Burnt By the Sun

In my opinion, people that were 'burnt by the sun' were those that were scarred by the creation of the Soviet Union. Characters from this movie that were 'burnt by the sun' served their country during the revolution and WWI and seemingly had their lives destroyed as a result. Mitya was apparently the most obvious character that was 'burnt by the sun'. The miniture sun made both of its appearances in the movie when Mitya's wounds from the revolution were most apparent. When he told his sad story to Nadya about how everything that he had known had come to pass the sun appeared for the first time. His service in WWI caused him to grow appart from his loved ones. Mitya's betrayal of White Army generals during the revolution also left him scarred. He had seemingly killed a lot of men for his country in an effort to return to his former life; but he evidently became lost along the way. Also, although I cannot remember every instance when a character sang 'Burnt by the Sun' I believe that the song was sung right before somebody was to feel the full effect of being 'burned by the sun'. One example of this would be when the miniture sun made its final appearance and Mitya was singing the song in the bathtub with his wrists slit.

Kotov seemed to be very similar to Chapaev. He was brave, headstrong, and blindly loyal to his country. Chapaev and Kotov were also both friendly and smart. They would probably place the needs of their country before the needs of anything else. These two military men were basically the embodiment of the communist ideal of brotherhood.

Mitya was seemingly the opposite of Kotov and Chapaev. He lost everything that he had once held dear. Perhaps he became disillusioned with nationalism for his country after serving in WWI. All he wanted was the life he lost before he went away to war. The remainder of his life was seemingly dedicated to resurrecting his lost life no matter what the cost was. His quest to return to his former life lead him to become an assassin for the political office. However, I believe that he got caught up in his occupation and had forgotten why he was killing people. He did not seem to mind killing people. Originally, Mitya probably agreed to arrest Kotov because he wanted to win Marusia back and eliminate the man that he blamed in his mind for sending him away. However, his return to his former life most likely made him realize what a monster he had become. Everything that he was doing was for personal reasons. He killed people for himself; not for the Soviet Union.

Kotov was an embodiment of what the ideal communist should have been like. However, he was killed by a man who - liked Mitya - served his own purposes. Apparently, Joseph Stalin was more concerned with protecting his position of unchecked power within the Soviet Union than the wellfare of his Soviet 'brothers' and 'sisters'. Stalin probably perceived that Kotov was a threat to his position and elected to have him executed. He was committed to his own desires rather than to ideals such as brotherhood and acceptance. Mitya became his tool for murder and as a result was tarnished by the evil that he was forced to do for Stalin.

I believe that Burnt by the Sun was made for an international audience and any Russians that were previously oblivious to what horrible things Stalin did while he was in power. The mass murders orchestrated by Stalin were not a big secret to the Russian people because the large majority of them were probably negatively affected by them. However, the Soviet Union had been closed off to the world for roughly sixty years and had only recently opened up before Burnt by the Sun was created. Clearly, this film wanted to show the rest of the world one of the big secrets that had been kept while Russia was closed off. Previously to this movie, most non-Russians may have known that Stalin was ruthless. However, this movie displayed how evil he actually was.

I found the part of the movie when the banner of Stalin was flying over the farm fields extremely interesting. Stalin was depicted as overseeing the destruction of Kotov's life. He had already managed to successfully ruin Mitya's. Now, he would leave a little girl without her father, a wife without her husband, and the Russian people without a protector and cherished hero. Stalin's actions were made even more terrible because of how he betrayed a man that had previously been his friend. Kotov most likely never would have attempted to overthrow Stalin; but 'the man of steel's' paranoia led him to rid the Soviet Union of an experienced military officer that would have been of great help during WWII.