Original title: Osvobozhdeniye
Copyright: the Kyiv Film Studio, 1940
Format: feature documentary
Carrier: DVD
Color: black-and-white
Length: 61"; 1478 m.
Original language: Russian
English subtitles: yes

Film crew
Director: Oleksander Dovzhenko, Yulia Solntseva
Script writer: Oleksander Dovzhenko
Cinematographer: Yuri Yekelchik, Grigory Aleksandrov, Mykola Bykov, Yuri Tamarski
Production designer: Morits Umansky
Original music: Borys Liatoshynsky

Synopsis

Liberation features events of the Soviet occupation of western Ukraine, at the time a part of Poland, after the out-break of the Second World War in September 1939. Following official Soviet historiography, the film presents the annexation of Western Ukraine, the result of the Nazi-Bolshevik partition of Poland, as the historic act of “reunification of all Ukrainian lands into one Soviet-Ukrainian state.” Scenes include: a Hutsul village public meeting addressed by Dovzhenko himself; the opening of the People’s Assembly of Western Ukraine in L’viv, October 26th, 1939; the opening of the People’s Assembly in Bialystok; adoption of the act of  reunification of Western Ukraine with the Ukrainian SSR by the Ukrainian Soviet Parliament in Kyiv and by the Supreme Soviet in Moscow.