The Great Road

Esfir Shub's monumental compilation, The Great Road, meticulously reassembles fragmented newsreel footage spanning the tumultuous years of 1917 to 1924. This cinematic tapestry doesn't merely present historical events; it actively sculpts a particular revolutionary narrative, guiding the viewer through the seismic shifts of post-Czarist Russia, the birth of the Soviet state, and its early struggles and triumphs. Shub’s editorial hand transforms raw archival material into a powerful, propagandistic chronicle, illustrating the ideological journey from imperial collapse to socialist construction through carefully selected and recontextualized moving images.