Summary
In July 1917, a battle took place near Zborov in Ukraine, in which the Czechoslovak Legionnaires, until then scattered across the Eastern Front, fought for the first time as an army unit. The feature film Zborov depicts, through the fates of several characters, the series of events that preceded the battle. Above all, however, it stands out for its reconstruction of the war fighting, which will stand up to today's viewers. As the war approached in the late 1930s, the film turned more often to the themes of Czechoslovak history and statehood. Zborov, inspired by the experiences of the First World War, was based on a theme by legionnaire and writer Rudolf Medek. Much of it is set in Pilsen, where engineering factories had to arm the Austrian army and where a strong anti-Austrian resistance developed. The film culminates with the Battle of Zborov. The unexpected success of the ill-equipped legionnaires made it a turning point in the quest for an independent state. It became the subject of books, poems and in 1928 it appeared in the silent film For the Czechoslovak State. The reconstruction in the film Zborov is technically much more advanced and, like the film as a whole, was given a new, topical significance at the time of its creation. Competing conflicts and other disputes delayed its realisation. The premiere therefore did not take place on the 20th anniversary of the battle in 1937, but only in the post-Mnich atmosphere in early 1939.
