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire; cinema during the short-lived but culturally exciting Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921), followed by Soviet Georgia cinema (1922-1991), and post-Soviet Georgian cinema (1991 to the present). These four stages are all characterised by very different political and social environments, and they also privilege different aesthetic values. This article reconstructs the first, and hitherto less well-known, chapter of Georgia's cinema history, specifically focusing on Simon Esadze’s contribution to the development of Georgian filmmaking between 1908 and 1918. It argues that Esadze’s career in film, which has yet to be fully researched and analysed, is emblematic of the unsettled cultural environment and constrained political and economic circumstances of the period. Studying his films and unpublished archival materials sheds light on this hitherto obscure aspect of the first chapter in the history of Georgian cinema.

Keywords

Simon Esadze; Ludwig Czerny; Aleksandr Shvugerman; Caucasus; Russian Empire; Tbilisi; Tiflis; First World War; Georgian cinema; German cinema; Notofilm; documentary film; wartime newsreels; Skobelev Committee; historical drama; military history; imperialism; colonialism.

Introduction: Who Was Simon Esadze?

The emergence of Georgia’s film culture predates the Bolshevik invasion and occupation of Georgia in 1921, which led to the Sovietisation of the country’s film industry. Several fiction films and newsreel series were produced during the short period of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921).¹ However, the true origins of Georgian cinema are to be found in the late Imperial period. Georgia embraced the new technological medium of moving images with great enthusiasm. The first film screening, held on November 16, 1896 in Tiflis, was followed within a few years by the opening of venues that offered regular screenings (Dighmelovi 1987: 45-46). Their repertoire in the first decade consisted only of foreign films until the first newsreels produced by Georgian cameramen were made available. In the late 1900s, dozens of documentary films were shot in the Georgian provinces of the Russian Empire by the cameramen Vasil Amashukeli and Aleksandre Dighmelashvili.² According to Dighmelashvili’s memoirs, Pathé, Gaumont, and Thiemann & Reinhard often purchased footage that he had shot in Georgia (Dighmelovi 1987: 44). Films were also commissioned and produced by Sof’ia Ivanitskaia, a Georgia-based film distributor, producer, and cinema owner from Odesa.³ In the early 1910s, the Italian filmmaker and cameraman Giovanni Vitrotti, commissioned by the Russian firm Thiemann & Reinhardt, made documentaries in Tiflis as well as in other regions of Georgia. He also directed two adaptations of classic Russian literary texts in Mtskheta, a town near Tiflis, specifically Aleksandr Pushkin’s Kavkazskii plennik / The Prisoner of the Caucasus (Giovanni Vitrotti, 1911, Russian Empire) and Mikhail Lermontov’s Demon / The Demon (Giovanni Vitrotti, 1911, Russian Empire) (Grashchenkova 2005: 33).

One of the most significant figures of early Georgian cinema was Colonel Simon Esadze, a military historian and a filmmaker, whose work is the subject of this article. Esadze became involved in cinema while serving in high-ranking positions as the Director of the Caucasian Military History Museum, known as ‘The Temple of Glory’ (‘Khram Slavy’), and as the Head of the Military History Department at the Caucasus Military District Headquarters in Tiflis. As a historian rather than an entrepreneur, Esadze brought a unique perspective to filmmaking. He worked in cinema, on a number of projects and in various roles, from the 1910s until his death in 1927.

Despite Esadze’s importance, little is known about his filmmaking career. His name is first associated with the large-scale feature film project of the Russian company Drankov & Taldykin, Pokorenie Kavkaza / The Conquest of the Caucasus (aka The Battle of Ghunib), Ludwig Czerny, Simon Esadze, 1913, Russian Empire, non-extant), on which he acted as chief historical consultant, screenwriter, and co-director. Today considered lost, The Conquest of the Caucasus was the first major production filmed in Georgia that employed a majority of local (Georgian) staff. Esadze also led the filmmaking group of the Military History Department, which filmed military operations on the Caucasian front during the First World War.

Esadze’s involvement in cinema continued into the period of the Georgian Democratic Republic, when he contributed to the production of one of the earliest Georgian feature films, Kristine (Aleksandre Tsutsunava, 1919, Georgian Democratic Republic). Thereafter, he made several attempts to gain employment in the Soviet Georgian film industry. In 1924, Esadze acted as a consultant on the screenplay – written by Sakhkinmretsvi for the Georgian state film studio – for an adaptation of Lev Tolstoi’s historical novella Hadji Murad (posthumously published in 1912), which focuses on the eponymous Avar leader of the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya and his struggles against the rule of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus.⁴ The project, which was to be directed by Ivan Perestiani in two instalments, was never made into a feature film. In 1925, together with Aleksandr Kulebiakin, a former Lieutenant General and poet, Esadze co-wrote the script for the historical drama Zelimkhan.⁵ According to archival documents, the project stalled as the commissioners of the Azerbaijan Film and Photo Administration (Azerbaidzanskoe Foto-Kino Upravlenie) were not satisfied with the results: Esadze and Kulebiakin had apparently failed to meet the expectation that they would portray Zelimkhan, a Chechen outlaw who fought against Russian authorities, as one of the main figures of the 1905 revolution.⁶ That same year, Esadze approached Sakhkinmretsvi, as well as Mezhrabpom-Rus and the Film Section of the All-Union Scientific Association of Oriental Studies (Kinosektsiia Vsesoiuznoi Nauchnoi Assotsiatsii Vostokovedeniia), with a proposal to write his own scenario for a film based on Hadji Murad.⁷ Esadze had studied this subject in the early 1900s, while he assisted Tolstoi to gather historical evidence for his novella. Imam Shamil, the leader of the resistance to Russian expansion in the Caucasus in the mid-nineteenth century, was another historical person in whom Sakhkinmretsvi was interested as a potential film character of revolutionary appeal. Esadze had already published a book on Shamil. In 1927, the film studio commissioned him to gather historical materials for a future film, but Esadze’s death, in the same year, prevented him from finishing this research.⁸

Although Ezadze was the first Georgian script writer and feature film director, his works have not received due academic attention. His affiliation with pre-Soviet governments and his involvement in the political and cultural life of the Russian Empire might explain why Soviet researchers have disregarded and neglected his works. While pre-1918 cinema in general was not exhaustively studied by Soviet film historians, the major Soviet works that do examine the cinema heritage of the Russian Empire not only fail to mention Esadze’s name, but also ignore the entire corpus of First World War newsreels shot by cineastes in Tiflis (Ginzburg 1963; Lebedev 1965). One Soviet film scholar who did work with Esadze’s paper archives, housed at the National Archives of Georgia, was Valentina Tsomaia. Her academic research, available mainly in Georgian but also partly in Russian, mentions several important facts regarding Esadze’s life and career, but she does not go deep into the subject, devoting only a few paragraphs to this (Tsomaia 1973: 20-26).

This article aims to fill this gap in our knowledge about Esadze’s contribution to pre-1918 cinema culture in Georgia. Drawing on primary sources, including paper collections as well as moving images and press archives – most of which have not previously been the subject of academic research conducted by scholars engaged in the study of early cinema in the Russian Empire –, it examines, evaluates, and brings to light Esadze’s film legacy. My discussion focuses primarily on Esadze’s two major projects of the early 1910s: The Conquest of the Caucasus and the First World War documentary series, which consists of almost 80 titles. By shedding light on Esadze’s hitherto understudied filmmaking career, the article demonstrates that Georgian cinema, despite lacking resources and despite its political and economic dependence on the Russian Empire, emerged long before it became a significant player in the Soviet film industry.

The Conquest of the Caucasus: Transnationalism and Imperialism

The historical drama The Conquest of the Caucasus (non-extant) was Simon Esadze’s most ambitious film project. Recounting the historical events of Russia’s conquest of the Caucasus region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was one of the most opulent historical dramas ever shot in the Russian Empire before 1913 (7 parts, 2525 metres). That year, under the same title (alternative title, The Capture of Shamil), another feature was released on Russian screens, directed by Vasilii Goncharov for Aleksandr Khanzhonkov’s production company, a rival of Drankov & Taldykin. Both pictures premiered in October 1913, one day apart.

The trading house Drankov & Taldykin consulted with the aforementioned Sof’ia Ivanitskaia, regarding the film project.⁹ On Ivanitskaia’s advice, the Russian firm approached Esadze — as a renowned expert on the Caucasus wars — and offered him a consulting role on the project, as a historian. According to the agreement signed between the parties in July 1913, Esadze was hired to give instructions to the director, Ludwig Czerny, and the set designer, Franz Rubo, to correct the existing script as much as possible, and to add new narratives to maintain historical accuracy.¹⁰ However, Esadze’s role was not limited to screenwriting. He also took part in directing. Indeed, in some press reports on the film, Esadze is often mentioned as the sole author of the film, while Ludwig Czerny’s name is omitted (Anonymous 1913: 80).

The Conquest of the Caucasus is an interesting example of an early film project created by multi-ethnic creative forces in the Russian Empire, a case-study proving that cinema as a medium was part of a transnational system from its beginnings. The co-director, Ludwig Czerny (1885-1941), was a Belgrade-born Austrian who first pursued an acting career and then worked as a choreographer and stage director. In 1909, Czerny toured South America as the leading director of an operetta company, moving to the major cities of Russia and Holland a few years later. In German cinema, Czerny’s name is primarily associated with the early sound cinema systems that he developed with the composer Tillman Springfeld. Formed in 1919 by Czerny and Springfield, the Notofilm company employed one of the three most prominent systems used in the production of German synchronised music film and its subgenres (film operas, film operettas, Filmsingspiele, Singfilme, Gesangsfilme) between 1914 and 1929 (Wedel 1999: 464). From 1919 to 1924, using Notofilm, Czerny made one dance film, four film operettas, and one film opera. After the unsuccessful release of Das Mädel von Pontecuculi / The Prince and the Maid (Ludwig Czerny, 1924, Germany), Czerny left the company. He shot several documentaries and one sound feature film in the early 1930s, before the Nazis came to power in Germany. Czerny died in Berlin, in 1941, during an air raid.

The cameraman on The Conquest of the Caucasus was Nikolai Kozlovskii (1887-1939), the Ukrainian photographer and camera operator who had shot Aleksandr Drankov’s Sten’ka Razin (Vladimir Romashkov, 1908, Russian Empire) – the film conventionally referred to, in histories of Russian cinema, as the ‘first Russian feature film’ (Beumers 2009: 9) – and who would go on to work with the director Evgenii Bauer on his early films Krovavaia slava / Bloody Glory (Bauer and Vitalii Brianskii, 1913, Russian Empire, non-extant) and Sumerki zhenskoi dushi / Twilight of a Woman’s Soul (Evgenii Bauer, 1913, Russian Empire).¹¹ Franz Rubo (1856-1928), an artist of French origin from Odesa (Ukraine), who made a name for himself in the world of Russian painting with his battle panoramas, was employed as the set designer.

Esadze’s writing and co-directing was one of the Georgian contributions to the film, as was the work of Georgian technical staff and of the actors cast in the leading roles (Nikoloz [Kola] Eristavi, Giorgi Aradeli-Ishkhneli, Lado Gvishiani, Giorgi Iordanashvili, Irakli Kalandadze, Datuna Abdusheli, Zaal Terishvili etc). Zakaria Berishvili served as assistant director (Nikoladze 1958: 152) and the cameraman Vladimer Kereselidze shot parts of the film (Kereselidze 2013: 77). Zakaria Vakhtangishvili and Grigol Mkheidze, who later had long careers as make-up artists in Soviet Georgian film and theatre, were also engaged to work on the production. In addition, the famous theatre actor Valerian Gunia played seven different characters: Imam Shamil, King Erekle II, General Ermolov, Major Zolotukhin, General Galafeev, the clergyman Pais, and Mola Makhoma.¹² Gunia was the first Georgian actor to work in cinema, and his participation did much to diminish scepticism about the value of the new art form in Georgia.¹³

The diverse cultural, artistic, and ethnic backgrounds of the creators of The Conquest of the Caucasus reflect the cosmopolitan nature of cinema in the Russian Empire. Russia’s national film industry and distribution gained a relatively late foothold compared to Western countries, and the establishment of ties with the Western film industry largely determined the Russian film market and production.

‘Russian’ films from the early 1900s sold well in the West, which saw the Russian Empire as exotic and unknown. Increased interest in this region in European countries, as well as a lack of information from the empire provided fertile ground for their productions to be distributed on foreign markets. Just as the West exoticised the Russian Empire, so the Empire itself exoticised its colonies.¹⁴ In early cinema, transnational aspirations combined with colonial attitudes. Ethnographic documentaries showed stories from the Caucasus, the Far East, or the Far North (Ginzburg 1963: 59). From the end of the 1900s onwards, ethnography nurtured by imperialist ideology, which aroused a sense of cultural superiority among the audience, was also applied to feature films. The Conquest of the Caucasus is one of the films with a similar colonialist pathos.

The film depicts both the peaceful and the combat phases of the establishment of Russian rule in the Caucasus, specifically: the reign of King Erekle II, the last great king of Kartli-Kakheti, who signed the treaty that turned Georgia into a protectorate of the Russian Empire (the treaty was abrogated by Russia which proceeded to annex Georgia); the subjugation of Dagestan; General Grabe’s expedition in Akhulgo in 1839; the participation of the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov in a clash near the Valerik River; the capture of the Ghunib; the capture of Imam Shamil, the leader of the Caucasian Emirate and Russia’s chief adversary in the Caucasus; and other historical episodes. The film offers a typical picture of the Russian imperialist narrative about the Caucasus, which clearly outlines the ‘civilising’ role of the empire.

The film also contained documentary and ethnographic scenes. The newspaper Kavkaz mentions “several scenes from Georgian life.” (Kobiakov 1913: 3).¹⁵ According to the Russian magazine Sine-Fono “a large place is devoted to ethnographic scenes depicting the lives of Caucasian peoples” (Anonymous 1913: 80). The Conquest of the Caucasus also shows the procession of eight thousand people to a church during a religious holiday. The filmmakers brought the characters of Georgian kings to life in the Ksani Eristavi Palace, which dates from the late medieval period. Noble Eristavs (dukes), patrons of the palace, are dressed in the costumes of their ancestors and filmed in interiors decorated with old carpets and weapons. The Conquest of the Caucasus reflected folk games as well as horse racing and local customs (Gelashvili 2014: 20). Documentary and ethnographic elements allowed the authors to preserve history and to export Georgian culture outside of Georgia, while producers used exotic locations, costumes, and characters that would sell well throughout the Imperial film market. The film hails Russia’s wars and expansionist politics and supports Imperial interventionist approaches, as mentioned above. At the same time, however, by including documentary segments and fictionalised episodes with Georgian kings and nobility, the film might have been intended to prove that the conquered territories belonged to a civilised world with a rich cultural and historical past.

The Conquest of the Caucasus is a prime example of how a private company and the Imperial government collaborated to make a feature film before the October Revolution. The government gave full support to the film at both the production and distribution stages. With the consent of the viceroy of the Caucasus, Prince Ilarion Vorontsov-Dashkov, eight military regiments of Caucasian troops were placed at the disposal of the producers. The heads of the military units provided all possible assistance for large-scale tasks while the officers, under Esadze, who was also a Lieutenant Colonel, commanded the troops’ operations.¹⁶ Ludwig Czerny, “the director of the Munich Theatre”, undertook to film the mass scenes (Kobiakov 1913: 3). The Tula Arms Factory manufactured antique weapons for the battle scenes, and Aleksei Taldykin’s costume workshops designed and created the soldiers’ clothing and equipment, each according to the respective era depicted in that scene of the film.¹⁷

The central narrative covers the colonial wars in the Caucasus and shows the Russian Empire’s mighty victory, aiming to glorify its power. The Caucasus is portrayed as an exotic and less civilised region, and the Russian Empire as its saviour and protector. Consequently, The Conquest of the Caucasus is at least in part a propaganda film. The general story contained many heroic scenes, which carried the major emotional load. Many episodes of the colonial wars showed the heroic sacrifice of soldiers serving in the Imperial army, including some Georgian soldiers. This ideological reconstruction of history did not show the real motives for the struggle of the peoples of the Caucasus region, and the authors of the film unilaterally covered the course of events only from the Russian political perspective. In any case, it would be unthinkable for a film made with the support and consent of the Imperial authorities and, what is more, in the year of the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty to contain any critique of Russia’s Imperial wars by, for example, depicting the heroism of a Chechen fighter, or expressing sympathy for the cause of the Russian Empire’s Caucasian antagonists.

Praised by the Emperor, Exploited by the Company

The Conquest of the Caucasus was well received. The film’s closed premiere, which was attended by members of the Skobelev Committee (an organisation that will be discussed below), high-ranking military officials, and the press, took place on October 2, 1913, in the overcrowded hall of the Saint Petersburg Cinema Gigant. The film was released to the general public a few days later, on October 8. The Saint Petersburg newspaper Vechernee vremia wrote about the film, as follows:

The result, shown on the screen yesterday, undoubtedly testifies to the careful performance of the staging and the solid erudition of the leaders. The whole series generally gives an impression of integrity, and some of the scenes, such as Akhulgo, the heroism of Arkhip Osipov, and other scenes, are breathtaking. (Anonymous 1913: 80).

The special screenings that the company conducted in parallel with the wide distribution were always focused on gaining the goodwill of the upper strata of society. For example, on November 4, 1913, ministers, high-ranking military officials, and nobles attended a screening at the Cinema Odeon on the Crimean Peninsula. The next day, November 5, at the Romanovs’ residence of the Livadia Palace, the company presented the film in abbreviated form to Nikolai II and his family. Two hundred people attended the event. The emperor praised The Conquest of the Caucasus, wished the film success and Russian military cinematography future prosperity.¹⁸

Tiflis spectators also warmly welcomed The Conquest of the Caucasus. The Georgian premiere took place between October and December 1913 at the Cinema Modern. Then, at the insistence of the public, the Ricci brothers, the directors of the Cinema Modern, again ordered the picture from Russia. The first screening of the newly arrived copy was held in January 1914, primarily for the viceroy in his palace in Tiflis.¹⁹

Simon Esadze’s participation in the production and the post-production processes substantially contributed to the film’s general success and its positive reception by high society. Thanks to his expertise on the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, Esadze enjoyed a very high professional reputation among both scholars and the military alike. It was his authority and involvement that helped Drankov and Taldykin’s trading house win the government’s favour. The producers themselves were satisfied with Esadze’s work. After the screening of the film at the Livadia Palace, Taldykin thanked Esadze for “his work and his wise scholarly instructions, for which the picture deserved the highest approval.”²⁰ This did not, however, prevent Taldykin from refusing to fulfil his payment obligations. According to the agreement between the producers and Esadze, the trading house was to pay the latter five percent of the net profits from sales and royalties up to the amount of 500 rubles.²¹

Even three years after the film’s release, however, the company had not reimbursed Esadze for any fees or for travel and subsistence expenses that he had paid out of his pocket during post-production in Moscow. In 1915, Esadze appealed to the Moscow Gradonachalnik, the Head of administration of a city, for help. However, Taldykin lied to the police and not only denied that he had not reimbursed the filmmaker but also insisted that he “had no business relationship with Colonel Esadze at all and had no knowledge of his involvement in the production of The Conquest of the Caucasus. As a result, Esadze was never invited to travel to Moscow and Petrograd.”²² It was not until 1916 that Drankov finally paid 500 rubles to Esadze.

The production company also failed to fulfil their promise to the Caucasus Military History Museum (‘The Temple of Glory’), according to which the company had to lodge at the museum a full copy of the film for preservation and non-commercial purposes. Although the Viceroy's administration banned Drankov and Taldykin from filming in the Caucasus in the event of non-compliance, ‘The Temple of Glory’ did not receive a copy for its collections.²³

Towards the end of 1913, the company sold the negative of The Conquest of the Caucasus to Pathé.²⁴ According to Drankov and Taldykin, it was this situation that led to their failing to fulfil some of their financial obligations. However, in 1914 the trading house redistributed the re-edited version of the film. As a result, it appeared on screens in a reduced length (1775 metres), with a slightly modified title — Vziatie Guniba ili pokorenie Kavkaza / The Capture of Ghunib or The Conquest of the Caucasus (Vishnevskii 1945: 32). The new version was 750 metres shorter than the original film (2525 metres), which meant a 36-minute difference at a projection speed of 18 frames per second. Thus, it is likely that the re-edited version (non-extant) was markedly different from the original.

Simon Esadze – Documentary Filmmaker

The Conquest of the Caucasus is the only feature film that Simon Esadze directed. However, he soon linked his primary occupations of historian and soldier to documentary filmmaking. In 1913, Esadze was promoted to the position of the Head of the Military History Department under the Headquarters of the Caucasus Military District, and he continued to work as the director of the Military History Museum. After the outbreak of the First World War, Esadze took advantage of his professional roles to film documentaries and, during 1915 and 1916, he made more than 80 short films with a total length of more than 7,000 metres. While perhaps insignificant by comparison with the vast body of First World War newsreels produced by Western countries, this figure is impressive if we consider how Esadze had to work. First, the state’s financial contribution to this film series was minimal. Second, material, technical, and human resources were scarce, and, finally, Esadze made his documentaries in a competitive and disruptive environment shaped by the Skobelev Committee, an organisation supported by the highest authorities.

The Skobelev Committee for the Relief of Wounded Soldiers was established at the Military Academy of the General Staff in Saint Petersburg in 1904, in order to provide financial support to the veterans of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The Committee adopted the name of Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev (1843-1882), a Russian military leader known as the ‘White General’.²⁵ The Committee was a public organisation supported by both private donations and the emperor himself. It simultaneously served philanthropic and propagandistic purposes (Kenez 1985: 105). In November 1914, the Committee established a Military-Cinematographic Department. However, recent archival research reveals that by 1913 – that is, before the establishment of the cinematographic department – the Committee had already produced at least eight short documentaries.²⁶

After the outbreak of the First World War, the Skobelev Committee was awarded, from the government, a monopoly on military filming at the front, which barred private Russian and foreign film companies from filming there.²⁷ Foreign or other local Russian producers could only cover the events happening in the rear areas. However, military censorship made even this problematic (Ginzburg 1963: 180). It was only on December 8, 1916 that private firms were allowed to film at the front (Ibid.: 335).

Archival materials preserved in Georgia reveal that there was at least one more player involved in the production of wartime newsreels in this period, however. Neglected by historians, this player was Simon Esadze. Before the end of the Skobelev Committee’s monopoly, Esadze, together with his cameraman, Aleksandr Vital’evich Shvugerman [Schwugermann],²⁸ spent almost two years filming in the rear areas and on the frontline.

Esadze possessed fewer financial and human resources than the Skobelev Committee, which was backed by the state in Petrograd. The latter had incomparably greater opportunities to produce films compared to the Military History Department in Tiflis. In the face of the Skobelev Committee’s monopoly, the ban on filming at the front, the lack of raw materials, and the Committee’s obstruction of Esadze's activities, which I will discuss later in this article, it is all the more surprising that the small but ambitious Military History Department managed to make war newsreels.

In October 1914, Esadze appealed to the Chief of Headquarters of the Caucasus Army to be allowed to film in Asia Minor.²⁹ His original goal was to collect materials on the history of the Caucasus Army of the Russian Empire (Kavkazskaia Armiia).³⁰ To this end, he also requested the appointment of his subordinate editor, Staff Captain Nikolai Konstantinovich Smirnskii, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, as his cinematographer.³¹ Finally, in February 1915, Esadze’s initiative was approved. As a result, he and artillery intelligence officer Smirnskii were allowed to film and photograph on the Caucasus front and elsewhere in the Caucasus.³² However, this permission had certain conditions attached, namely that Esadze was obliged to submit the materials to the Headquarters of the Caucasus Army and that he was allowed to show films publicly only with the consent of the Army Chief of Staff.³³

In Esadze’s archives, Smirnskii’s name appears only in the permission documents for filming at the front. We must therefore assume that this cooperation did not result in the production of any films: in February 1915, Esadze informed the commander of the Caucasus Army that he had solved all the issues necessary for filming, except for the issue of a cameraman.³⁴ In March 1915, Shvugerman, a military serviceman of the Caucasus Border Mountain Battery, took up duties as a cameraman for Colonel Esadze.³⁵ By this time, Shvugerman had twelve years’ experience working as a cameraman in Rostov-on-Don and Moscow.³⁶

According to one of Esadze’s reports, he planned to attend all the filming himself and to give Shvugerman specific instructions, thus fully supervising the cameraman’s work.³⁷ It is interesting that Esadze does not refer to himself as a director here, although his explanations show that he would have been fulfilling the general functions of a film director. As a result, Esadze’s comments clarify his duties while filming at the Caucasian Front, which had hitherto been obscure to some scholars (Malysheva 2016: 542).

Eventually, Esadze was able to appoint Aleksandr Shvugerman as his cameraman and also as his assistant.³⁸ Shvugerman assisted the director in film distribution in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, and other cities, and was involved in the technical and organisational issues of purchasing film stock and necessary film and photographic equipment. Most notably, it was Shvugerman who shot the entire newsreel series of the Caucasus front of the First World War, directed by Esadze and commissioned by the Military History Department.

In early June 1915, Esadze and Shvugerman set out to film the Caucasian front for the first time. However, before leaving for combat positions, they filmed the top commanders of the Caucasus Army and the personnel of military and civil organisations in Tiflis.

Among the films made in 1915, which Esadze managed to distribute outside of Tiflis, are the following shorts: Ot’’iezd Grafa Vorontsova-Dashkova s Kavkaza / Count Vorontsov-Dashkov’s Departure from the Caucasus (Esadze, 1915, Russian Empire), Priezd Ego Imperatorskogo Vysochestva Velikogo Kniazia Nikolaia Nikolaevicha v Tiflis / The Arrival of His Majesty, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, in Tiflis (Esadze, 1915, Russian Empire), Avgusteishii Glavnokomanduiushchii, Velikii Kniazʹ Nikolai Nikolaevich na Tserkovnom Parade Svoego Konvoia / His Majesty the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich at the Ecclesiastical Parade of His Guard (Esadze, 1915, Russian Empire).

In 1916 Shvugerman and Esadze filmed Padenie Erzeruma / The Fall of Erzurum (Esadze, 1916, Russian Empire), Vziatie Trapezunda / The Capture of Trabzon (Esadze, 1916, Russian Empire), Pokorennye turetskie goroda: Baiburt, Erzingian i Mamakhatun i poseshchenie ikh Avgusteishim Glavnokomanduiushchim Kavkazskoi Armiei Velikim Kniazem Nikolaem Nikolaevichem / Defeated Turkish Cities: Bayburt, Erzincan, Mamakhatun, and a Visit to them by His Majesty the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus Army (Esadze, 1916, Russian Empire), Raion 5-i Turkestanskoi Strelkovoi Divizii s Gei-Dagom / District of the Fifth Rifle Division of Turkestan with Gay-Dag (Esadze, 1916, Russian Empire). Thus by January 5, 1916, less than a year after he started filming, Esadze had shot 7,000 metres of newsreels.³⁹ It is noteworthy that he mentioned the same figure in a letter he sent to the Headquarters of the Commander in Chief of the Caucasus Front on May 25, 1917.⁴⁰

Due to the war, the import of film stock into the Russian Empire had become extremely complicated. Usually, Esadze bought film from the Russian representatives of the French firm Eclair and the American company Kodak. It is likely that shortages of film stock prevented Esadze from continuing to shoot after 1916. He repeatedly asked Kodak to speed up the delivery process.⁴¹ From March 1916 to July 1917, the company failed to send the necessary film stock to Esadze. Only 3,840 metres of positive stock reached him during this period, which allowed him to undertake only duplication works, not actual production.⁴² Presumably, this delay in receiving raw film from Kodak explains why Esadze could not go to the front to film from August 1916, at least not until the end of that year. Despite these obstacles, due to his great efforts, the film negatives arrived in Tiflis in the middle of 1917, which means that, after a long pause, Esadze once again had the opportunity to resume the filming process. However, we are not aware of any films he shot with negatives acquired in 1917.

Besides the films listed above, documents in Esadze’s archive mention the titles of more than eighty films that were shot in present-day Georgia, Turkey, and Iran (Ardebil, Kazvin, Rasht, Kars, Sarikamish, the village Zivin, and other places).⁴³ In addition to documentaries shot on the front lines and rear areas during the First World War, Esadze also made travelogues and daily-life documentaries. As the Russian film producer and chairman of the distribution cooperative Skif, or in French spelling, Scythe⁴⁴ mentioned in correspondence with Esadze, the colonel produced many films like this.⁴⁵ Esadze showed some of these films to Vasilii Shentiapin, a representative of Scythe, while the latter was visiting Tiflis in 1915.⁴⁶ Unfortunately, the National Archive of Georgia contains no traces of these films. Also, at this moment, there are no such films attributed to Esadze in the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive in Krasnogorsk, although further research might reveal previously unknown material.

The Distribution of Esadze’s Documentaries and the Role of the Skobelev Committee

Simon Esadze performed his work under extremely challenging conditions. We have already discussed the shortage of film stock, which directly hindered production and was often the reason for the long pauses between shootings. Added to this was the problem of the limited infrastructure required for film processing and printing. Finding the chemicals needed to operate a film lab during the war was not an easy task. The Red Cross helped Esadze by supplying materials several times.⁴⁷ Esadze had established a film laboratory at the Military History Department in at least 1915, but the laboratory was not suitable for large-scale work.⁴⁸ Moreover, Esadze’s lack of financial resources prevented him from commissioning laboratory works in Moscow and Petrograd on a regular basis. However, one of the most problematic barriers that Esadze faced from the beginning was the fact that the government gave the production rights for wartime newsreel films exclusively to the Skobelev Committee, as outlined in the previous section. It is remarkable that, in spite of the Skobelev Committee’s monopoly, Esadze managed to gain the right to make films and, in some cases, to show them.

As early as February 1915, the Moscow branch of Pathé Frères warned Esadze that when his films were ready to be distributed and released, a clash between Esadze and the Skobelev Committee would be inevitable.⁴⁹ Indeed, on his very first attempt to distribute his war documentaries, in the autumn of 1915, Esadze met strong resistance. The Committee banned the joint-stock company Biochrome from distributing Esadze’s short film The Arrival of His Majesty, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to Tiflis in Petrograd.⁵⁰ As a result, Biochrome cancelled the contract with Esadze.⁵¹ Furthermore, the company cited the film’s previous screening in Tiflis by Cinema Lira and, consequently, the violation of the exclusive rights promised to Biochrome, as a second reason for cancelling the contract.⁵² Esadze protested against this situation in several ways. In a letter to a Scythe spokesman, he noted that the Skobelev Committee had no right to ban non-combat filming and that the film was allowed to be screened by Royal Court censors.⁵³ Eventually, Esadze’s protest partially paid off, and, indeed, the censor enabled the film to be released in Moscow.⁵⁴

Several Russian production companies expressed dissatisfaction with the monopoly of the Skobelev Committee. Among them was Scythe. Vasilii Shentiapin, a representative of Scythe’s management, wrote that “it is necessary to fight the monopoly of the Skobelev Committee by all means.”⁵⁵ He also criticised the working principle of the Committee, noting that cameramen commissioned by the Committee “conduct filming without any system or defined programme, without on-site scientific supervision.”⁵⁶

In March 1916, Esadze received a warning telegram from the head of the Petrograd Division of the Committee, Ia. P. Levoshko:

It has come to my attention that the films you have made for the History Museum are finding their way into cinemas, thus doing great damage to the Committee, which has spent large sums of money on these productions. Therefore, please prevent the screenings of films made for the History Museum in cinemas. Please send the films to the Military Archives for screening at the Skobelev Committee in Petrograd.⁵⁷

Whether Esadze did send the films to Petrograd is not known. However, he did not comply with the second part of the request received from Colonel Levoshko and continued to fight even more vigorously for the right to show his films.

The Skobelev Committee also prevented a public showing of Esadze's most successful film, The Fall of Erzurum.⁵⁸ When Esadze first screened this film, which depicts the conquest of the Turkish city of Erzurum by the Caucasus Army, in February 1916 at the “Evening for the Disabled” in Tiflis, the audience reacted with a round of applause.⁵⁹ After this performance, the Viceroy of the Caucasus, Grand Duke Nikolai Romanov, expressed a desire to see the picture. Esadze presented it to the Viceroy in his palace.⁶⁰ Soon he had the opportunity to show The Fall of Erzurum and another film, The Capture of Trabzon, to Emperor Nikolai II. Invited from Tiflis to the administrative staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (Stavka), Esadze and Shvugerman presented films in the presence of the Emperor at the Mogilev Cinema on May 2, 1916. The Emperor personally thanked Esadze for the films and expressed his approval of them.⁶¹ Nikolai II also wished to show the films to the public and the army in Petrograd. After they were presented to the wounded patients of the Petrograd Garrison and the Petrograd hospitals, Empress Aleksandra Fedorovna screened them in Tsarskosel’sk on June 7, accompanied by nobles and wounded soldiers convalescing in the infirmary. Soon after, military personnel in Krasnosel’sk and Helsingfors (now Helsinki) also had the chance to enjoy the screenings.⁶²

On May 17, 1916, after many attempts, Esadze finally received a certificate authorising him to screen The Fall of Erzurum and The Capture of Trabzon to the general public. By then, two months had passed since the first, semi-private screenings of The Fall of Erzurum. This delay had a negative impact on the film’s distribution.

Controversies, Deviations, and New Findings

The assertion that Simon Esadze filmed The Fall of Erzurum independently of the Skobelev Committee contradicts a well-established reference in Soviet-era historiography. According to Esadze’s paper archive, there were two films depicting military operations in Erzurum.⁶³ One of them was Esadze’s newsreel, mentioned above, and the other was a film made by the Skobelev Committee about the same event under an almost identical title – Shturm i vziatie Erzeruma / The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum (Janis Dored, George Ercole, 1916, Russian Empire) – which was shown in cinemas across the Russian Empire and in Tiflis, in the Apollo and Moulin-Electric cinemas (Anonymous 1916: 2). One of the most fundamental sources on pre-revolutionary documentaries – Veniamin Vishnevskii’s filmography – lists only one film: Shturm i vziatie Erzeruma (Padenie Erzeruma) / The Attack and the Conquest of Erzurum (The Fall of Erzurum) (Vishnevskii 1996: 277). According to Vishnevskii, it was produced jointly by the Military History Department of the Headquarters of the Caucasus Military District and the Skobelev Committee. However, he gives the first of these two institutions in square brackets, implying ambiguity about the accuracy of the information. Vishnevskii names Janis Dored,⁶⁴ P. V. Ermolov, and “other cameramen” as the cinematographers who shot under “Esadze’s direction.” (Vishnevskii 1996: 277).

The documentation from Esadze’s archive invalidates the information given in Vishnevskii’s filmography and allows us to clarify the facts. Let us begin with the topic of the movie(s)’ premieres. According to Vishnevskii, The Attack and the Conquest of Erzurum (The Fall of Erzurum) appeared on Imperial screens on March 13, 1916. Esadze released his film much later, but it was shown for the first time on February 28 in Tiflis, and, if the Skobelev Committee had been involved in the filming, Esadze would not have been allowed to screen it even at semi-private gatherings until it was universally released.⁶⁵ Moreover, the Emperor would not have summoned Esadze and cameraman Shvugerman from Tiflis to Saint Petersburg in order to present their film to him on May 2, 1916, if he had been able to watch it much earlier, upon its release on screens in Saint Petersburg.

Aleksandr Khanzhonkov began to distribute Esadze’s The Fall of Erzurum in May 1916.⁶⁶ Obviously, an experienced Russian entrepreneur would not re-distribute a movie that had been released two months earlier. Both Esadze’s major wartime newsreels had enjoyed wide distribution in Georgia and other regions of the Russian Empire. From the first public screening onwards, footage of the victory of the Russian army in Erzurum circulated in the cinemas of the Empire at least until the end of 1916 (through A. Khanzhonkov & Co, Thiemann, Reinhardt, Osipov & Co, Otto Arbois, and others).⁶⁷

Moreover, upon releasing The Fall of Erzurum and The Capture of Trabzon in May 1916, A. Khanzhonkov & Co issued a circular that explicitly stated the difference between the Erzurum film made by Esadze and that made by the Skobelev Committee:

Having obtained exclusive rights to distribute The Fall of Erzurum and The Capture of Trabzon in the whole Russian Empire, we hereby inform you that both films were shot entirely during the offensive and during the very days of the conquest of the Turkish forts and have nothing to do with the Skobelev Committee’s earlier stagings. [...] All pictures were made under the supervision of the Head of the Military History Department at the Caucasus Military District Headquarters and the director of the Caucasian Military History Museum (The Temple of Glory), namely Colonel Esadze.⁶⁸

This statement, which was a direct blow to the Committee, was emphasised by A. Khanzhonkov & Co’s advertisement campaign for The Capture of Trabzon. A newspaper announcement underlined that “All films were shot during the days of the siege and the entry of the valiant Russian troops into the Turkish fortress.”⁶⁹

Moreover, there are also fundamental differences between Esadze’s film about Erzurum and that made by the Skobelev Committee, even though they focus on the same historic events. Colonel Esadze followed the Caucasus Army on its way to Erzurum, filming the army's movement on the hills, their preparation for the attack on the fortress, and the troops’ entrance into the conquered city.⁷⁰ He also depicted the arrival of the Emperor in Erzurum and showed the Grand Duke, Nikolai Nikolaevich, as being in advanced positions near the village of Agaver.⁷¹ From the day of the city’s capture, or from February 3 to February 14, only Simon Esadze and Aleksandr Shvugerman were filming in Erzurum. No other camera operator was in town at the time.⁷² The film released by the Skobelev Committee was shot by cameraman Dored two weeks after Erzurum was taken, and it included many staged episodes.⁷³ In a letter to Shvugerman, Esadze wrote: “Apart from the obvious lies reflected in the footage of the attack on the fortress, the whole staging cannot withstand the slightest criticism.”⁷⁴ Nevertheless, while advertising the Skobelev Committee's film, the newspaper said it was shot during the attack on the Erzurum fortress and its capture (Anonymous 1916: 2). Archival documents reveal today that The Attack and the Conquest of Erzurum, filmed by cameraman Dored in 1916, represents one of the earliest cases of a re-enactment of a historical event in Russian documentary cinema.

Esadze’s The Fall of Erzurum reflected documentary reality, and in this sense his advantage over Dored’s picture may have been the main reason why the Skobelev Committee prevented the film from being shown in cinemas. Furthermore, the fact that the Committee did not charge distribution companies for distributing its own film further strengthens the assumption that the Committee was deliberately trying to sabotage Esadze’s picture. Free access to the film would also guarantee an earlier and more extensive distribution before the appearance of the work by Esadze and Shvugerman. Nevertheless, both of Colonel Esadze’s films were widely shown and with great success.

In order to further expand the argument for the existence of two different films depicting the historical event of the capture of Erzurum, it is necessary to say a few words about the length of the films. According to Vishnevskii’s filmography, The Attack and the Conquest of Erzurum (The Fall of Erzurum) was 960 metres long and consisted of three parts (Vishnevskii 1996: 277).⁷⁵ Esadze’s archive also provides information about the footage of the two films, recording the length of his own film as 1100 metres⁷⁶ and that of the Skobelev version as 750 metres, in two parts.⁷⁷

As a result of these findings, we can claim that what Vishnevskii identifies as one work is, in fact, a combined title that refers to two different films. The main title (The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum) belongs to the film produced by Skobelev Committee, and the alternative, or parallel title, given in parenthesis (The Fall of Erzurum), reflects the title of Esadze’s work for the Military History Department.

This article reveals several other facts that deviate from the filmographic information collected by Vishnevskii about Esadze’s films. The Russian historian mentions seven more newsreels in his filmography, directed by Esadze and produced by the Military History Department (Tiflis).⁷⁸ However, in all cases the attribution of the other creators said to have worked on the newsreels calls for a re-assessment. In every entry, with slight variations, Vishnevskii refers to Janis Dored, George Ercole,⁷⁹ Petr Ermolov, and “other cameramen” as the cinematographers of the Esadze films. At the same time, Esadze’s archives do not contain any evidence to support the claim that he collaborated with Dored and Ercole. The only one of the afore-mentioned cameramen who is named in his papers is Ermolov (in May 1916, Petr Ermolov sent the colonel five photographs and one 25-metre-long film as examples of his work).⁸⁰ This suggests that Esadze was not familiar with Ermolev’s work and did not have any experience of working with him. Ermolov, who had previously been working in the Moscow branch of Gaumont, was called up to the First World War in 1914 (Lebedev 1977: 83). He served as an ensign in the Fourth Military Corps of the Caucasus. While at the front, Ermolov asked Esadze to appoint him as a cameraman and a photographer in the Military History Department in Tiflis: “Now that the Caucasus army is moving victoriously forward and taking one city after another, I could successfully be of use to you to produce both photographic and cinematographic images.”⁸¹ However, he did not receive an answer to this request from Esadze. In November 1916, Ermolov was still serving in the Fourth Military Corps of the Caucasus and took part in constructing an electric theatre in Khnys-Kale, where the corps was stationed. Then, in the autumn of 1916, Esadze received a request from the corps commander to provide Ermolov, who was on a business trip to Moscow, with some films shot by him [Esadze] in Erzurum and Trabzon, to be screened at Khnys-Kale’s new cinema.⁸²

These facts prove that Ermolov did not take part in the creation of the eight films shot between 1915 and 1916 that Vishnevskii attributes to Esadze. Moreover, the documents housed in Esadze’s archive confirm that Aleksandr Shvugerman (and possibly Esadze himself) was the cinematographer of all the films produced by the Military History Department at the Caucasus Military District.

The Surviving Films — a Closer Look

The Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive in Krasnogorsk holds seven films made by Esadze. The archive’s online catalogue attributes five of these seven to Simon Esadze, one to the Skobelev Committee (with no information on the cinematographer or the director), and one to the Military History Department of the Caucasus Military District (again, with no information on the cinematographer or the director). The catalogue lists the film about Erzurum under the title Shturm i vziatie Erzeruma / The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum. However, it does not provide information about the cameramen, the director, or the production company. In 1972, the Krasnogorsk archive donated copies of the following four films/fragments to the National Archives of Georgia: Defeated Turkish Cities: Bayburt, Erzincan, Mamakhatun, and a Visit to them by H. I. M. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (1916); Heroes and Trophies of the Turkish Stronghold —The Fortress of Erzurum (1916); The Fall of Erzurum (1916) and The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum (1916) by the Skobelev Committee. Since not all of Esadze’s newsreels are available in the National Archive of Georgia, I will discuss only the available ones.

A surviving fragment of Defeated Turkish Cities: Bayburt, Erzincan, Mamakhatun, and a Visit to Them by H. I. M. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (approximately 230 metres in length) mainly reflects the visit of the Grand Duke, Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus Troops Nikolai Nikolaevich to the Russian-occupied territories of Turkey. The film also shows other members of the military elite, Major General Bolkhovitinov and Infantry General Iudenich. In addition to the cities named in the title, the newsreel depicts the commander-in-chief’s visit to Russian-occupied Trabzon.

This short film is not limited to picturing the official part of the Commander-in-Chief’s meetings with the military personnel. Esadze and his cameraman also filmed several scenes of street life, panoramic views, and war-torn infrastructure.

Although the newsreel comes across as a promotional reel, it is lively and even amusing in some parts, such as the episode where the commander-in-chief quickly gets out of the car and prepares to meet the army, or where the military men gathered on a high hill are passionately arguing while simultaneously pointing in the direction of the fortifications located on the plain. They seem to have forgotten the camera’s presence, possibly because of Esadze: he was a military person and, hence, ‘one of them’.

The last episode of the fragment ends abruptly (no closing title), and it shows the commander-in-chief meeting with members of the Turkish population in Erzincan. The local men have the Russian flag wrapped around their left arms and gather in front of Nikolai Nikolaevich. They greet him with a military salute, which reveals their esteem of and courtesy towards the new ruler: their hands are raised and held to the rim of their visor throughout the whole conversation. Regrettably, according to the Krasnogorsk catalogue, the fragment is incomplete and does not contain footage of Mamakhatun.

The fragment mentioned above is the only one of three fragments preserved in the National Archives of Georgia which credits Esadze as the director in the opening title card. It also gives the name of the joint-stock company Biochrome, which distributed the film in Russia. Nevertheless, in the catalogue of the Russian archive, Biochrome is wrongly listed as the film’s production company.

Another Russian company credited in another film available in Tbilisi – Heroes and Trophies of the Turkish Stronghold—the Fortress of Erzurum – is Abram Khokhlovkin’s distribution firm. This film is entirely devoted to the solemn public demonstration in Saint Petersburg of Turkish flags obtained during the war. (Footage of the same subject taken by a different cameraman is also part of the Skobelev newsreel The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum.) Esadze’s film shows the Caucasian Army’s main participants in the battle of Erzurum. The director pays special attention to the Georgian general Aleksandr Koniev (aka Aleksandre Koniashvili), who is described as the main hero of the battles of Erzurum, and uses a medium close-up shot to present him to the spectators. The intertitle says: “Hero of Erzurum—[...]—Captain Koniev, the first to enter the fortress walls,” after which the camera dwells on Koniev’s face. The static footage portraying Caucasian Army officers equipped with attributes of a conquered city is followed by footage depicting the same officers joining a larger group of soldiers in a ceremonial march to Tsarskoe Selo. Esadze’s montage is simple and reflects the unsophisticated structure of newsreels of the time, presenting the events sequentially, one at a time. Esadze does not crosscut except once, towards the end of the newsreel, when he returns to Koniev and cuts to the previously used medium close-up shot to conclude the fragment.

It is vital to point out another inaccuracy in Soviet Russian sources. With slight variations in the title, both the catalogue of the Krasnogorsk archive and Vishnevskii’s filmography attribute the film The Heroic Deeds of the Caucasian Army to Esadze and the Military History Department (Vishnevskii 1996: 266). The copy of this film held in the National Archives of Georgia (reproduced from the Russian archive) does not have an opening title. However, the title mentioned above is printed on the leader (in the archivist’s handwriting). The Esadze papers reveal that The Heroic Deeds of the Caucasian Army represents the second part of the complete version of The Fall of Erzurum’s title.⁸³ Not only do Esadze’s archival documents back up this argument, but the content of the film itself does, too. Hence, in the following paragraphs and in the filmography, I refer to the film The Heroic Deeds of the Caucasian Army with the title used in distribution: The Fall of Erzurum.

A short fragment of The Fall of Erzurum (approximately 170 metres) was shot entirely in Erzurum and its environs. Opening shots depict areas of the city that are burning (part of the Erzurum city walls at the Kars Gate, residential houses, the buildings and counters near the market), as well as already burned-out structures. At the beginning of the fragment, smoke is visible in almost every single shot, which indicates that filming was carried out shortly after the capture of the city by the Caucasus Army. Unsurprisingly, the available fragment of The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum made by the Skobelev Committee does not portray a city on fire. Also, nothing about the burning city can be found either in the Krasnogorsk catalogue or in Vishnevskii’s annotations, nor among the intertitles compiled by Esadze.⁸⁴ Then we see Turkish flags in the hands of Russian army officers. However, this time, unlike Esadze’s Heroes and Trophies of the Turkish Stronghold—the Fortress of Erzurum, and the Skobelev Committee’s The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum, flags are carried through the streets of conquered Erzurum, not in Saint Petersburg.

Despite their being filmed at different locations, and presumably at different times, the two films, which Esadze and the Committee filmed independently in Erzurum, also contain almost identical episodes describing the same content. For example, one episode shows war booty—Turkish heavy artillery lying in the vicinity of Erzurum. Shvugerman shoots the same cannons by panning from left to right, and the Skobelev cinematographer(s) by panning from right to left, thus corroborating the existence of two different films (and not versions) shot in Erzurum.

Conclusion

As this article has shown, Simon Esadze was an extremely important figure in the film industry in Georgia throughout the 1910s. Nevertheless, many aspects of his work have not hitherto been studied in depth. Drawing on unpublished archival sources, the present article brings clarity to the historical dimension of Esadze’s work, making available information on which the future analysis of pre-1918 Georgian cinema may be based.

Esadze’s example also shows that the cinema of the Russian Empire was not an entirely homogeneous body, existing only in the Imperial capitals of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Despite numerous impediments emanating from the centre, small, local film industries were conceived and developed on the colonial peripheries of the empire, in a non-Russian cultural environment. Contemporaneous political and economic realities did not create a favourable environment for the stable development of the film industry in Georgia. Nevertheless, for a brief period of time, from 1908 until 1918 – that is, from the beginning of filmmaking up to the founding of the First Democratic Republic of Georgia – a legacy of film culture accumulated thanks to the initiatives of individual filmmakers, such as Simon Esadze.

This research also brings to light key newsreels made by Esadze during the First World War, uncovers the identities of the people involved in the work process, and describes the conditions of film production and distribution, all issues that have been unclear until now. While making newsreels, Esadze’s goal was to create a visual history of the Caucasus Army of the Russian Empire and to preserve that history in the museum of which he was the director. Unfortunately, the chronicle of the war, which in its time became part of the collection of the Military History Museum, remains incomplete today. The present study shows the need to clarify the archival situation of Esadze’s work and the volume of materials preserved in different archives.

Esadze’s ambitious plan was to deliver material originally designated for museum and archival purposes to a broader audience. In addition, he believed that immortalising the activities of the Caucasus Army on film would help raise the population’s patriotic mood. At the same time, the difficulties he faced in implementing his plans demonstrate the mechanisms of state intervention in documentary filmmaking and the government’s desire to control the process thoroughly. Thus, an in-depth study of Esadze’s legacy may also be instrumental in observing early, pre-Soviet manifestations of the use of cinema for propaganda purposes in the Russian Empire.

Nino Dzandzava
Moving Archives (Tbilisi)
movingarchives@gmail.com

Bio

Nino Dzandzava studied at the Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film State University of Georgia from 2001 to 2006, where she obtained a Master’s Degree in film studies. From 2010 to 2011, she completed a film conservation course at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation (George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York). She has worked as a film critic and cultural commentator for various magazines and newspapers in Georgia. She has also published academic and research papers in journals and catalogues internationally. While working at the Film Heritage Department at the Georgian National Film Centre (2006–2009) and at the National Archives of Georgia (2011–2019), Nino carried out several film preservation and publication projects. She is the author and editor of several books on Georgian cinema and early photography in Georgia.

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Filmography

Bauer, Evgenii and Vitalii Brianskii. 1913. Krovavaia slava / Bloody Glory. Fabrika ‘Star’ (Pathé Frères).

Bauer, Evgenii. 1913. Sumerki zhenskoi dushi / Twilight of a Woman’s Soul. Kinofabrika ‘Star’ (A. Khanzhonkov and Pathé Frères).

Czerny, Ludwig. Esadze, Simon. 1913. Pokorenie Kavkaza / The Conquest of the Caucasus (aka The Battle of Ghunib) (Drankov & Taldykin).

Czerny, Ludwig. Esadze, Simon. 1914. Vziatie Guniba ili pokorenie Kavkaza / The Capture of Ghunib or The Conquest of the Caucasus (Drankov & Taldykin).

Czerny, Ludwig. 1924. Das Mädel von Pontecuculi / The Prince and the Maid (Notofilm).

Dored, Janis. Ercole, George. 1916. Shturm i vziatie Erzeruma / The Attack and Conquest of Erzurum (Skobelev Committee).

Esadze, Simon. 1915. Ot’’iezd Grafa Vorontsova-Dashkova s Kavkaza / Count Vorontsov-Dashkov’s Departure from the Caucasus (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1915. Priezd Ego Imperatorskogo Vysochestva Velikogo Kniazia Nikolaia Nikolaevicha v Tiflis / The Arrival of His Majesty, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, in Tiflis (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1915. Avgusteishii Glavnokomanduiushchii, Velikii Kniazʹ Nikolai Nikolaevich na Tserkovnom Parade Svoego Konvoia / His Majesty the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich at the Ecclesiastical Parade of His Guard (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1916. Padenie Erzeruma / The Fall of Erzurum (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1916. Vziatie Trapezunda / The Capture of Trabzon (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1916. Pokorennye turetskie goroda: Baiburt, Erzingian i Mamakhatun i poseshchenie ikh Avgusteishim Glavnokomanduiushchim Kavkazskoi Armiei Velikim Kniazem Nikolaem Nikolaevichem / Defeated Turkish Cities: Bayburt, Erzincan, Mamakhatun, and a Visit to them by His Majesty the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus Army (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Esadze, Simon. 1916. Raion 5-i Turkestanskoi Strelkovoi Divizii s Gei-Dagom / District of the Fifth Rifle Division of Turkestan with Gay-Dag (Voenno-Istoricheskii Otdel).

Goncharov, Vasilii. 1913. Pokorenie Kavkaza / The Conquest of the Caucasus (alternative title, The Capture of Shamil) (A. Khanzhonkov i Co.)

Romashkov, Vladimir. 1908. Sten’ka Razin. Drankov.

Vitrotti, Giovanni. 1911. Kavkazskii plennik / The Prisoner of the Caucasus (Thiemann & Reinhardt).

Vitrotti, Giovanni. 1911. Demon / The Demon (Thiemann & Reinhardt).

Suggested Citation

Dzandzava, Nino. 2022. “Simon Esadze and Early Film Culture in Georgia”. The Haunted Medium I: Moving Images in the Russian Empire (ed. by Rachel Morley, Natascha Drubek, Oksana Chefranova, and Denise J. Youngblood). Special issue of Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 15. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2022.00015.280

URL: http://www.apparatusjournal.net/

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