She Defends the Motherland, () is a 1943 Soviet

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

film starring Vera Maretskaya and directed by

Fridrikh Ermler Fridrikh Markovich Ermler (13 May 189812 July 1967) was a Soviet film director, actor, and screenwriter. He was a four-time recipient of the Stalin Prize (in 1941, twice in 1946, and in 1951). After studying pharmacology, he joined the Czari ...

. It was distributed in the United States by Artkino Pictures as No Greater Love, also in 1943, with a dubbed-English soundtrack.

Plot

Praskovya Lukyanova, a rural villager in the USSR, first loses her husband in battle at the outbreak of WWII, and then her only young son, who is run over deliberately by a Nazi tank driven by a soldier wearing an eyepatch, as the Germans take over the village. Thus convicted of the need to fight back, she organizes her fellow villagers in the forest, where they have taken refuge, into a guerilla unit which first thwarts, then overcomes, the fascist invaders.

Cast

Vera Maretskaya Vera Petrovna Maretskaya (; 31 July 1906 – 17 August 1978) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actress. She was a recipient of People's Artist of the USSR (1949) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1976). Early years Vera Petrovna Maretskaya was ...

as Praskovya Lukyanova *

Nikolay Bogolyubov Nikolay Nikolayevich (Mykola Mykolayovych) Bogolyubov (; ; 21 August 1909 – 13 February 1992) was a Soviet, Ukrainian and Russian mathematician and theoretical physicist known for a significant contribution to quantum field theory, classi ...

as Ivan Lukyanov (as N. Bogolyubov) * Lidiya Smirnova as Fenya (as L. Smirnova) * Pyotr Aleynikov as Senya (as P. Alenikov) * Ivan Pelttser as Stepan Orlov (as I. Peltser) * Inna Fyodorova as Orlova (as I. Fyodorovna) * Aleksandr Violinov as Nikolai Nikolayevich (as A. Violinov)Она защищает Родину (1943) Full Cast & Crew
/ref> * ? as General Von Falk * ? as The One-Eyed German Tankist

References

External links

* 1943 films 1943 war films 1940s war drama films 1940s Soviet films 1940s Russian-language films Soviet war drama films Soviet black-and-white films Soviet World War II films Films scored by Gavriil Popov Russian-language war drama films Kazakhfilm films {{1940s-USSR-film-stub