The greatest love story Balzac never finished writing — because he was too busy living it.
It is a story of the relationship of A French writer and a beautiful duchess Ganskaya. The events take place in a picturesque estate of the aristocrat on the Ukrainian land, which is under the power of Polish landowners. Ganskaya is considered to be the most important woman in Balzac’s life.
Acting
Nifontova's glacial grace masks volcanic repression.
Cinematography
Ukrainian estate as crumbling monument to dying aristocracy.
Production
Soviet lens on French-Romanian-Polish colonial entanglement.
Director
Timofei Levchuk
Rufina Nifontova
Comtesse Evelina Hanska
Viktor Khokhryakov
Honoré de Balzac
Vladimir Belokurov
Zarytskyi
Ivan Mykolaichuk
Levko, a serf lackey of Countess Evelina Hanska
Rayisa Nedashkivska
Anna Mnishek
Georgi Georgiu
Halperin, banker
Vladimir Gajdarov
General Bibikov
Ivan Dmitriev
Moskalenko
Igor Dmitriev
Davydov
Valeriya Zaklunnaya
Maryna
Mikhail Sidorkin
Sherstinevich
Harijs Liepiņš
Yankovsky, a priest
Yevheniya Opalova
mother of Balzac
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Soviet Ukrainian filmmakers used Balzac's romance to subtly examine Polish aristocratic oppression of Ukrainian peasants — revolutionary politics in costume drama drag.
The real letters between Balzac and Hanska ran to thousands of pages over 18 years; he never met her husband, who conveniently died just as the debt-ridden writer finally arrived.
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