While Georgian society was marked by a highly stratified class system, it was not entirely an exclusive one, and certainly not at sea. Photo taken July 1905, after arrival at Constana officer at left is in Romanian uniform. He was the biographer of Mountbatten, and his last biography, Captain James Cook, became a world bestseller. ‘Battleship Potemkin’ Posted on JMatushenko, the leader of the mutiny, is seen to the left of centre. Praise for Richard Hough: 'Hough is a good storyteller with a refreshing, breezy style' - The Wall Street Journal 'Hough is shrewd and subtle' - The Sunday Telegraph Richard Hough, the distinguished naval historian, was the author of many acclaimed books in the field, including The Fleet That Had to Die, Admirals in Collision, The Great War at Sea: 1914-18, and The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45. Quelled by the Cossacks who slaughtered thousands in the process, this book shows the protagonists not as symbols but as human beings reacting under powerful tensions. The Potemkin Mutiny is a balanced recounting of events, including the killing of many Potemkin officers and a civil uprising in Odessa. The revolt, immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein's famous motion picture, was considered by the Soviets a glorious moment in the people's fight against a tyrannical czarist government, but for others it was a sordid little rebellion over bad meat. Hailed as an important contribution both to history and to sea literature when first published in 1961, Richard Hough's book gives a dramatic blow-by-blow account of the June 1905 mutiny on board the Russian battleship Potemkin. Political censorship of the cinema was most active during and between the world wars and declined rapidly after 1945.The event that almost brought the Russian Revolution twelve years before its time. Subsequently the film was reclassified PG uncut for a limited cinema re-release in 1987 and is now acknowledged as a classic. With its potential to cause political unrest diminished, especially after the death of Stalin in 1953, the film was finally classified X uncut (persons under 16 not admitted). Attempts were made to block a number of these screenings, either by the police or by local authorities.īy the time the BBFC was asked to look at the film again, in 1954, silent films were no longer commercially viable and the film was therefore likely to appeal only to a very small and select audience. Eventually the film was screened privately (for the Film Society) in 1929 and was subsequently screened a number of times, usually at private performances (eg for workers' educational groups), during the 1930s. Moves to submit the film to other local authorities were halted after the film's distributors were visited by the Metropolitan Police. However, the fact that no attempts were made to tone down the film suggested political motives. It was remarked by some at the time that, had violence been the real problem, cuts could have been made. However, the film was rejected by both councils, officially because of its violence. According to The Times, screenings of the film in Berlin had already led to unrest and a censorship battle between left wing supporters of the film and right-wing efforts to have it banned.įollowing the BBFC's rejection of the film, Potemkin was submitted to the London County Council and Middlesex County Council for certificates for local screenings. No doubt at the back of the BBFC's mind was the nine day British general strike in May 1926 which had provoked fears amongst some quarters of society of a potential revolution in the UK. The BBFC's Annual Report for 1926 mentions that the film was rejected for "inflammatory subtitles and Bolshevist Proaganda". The film was rejected when first submitted to the BBFC in September 1926, on the grounds that films should not address issues of 'political controversy' and that Potemkin's pro-Revolutionary message was therefore unacceptable for classification. The film, like many Russian silents of the time, was clearly, carefully and powerfully designed as pro-Bolshevik propaganda. Sergei Eisentein's silent classic was made in 1925 as a homage to the abortive 1905 Russian naval mutiny.
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