Katyń () is a 2007 Polish historical drama film about the 1940 Katyn massacre, directed by Andrzej Wajda. It is based on the book Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn by Andrzej Mularczyk. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for the 80th Academy Awards.
Plot
The events of Katyń are relayed through the eyes of the women, the mothers, wives, and daughters of the victims executed on Stalin's orders by the NKVD in 1940.
Andrzej (Artur Zmijewski) is a young Polish captain in the 8th Uhlan Regiment of Prince Józef Poniatowski, who keeps a detailed diary. In September 1939, following the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland, he is taken prisoner by the Red Army, which separates the officers from the enlisted men, who are allowed to return home, while the officers are held. His wife Anna (Maja Ostaszewska) and daughter Weronika, nicknamed "Nika" (Wiktoria Gąsiewska), find him shortly before he is deported to the USSR. Presented with an opportunity to escape, he refuses on the basis of his oath of loyalty to the Polish military.
Helped by a sympathetic Russian officer, Anna manages to return to the family's home in Kraków with her daughter. There, the Germans carry out Sonderaktion Krakau, shutting down Jagiellonian University and deporting professors to concentration camps. Andrzej's father is one of the professors deported; later, his wife gets a message that he died in a camp in 1941.
In a prisoner of war camp, Andrzej is detained for a while and continues to keep a diary. He carefully records the names of all his fellow officers who are removed from the camp, and the dates on which they are taken. During the winter, Andrzej is clearly suffering in the low temperature, and his colleague Jerzy (Andrzej Chyra) lends him an extra sweater. As it happens, the sweater has Jerzy's name written on it. Finally, Andrzej's is taken from the camp, while Jerzy is left behind.
In 1943, the population of Kraków is informed by the German occupation authorities about the Katyn massacre. Capitalizing on the Soviet war crime, Nazi propaganda publishes lists with the names of the victims exhumed in mass graves behind the advancing German troops. Andrzej's name is not on the list, giving his wife and daughter hope.
After the war, Jerzy, who has survived, has enlisted in the Polish People's Army (LWP), which is under the complete control of the pro-Soviet Polish United Workers' Party. He feels personal loyalty to his friends, loves his country, and has sympathy for those who have suffered. He visits Anna and her daughter to tell them that Andrzej is dead. Apparently, when the list of the names of the victims was compiled, Andrzej was misidentified as Jerzy on the basis of the name in the sweater that Jerzy had lent to Andrzej; it was Andrzej who was killed, not Jerzy. Despondent that he is now forced to acknowledge a lie and to serve those who killed his comrades in Katyn, Jerzy commits suicide.
Evidence of Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre is carefully concealed by the authorities. However, a few daring people working with the effects of the victims eventually deliver Andrzej's diary to his widow Anna. The diary clearly shows the date in 1940 when he must have been killed from the absence of entries on subsequent days. The date of the massacre is crucial for assigning responsibility: if it happened in 1940, the USSR controlled the territory, while by mid-1941 the Germans took control over it.
The film ends with a re-enactment of parts of the massacre, as several of the principal characters are executed along with other soldiers.
The film includes excerpts from German newsreels presenting the Katyn massacre as a Soviet crime, and excerpts from Soviet newsreels presenting the massacre as a German crime.
Cast
Andrzej Chyra, as Jerzy – Porucznik (1st Lieutenant) in the 8th Uhlan Regiment Artur Żmijewski, as Andrzej – Rotmistrz (Captain) of 8th Uhlan Regiment Maja Ostaszewska, as Anna, wife of Andrzej Wiktoria Gąsiewska, as Weronika ("Nika"), daughter of Andrzej and Anna Władysław Kowalski, as Jan, father of Andrzej and a professor at the Kraków University Maja Komorowska, as Maria, mother of Andrzej Jan Englert, as General Danuta Stenka, as Róża, wife of the General Sergei Garmash, as Captain Popov - a sympathetic and protective Red Army officer Agnieszka Kawiorska, as Ewa, daughter of General and Róża Stanisława Celińska, as Stasia – a servant in the General's house Paweł Małaszyński, as Piotr Baszkowski, a lieutenant (porucznik pilot) with 1 Aviation Regiment, Dęblin Magdalena Cielecka, as sister of Piotr Agnieszka Glińska, as sister of Piotr Anna Radwan, as Elżbieta – a relative of Anna Antoni Pawlicki, as Tadeusz, son of Elżbieta Alicja Dąbrowska, as an actress Jakub Przebindowski, as priest Wikary Krzysztof Globisz, as a medical doctor Oleh Drach, as a commissar Jacek Braciak, as a lieutenant Klin Production The director of Katyń, Andrzej Wajda, undertook the production of a film about the Katyń massacre for personal reasons. His father, Jakub Wajda—an officer who participated in Poland's defensive war—was murdered in 1940 in Kharkiv, and Andrzej Wajda did not learn the truth about his fate until the late 1980s. For a long time, however, Wajda lacked a literary starting point. After 1989, the only artistic works addressing the Katyń massacre remained Zbigniew Herbert’s Guziki (Buttons) and fragments of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polish Requiem; there were plans to utilize the prose of Włodzimierz Odojewski, but ultimately, the adapted source material chosen was Andrzej Mularczyk’s film novella Post mortem. Wajda also drew inspiration from the diary of Major Adam Solski, which was made available to the murdered officer's family only in 1989, thanks to Zbigniew Brzezinski. Excerpts from the diary were quoted directly in the film's screenplay. In addition to Wajda, Władysław Pasikowski and Przemysław Nowakowski participated in the work on the screenplay.
Selecting the main protagonists for a film about the Katyń massacre also presented a challenge. Wajda decided that the actual act of executing the Polish soldiers would remain on the periphery of the overall narrative. The director admitted that he found it easiest to adopt the perspective of his own mother, who had waited in vain for his father's return. Consequently, the majority of the film's action is devoted to the women. Danuta Stenka played General Smorawińska, who refuses to participate in Nazi anti-Soviet propaganda. Maja Komorowska appeared in the role of Captain Andrzej’s mother, while Agnieszka—portrayed by Magdalena Cielecka—was styled as a wartime Antigone, striving to secure for her murdered brother at least a semblance of a grave.
Filming The cinematography for Katyń was handled by the acclaimed cinematographer Paweł Edelman, for whom Wajda’s film marked an opportunity to return to the film industry after a three-year hiatus. The film's costumes were created by Magdalena Biedrzycka in collaboration with Andrzej Szenajch, while the production design was developed by Magdalena Dipont. Filming began on October 3, 2006, and ended on January 9, 2007. The total budget for Katyń amounted to nearly 15 million PLN.
Exterior scenes were filmed at the following locations:
Jarosław, the railway bridge in Wyszków, the Poświętne commune (St. Joseph's Church in Studzianna), Kasina Wielka, Warsaw (Solariego Street, the Citadel, 11 Listopada Street, the ZASP building on Ujazdowskie Avenue, Złota Street, Senatorska Street, Oczki Street), Zielonka, the Wesoła training ground (serving as the cinematic Katyń Forest), Kraków (Main Market Square, Poselska Street, the Planty Park, St. Mark's Street, the Słowacki Theatre, Dolnych Młynów Street, Grottgera Street, the Academy of Music, Kanonicza Street, Senacka Street, Jagiellonian University, Salwator Cemetery), the vicinity of Jarosław (serving as the cinematic Kozelsk), Stary Dzików, Konstancin-Jeziorna (the "Hugonówka" villa), Góra Kalwaria
Historical background
Six months before the massacres at Katyn, on August 23, 1939, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin authorized the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression agreement with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany with a secret protocol to partition and annex Eastern Europe. Within days, German troops invaded western Poland, the first action aimed at fulfilling Hitler’s ultimate goal of "Lebensraum". Within days, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, a region historically at odds with its former rival, Tsarist Russia. Hundreds of thousands of Poles, including soldiers, officers and civilians were incarcerated or transported to the Soviet Union.Steinberg, 2008
Executions of prisoners
In early 1940, the head of the Russian secret police (NKVD), Lavrentiy Beria, was authorized by Stalin to liquidate selected prisoners. Most of the victims were murdered in the Katyn forest near Smolensk, Russia, at Kalinin (Tver), and at Kharkov prison, where Wajda’s father, a Polish cavalry officer, was executed.Niemitz and Steinberg, 2016: “Wajda’s father was executed, as part of the same operation, in an NKVD prison in Kharkiv in the Ukraine.”Steinberg, 2008: “Katyn is the name of the town near Smolensk in Russia where the executions took place.”
Over 20,000 members of Poland’s intelligentsia and military forces were slaughtered, usually by a bullet to the head. Stalin’s rationale for the extermination of Polish executive and military staff was that it eliminated social and political elements that may have organized opposition to his policies.Steinberg, 2008: “an estimated 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals—including Wajda’s own father—who were slaughtered by Soviet troops at the start of 1940.
When the Germans had established military bases in Poland, Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union—Operation Barbarossa—which would kill many Russian civilians and soldiers.
Reception
Cinema attendance and distribution issues The film’s gala premiere took place on September 17, 2007, in Warsaw, marking the 68th anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. The premiere's commemoration was a “major political event”, attended by members of the Polish political establishment. Historian Stefan Steinberg writes:
Wajda acknowledged in his production notes that President Kaczynski had provided “honorary patronage” during the film’s production.Steinberg, 2008: “...according to Wajda’s production notes, the film was made under the honorary patronage of Lech Kaczynski.” Though Wajda reassured Berlin journalists that Katyń was not conceived as anti-Russian propaganda, conservative German chancellor, Angela Merkel attended its premiere.Steinberg, 2008: “In Berlin Wajda disingenuously told newspapers that he did not regard his new film to be political…The political nature of the film was underlined at its European premiere in Berlin, which was attended by…the right-wing German chancellor, Angela Merkel.”Niemitz, 2016: “Wajda denied his film was anti-Russian, although all of the Soviet figures portrayed in the film—with one notable exception—are thugs and brutes.”
Wajda ultimately registered a formal objection to President Kaczynski regarding the politicizing of Katyń.Steinberg, 2008: “Wajda subsequently addressed a letter to the president objecting to the overtly political exploitation of his film during the election campaign…” In one of his last interviews, shortly before his death in 2016, Wajda declared: