The Battle of Kerzhenets

The Battle of Kerzhenets
Title card
Directed by	Yuriy Norshteyn Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Produced by	Soyuzmultfilm
Written by	Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Music by	Rimsky-Korsakov
Release date	1971 (USSR)
Running time	10 min 12 sec
Country	USSR
Language	Russian

The Battle of Kerzhenets (Russian: Се́ча при Ке́рженце; tr.: Secha pri Kerzhentse) is a 1971 Soviet animated film directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Yuriy Norshteyn. The film is set to music by Rimsky-Korsakov and uses Russian frescoes and paintings from the 14th–16th centuries. These are animated using 2-dimensional stop motion animation.

The story is based on the legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh (made into a 4-act opera by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1907), which disappears under the waters of a lake to escape an attack by the Mongols. (Russia was under the Mongol-Tartar yoke for a period of three centuries in the Middle Ages.)

The film itself follows the legend only loosely, however, and its highpoint is a battle between the Russian soldiers and the Mongol hordes, symbolizing a clash of cultures (the Virgin Mary appears early in the film, in effect watching over the Russian side of the battle).

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