This week Rossiya1 channel has been airing the series “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes,” based on the novel of the same name written by Guzel Yakhina and published in 2015. The book, which tells the story of a Tatar peasant woman who is exiled to Siberia after her husband is killed during a “dekulakization” campaign in 1930, won the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award and Big Book Award. It has been translated into English by Lisa C. Hayden for Oneworld Publications.
The series, which stars Chulpan Khamatova, Yevgeny Morozov and Sergei Makovetsky and was directed by Yegor Anashkin, was filmed all over Russia, but mostly in Tatarstan and the northern part of the Perm region.
The show has already been watched by millions of viewers, but like the book before it, it has generated a firestorm of criticism on social media, mostly questioning the authenticity of this view of the past. Here’s a chance to watch the whole series (in Russian, no sub-titles) so you can weigh in on the discussion.
You can watch the films on the Rossiya1 site here or YouTube here.
Click on the trailer below to see it on YouTube.
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