Was there a Russian equivalent to James Bond?
When comparing the Bond period to a Soviet equivalent, I would say that movies about collective sacrifice in WWII resonated more than spy dramas in the Soviet Union. The awful scale of Soviet deaths and the promotion of the idea of the collective by the communists made a true equivalent of Bond not possible. A swashbuckling, high-living individual like Bond just wouldn’t have worked in the Soviet market.
That being said, here are some of the most popular Soviet spy dramas:
- Dead Season / Мёртвый сезон (1968), a film
- The Secret Agent’s Blunder / Ошибка резидента (1968), a film
- TASS Is Authorized to Declare… / ТАСС уполномочен заявить… (1984), a TV series
- Seventeen Moments of Spring / Семнадцать мгновений весны (1973), a TV series
The number one must popular of these is definitely the TV series, Seventeen Moments of Spring. Between 50-80 million Soviet viewers tuned in to every episode of this black-and-white WWII spy drama about an undercover Soviet agent infiltrating the Nazi upper ranks. This agent – von Stierlitz – is the closest Soviet version of a Bond you’ll get.
It’s said that the head of the Soviet Union itself, Leonid Brezhnev, was so gripped by the show that he would change the Politiburo’s Central Committee meeting times to ensure he could catch every episode.
On top of that, Vladimir Putin is reported to have been inspired by the show. Two years after it first screened, he joined the KGB and thereafter spent many years serving in East Germany (just like von Stierlitz).
In fact, many people in Russia and the former Eastern Bloc associate Putin with von Stierlitz. In 1991, a Russian short film made about then St. Petersburg city councilor Putin directly linked him to the famous agent. And the comparison continues to this day.