The Unknown War on Russian Video from Russia

The Uknown War on Russian Video from RussiaToday Russian Video from Russia starts publishing a remarkable documentary movie about WWII “The Unknown War”. Host and Narrator Burt Lancaster will tell us story of WWII Eastern European front  based on archived videos of WWII.

“The Unknown War” is TV series made by USA and Soviet Union in 1978. I bet western people never heard such stories…

I don’t know what  you think about Soviet Union but I think the series “The Unknown War” must be watched because they tell you not only about Soviet Union but about human race about heroism of people… and when you watch it and you know that is not Hollywood tale but truth …you feel proud to be a human.

Russian Video from Russia
Svetlana

Here are all twenty series of the movie, each of title will become a link when we’ll publish it.

1. June 22, 1941

2. The Battle for Moscow

3. The Siege of Leningrad

4. To the East

5. The Defense of Stalingrad

6. Survival at Stalingrad

7. The World’s Greatest Tank Battle

8. War in the Arctic

9. War in the Air

10. The Partisans

11. The Battle of the Seas

12. The Battle of Caucasus

13. Liberation of the Ukraine

14. The Liberation of Belorussia

15. The Balkans to Vienna

16. The Liberation of Poland

17. The Allies

18. The Battle of Berlin

19. The Last Battle of the Unknown War

20. A Soldier of the Unknown War

The story was written by Rod McKuen. Today Rod McKuen tells more about these series:

Spent the afternoon being interviewed on film as part of the extra features that will be included in the multi-disc boxed set of The Unknown War, being released in May by Shout Factory Video.

So many memories of the year and a half I spent in Russia composing the music and editing scripts for the series. I had come to fear that The Unknown War would become The Unknown Series as far as America is concerned. Because of The Soviet Union’s attack on Afghanistan (does the phrase attack on Afghanistan have a familiar ring?) America and much of the world boycotted The Moscow Olympics, the Cold War grew even more frigid and only a few episodes of our series were aired in The United States.

An American & Soviet co-production, the U.S. Company went out of business and Shout Factory had to contact Soviet- Film for the rights and masters –– so it’s a small miracle that after more than 30 years the series will be making its return for viewers here. Meanwhile, thanks to you, the double soundtrack LP has become one of Stanyan’s all time best sellers. It will be updated and re-released on CD (by Stanyan or Shout Factory) to coincide with the DVD release.

Narrated by Burt Lancaster and produced by Isaac Klinnerman (of “Victory at Sea” fame) The Unknown War is a 20-part account of WW II on the Eastern Front, in which more than 20 million Soviet citizens lost their lives. Yes, twenty million! Much of the footage in this epic has never been seen before and was taken from masters held by The Kremlin since the 1940’s.

What makes the series so important for North American and Canadian viewers of today? While there have been British, French and American documentaries on WW II that tell us of The Battle for Britain, The French Resistance, Pearl Harbor and Bataan, even today our knowledge of what went on at the Eastern Front is not only incomplete but in most cases non-existent. As I pointed out in my interview because of their openness and because The Allies were the victors we know almost all there is to know about WW II from the point of view of Japan and Germany; but Russia / The Soviet Union has almost always been a closed society there just hasn’t been that much insight or access on the 4 year Axis vs. Russia battles.

Operation Barbarossa (named after a famed German general) and dubbed The Great Patriotic War by Russians is a fascinating and mostly missing part of world history. I for one am thrilled that despite 30 years of neglect this valuable and entertaining documentary will finally be available to the wide audience it was produced for. Selfishly I consider the music and script supervision I contributed to The Unknown War some of my best work. And wait till you hear the music that was left out of the original album that will be included on the new soundtrack CD. If it comes out on Stanyan it might even be a double disc priced as one.

So today I’m on a big high.

RM 1/28/2011

4 thoughts on “The Unknown War on Russian Video from Russia

  1. Ken Kelso

    The winds of War song your talking about, from the unknown war narrated by Burt Lancaster is on Youtube.
    Just do a search on Youtube for, The Unknown War Ep6 Survival at Stalingrad
    The song is at 42 minutes 30 seconds

    Reply

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