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Draft:The Fortress: By Shield and Sword

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The Fortress: By Shield and Sword
Russian theatrical release poster
Directed byFyodor Dmitriev (ru)
Written by
Based onHistorical events
Produced by
StarringVoice cast
Animation byMaria Aluferova
Ekaterina Kolmakova
Evgenia Grishina
Vera Shiganova
Darya Skripka
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • October 29, 2015 (2015-10-29) (Russia)
Running time
73 minutes
Country Russia
LanguageRussian
Budget$3.8 million[1]
Box office
  • $1.2 million [2]
  • 76.6 million RUB

The Fortress: By Shield and Sword (Russian: Крепость. Щитом и мечом, translit. Krepost': Shchitom I Mechom) is a Russian full-length war-historical animated feature produced by Melnitsa and STV, based on the story of the Siege of Smolensk. The film was directed by Fyodor Dmitriev (ru), with the screenplay written by Aleksandr Boyarsky in 2005[3]. The film premiered on October 29, 2015.

Plot

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In the year 1609,[4] the army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by King Sigismund III and Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, sets up camp near Smolensk. The king expects to take the city within days and then march on Moscow. At night, two boys—Sashka, an orphan, and Fyodor, a priest’s son—discover the Polish camp while helping the local baker Filimon.

That day, Sashka is whipped by Filimon for causing an explosion in the bakery with a dough-made "bomb." After the punishment, he tells Fyodor about the "Fiery Shield Tsar," a mythical figure said to have appeared in Moscow as a harbinger of doom. He convinces Fyodor to sneak out to the cemetery at night. There, Sashka stages a dance to scare his friend but falls into a sunken grave. The frightened boys flee and stumble upon the Polish camp.

Sashka decides to throw a dough bomb into the camp to delay the enemy and sends Fyodor to warn the city. The bomb only singes a soldier’s pants, and Sashka is spotted. He runs toward the fortress, where he sees the city preparing for defense. He meets the voivode, Mikhail Shein.

The next morning, Shein lines up the townspeople to assess their readiness for battle. Sashka disguises himself with fake mustaches, hoping to be enlisted, but is ignored. However, Fyodor is found to be literate and is assigned as a scribe to the clerk Alexei Ivanovich.

Sashka tries again to prove his worth by making more dough bombs. At night, with Fyodor’s help, he sneaks into Filimon’s bakery through the chimney. Covered in soot, he startles the baker, grabs some dough, and escapes through the window.

Later, Sashka and Fyodor part ways at a well. Sashka sneaks into the Avraamievsky Gate and steals a pouch of gunpowder. He notices a rope in an embrasure and sees a masked spy climbing up. Sashka pulls the rope, but the spy cuts it. A guard catches Sashka and accuses him of theft, but the boy escapes, scolding the guard for missing the spy. At the top of the tower, Sashka finds a silver cross on the rope.

The next morning, he shows the cross to Fyodor, who says it belongs to "a good man" who asked him to find it. Suddenly, the Poles begin shelling the city. A cannonball crashes through the chimney, nearly hitting Sashka. When he returns to the window, Fyodor is gone—killed by the spy hiding behind a cabinet, who also takes the cross.

Sashka runs through the bombardment to help Shein with a cannon. Meanwhile, Polish troops approach the Avraamievsky Gate with a battering ram. Shein devises a ruse: place a bag of gunpowder at the gate and sound a Polish signal with a horn to lure enemy cavalry into a trap, where they can be ambushed by cannon fire.

The cavalry falls for the ruse and charges forward, only to crash into the closed gates. At that moment, Shein orders the cannons to fire, but they fail to shoot— the gunpowder has been diluted with sand, and the Polish troops retreat safely to their camp. The voivode summons the night watchman. Upon seeing Sashka, the guard immediately accuses him of stealing gunpowder during the night. Shein orders Sashka to be locked in the old bathhouse. That night, a Polish spy sneaks into the bathhouse to kill Sashka, but leaves empty-handed—Sashka was hidden just in time by an old man living there, whom the boy initially mistakes for a Bannik (bathhouse spirit).

After the failed assault, King Sigismund III scolds Stanisław Żółkiewski for the unsuccessful attack on the Avraamievsky Gate. The hetman reports that in a week, weapons capable of breaching Smolensk’s walls will arrive from Riga. Meanwhile, the cardinal—Sigismund’s uncle—advises the king to deprive the Russians of cannonballs and reveals that there are many underground tunnels beneath Smolensk. In the catacombs, the cardinal meets with a spy, instructs him to sabotage the foundry, and gives him a devil mask to spread rumors of evil forces in the city, hoping to incite panic and disorder. The spy infiltrates the foundry, releases water, and washes away all the fireproof clay, frightening one of the workers with the devil mask.

Back in the bathhouse, the old man shows Sashka a passage to the underground and asks him to bring special clay from there for the stove. Sashka fulfills the task, but upon returning, finds the old man gone and heads back into the catacombs. Soldier Nikolai informs Shein that eight sacks of gunpowder—each weighing three poods—had been tampered with, meaning Sashka couldn’t have done it. Shein visits the bathhouse and discovers molding clay essential for cannonball production. He orders it to be delivered to the foundry.

Sashka escapes the catacombs through an old well. Filimon chases him, and the boy returns underground through the same well, which is then sealed with stones. Sashka makes his way back to the old man in the bathhouse, who puts him to sleep.

Defense of Smolensk from the Polish army.

Believing Smolensk has run out of cannonballs, the Polish army launches a full-scale assault. The voivode and his troops repel the enemy.

At night, the old man wakes Sashka and sends him into the underground tunnels. In the catacombs, the boy notices a burning fuse and follows it to a stash of gunpowder barrels. Unable to extinguish the fuse, he pushes one of the barrels toward the entrance, where it explodes—saving one of the fortress towers.

Sashka visits the clerk Alexei Ivanovich to look for Fyodor. Seeing a silver cross around the clerk’s neck, he realizes the man is the spy. When asked about Fyodor, the clerk replies, “He’s gone and won’t return,” and tries to kill Sashka. The boy escapes, grabbing a devil mask that falls from the clerk’s bag. The voivode orders the traitor to be captured, but the clerk manages to flee the city. Sashka mourns Fyodor.

A massive cannon arrives from Riga at the enemy camp. With a single shot, the Poles breach the fortress wall. Soon after, envoys from Moscow arrive in Smolensk and announce the abdication of Tsar Vasili IV of Russia and an order from the interim government, the Seven Boyars, to surrender the city to Sigismund. Shein addresses the people, warning that the Polish king will not be satisfied with just Smolensk. The townspeople respond that they are ready to follow the voivode anywhere.

Shein refuses to surrender. The Polish cannon continues to destroy the fortress walls, constantly changing position. Without a scout’s signal, it is nearly impossible to target and destroy the cannon. Shein sends Nikolai to mark the cannon’s location and gives Sashka a letter to deliver to Moscow. Sashka returns to the old man to say goodbye. The man gives him a bundle for the journey. As Sashka runs into the street, it begins to rain. He slips and drops the letter, discovering it is a blank charter sheet—the voivode, believing the city doomed, wanted to save the boy.

In the bushes, Sashka finds wounded Nikolai with an unlit torch. Nikolai points out where the cannon was moved and gives Sashka the torch to signal its location. The torch is too wet to light. Sashka opens the bundle from the old man and finds a glass lantern with a candle inside. He lights it, revealing the cannon’s position. Russian artillery fires accurately and destroys the “miracle cannon.” As the traitorous clerk chases Sashka, the boy loses consciousness.

He has a vision: the clerk transforms into a giant Black Rider, bringing death to Smolensk. But from the lantern, the “Fiery Shield Tsar” appears in the sky, battles the Black Rider, and pierces his heart with a golden spear. The Fiery Shield Tsar lifts Sashka in his palm and removes his helmet. The boy sees the old man from the bathhouse who had helped him. Sashka finds himself in the afterlife, which appears as the same old bathhouse, where he reunites with Fyodor. They embrace and say goodbye.

In the finale, it is revealed that the defiant fortress fell two years later. Eight years after that, in 1619, voivode Shein returns from Polish captivity. At the Russo-Polish border post during a prisoner exchange, Shein recognizes one of the soldiers greeting him—it is a grown-up Sashka.

Voice cast

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Actor Role(s)
Elena Shulman (ru) Sashka
Pyotr Fyodorov (ru) Voivode Mikhail Shein
Ekaterina Gorokhovskaya (ru) Fyodor
Vadim Nikitin (ru) The Old Man
Yevgeny Stychkin (ru) Polish King Sigismund III
Oleg Kulikovich (ru) Clerk Alexei Ivanovich / Boyars from Moscow
Sergey Russkin (ru) Cardinal
Anatoly Petrov (ru) Polish Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski / Foundry Worker
Aleksandr Boyarsky (ru) Baker Filimon / Old Man in Crowd / Foundry Worker (first line)
Mikhail Khrustalyov (ru) Soldier Nikolai / Narrator at the end
Yakov Petrov (ru) Soldiers and Commanders / Watchman
Maksim Sergeyev (ru) Soldier who noticed the gunpowder was diluted with sand
Alexander Demich (ru) and
Andrey Kuznetsov (ru)		 Minor characters

Soundtrack

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  1. Music by Mikhail Chertishchev (ru), K. Chentsov (ru)
  2. Lyrics by Aleksandr Boyarsky (ru)
  3. Performed by Alisa Kozhikina (ru)
  1. Music by Semyon Treskunov (ru), Sergey Pokhodayev (ru), Mikhail Chertishchev (ru)
  2. Lyrics by Semyon Treskunov (ru), Sergey Pokhodayev (ru)
  3. Performed by Semyon Treskunov (ru), Alisa Kozhikina (ru)

Awards

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  • 2016 — 20th All-Russian Festival of Visual Arts at the children's center "Orlyonok": Best Feature-Length Animated Work — The Fortress: By Shield and Sword, directed by Fyodor Dmitriev (ru)[6]
  • 2016 — 13th International Charitable Film Festival "Radiant Angel Film Festival" (Russian: Лучезарный ангел) in the "Animated Film" category: Third Prize — The Fortress: By Shield and Sword, directed by Fyodor Dmitriev (ru)[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The Fortress: By Shield and Sword". kinobusiness.com. Kinovideobusiness. Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  2. ^ "The Fortress: By Shield and Sword (2015) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  3. ^ ""The Fortress: By Shield and Sword": Real and Imagined Patriotism". BBC News Russian Service (in Russian). 9 November 2015. Archived from the original on 23 January 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  4. ^ Aleynikova, Alisa (6 November 2015). "The Strong Spirit of a Small Heart". Musical Truth (in Russian). No. 21. Archived from the original on 6 January 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2025.
  5. ^ "Premiere of the music video from the soundtrack of the animated film "The Fortress: By Shield and Sword"". 27 October 2015. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Названы лауреаты XX фестиваля визуальных искусств в «Орлёнке»". Animator.ru. 25 July 2016. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  7. ^ "Названы лауреаты кинофестиваля "Лучезарный ангел"". Animator.ru. 6 November 2016. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2017.

Further reading

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Category:2015 films Category:2015 computer-animated films Category:2015 fantasy films Category:3D animated films Category:2010s Russian films Category:2010s Russian-language films Category:Russian-language fantasy adventure films Category:Russian animated feature films Category:Russian animated fantasy films Category:Russian children's adventure films Category:Animated films based on children's books Category:Animated adventure films Category:Animated coming-of-age films Category:Animated films about royalty Category:Computer-animated films

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