Abstract
In order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Black Sea Mutiny, in 1925, a movie was commanded by the Bolshevik power, it was to become the prototype of the political movie. Many governments had banned it for fear of revolutionary popular uprisings. In this movie, Sergei Eisenstein pieces together the events of the Black Sea Fleet, even if he takes some liberties with them. This movie is also revolutionary in the manner it has done; shooting script and film montage are still considered as models.
The 27th of June 1905, a mutiny broke out on Potemkin board, the main battleship of the Russian fleet. This event took place in Odessa, a port of the Black Sea. A sailor was killed by an officer because he had complained about the rotten meat they had for lunch. The crew rose up. While eight officers joined the mutineers, the commander and several other officers were killed and thrown in the sea. Since the defeat of Tsushima, one month earlier, against Japanese fleet, the tsarist naval officers had many difficulties to be respected from their men. The sailors of the Potemkin took control of the ship and hoisted the revolutionary red flag. Two other ships joined the uprising. Two days later, the insurrection extended to the Odessa's port and other ports from the Empire. The state of siege was declared and then the repression made several hundreds of deaths. After a long wandering in the Black Sea, the majority of the mutineers obtained political asylum in Romania, in Constantza, a Romanian port.
This mutiny fell within the series of social, political and military disturbances, which shook the tsarist regime in 1905. Its celebrity comes especially from film that the Russian director Serge Eisenstein in 1925 made from this event; The Battleship Potemkin.
