Ilya Kopalin
Ilya Petrovich Kopalin (1900–1976) was a Soviet film director remembered for his documentaries. His most famous footage is that of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference and that of Yuri Gagarin's space flight.
Also recorded as Ilya Petrovich Kopalin · Ilia Kopaline
Ilya Kopalin

Ilya Kopalin (director) · Public domain
- Born
- 1900 · Pavlovskoe.
- Died
- 1976 · Moscow.
- Nationality
- Russian Empire · Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic · Soviet Union
- Occupation
- film editor · director · university teacher · pedagogue
- Fields
- film · documentary film
- Honours
- Stalin Prize · Order of Lenin · People's Artist of the USSR · Medal For the Defence of Moscow · Medal For the Development of Virgin Lands · Medal Veteran of Labour
- Languages
- Russian
Enciclopedia VALÉORINE
Il dossier documentario
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Ilya Kopalin fu regista cinematografico; la nascita è registrata il 2 agosto 1900 a Mosca e la morte il 12 giugno 1976.
Vita
La nascita è registrata dalla Bibliothèque nationale de France e dalla Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; la morte dalla Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Istituzioni citate
Bibliothèque nationale de France · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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wikidata · Q4232181 · wikipedia · Ilya Kopalin
In this article
Life
Life
The recorded working language is Russian. The field of work recorded is film and documentary film. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are documentary film. Places of work recorded in the authority are Soviet Union. Employment is recorded with Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography and Russian Central Studio of Documentary Films.
He was born the son of a peasant on 2 August 1900 in the village of Pavlovskaya, Zvenigorod on the outskirts of Moscow. In his youth he worked in a factory in Moscow. After October 1917 he trained first as a land surveyor then as a pilot. A chance meeting with Dziga Vertov led him instantly into an interest in the cinema. Aged 24 he went to work for Vertov as a camera-man, working on films such as Kinoglaz, but later would work independently. His early films look at country life and agriculture in the newly created USSR. His work gained him six Stalin Prizes and the Order of Lenin. He died in Moscow on 12 June 1976.
Filmography
Filmography
• Moscow (1927) • For the Harvest (1929) • Fifteen Years of Soviet Cinematography (1933) • Engineers of the Human Soul (1934) – a documentary recording the First Congress of Soviet Writers • Abyssinia (1935) • China's Rebuff (1937) • Ma Dunae (On the Danube) (1940) – Stalin Prize second degree (1941) • Rout of the German Troops at Moscow (1941) – Stalin Prize first degree (1942) • Stalin's Speech of November 6, 1942 (1943) • Moscow Strikes Back (1942) – Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature • Crimea Conference (1945) • Liberated Czechoslovakia (1945) – Stalin Prize second degree (1946) • Victory Day Country (1948) – Stalin Prize second degree (1948) • New Albania (1949) – Stalin Prize third degree (1949) • Man Conquers Nature (1950) – Stalin Prize third degree (1951) • Albania (1953) • Great Farewell (1953) • For Peace and Friendship (1954) • Songs over the Vistula (1955) • Festival Melody (1955) • Warsaw Meeting (1956) • Lulz Shippers (1959) • Destiny of a Great City (1961) • First Flight to the Stars (1961) – a chronicle of Yuri Gagarin's space flight • Tocsin of Peace (1963) • Qunetra Ruins Accused (1974)

Still from Moscow Strikes Back, Soviet documentary of the Battle of Moscow. Directed by Ilya Kopalin. 1 of 4 films to win the 1943 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Ilya Kopalin (director)

Still from Moscow Strikes Back, Soviet documentary of the Battle of Moscow. Directed by Ilya Kopalin. 1 of 4 films to win the 1943 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Ilya Kopalin (director)
Places
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Pavlovskoe.
Birth place
Moscow.
Death place
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Ilya Kopalin, revision 1363352047 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Cinema and Soviet Society :. I.B.Tauris. 2001. 978-1-86064-632-4.
- 2.Jeremy Hicks. « Exposition À propos de « Filmer les camps » de Christian Delage ». 1895. Mille huit cent quatre-vingt-quinze. 2010.
- 3.One World, Big Screen. UNC Press Books. 2012. 978-0-8078-3746-7.
- 4.Le cinéma soviétique. L'Age d'Homme. 1993. 978-2-8251-0441-5.
- 5.Documentary. Oxford University Press. 1993. 978-0-19-507898-5.
- 6.Alexandre Sumpf, « Une « drôle de guerre » à l’écran : Khalkhin Gol », Conserveries mémorielles [En ligne] 24 (2020), mis en ligne le 22 août 2020, consulté le 23 août 2020.
- 7.Inna Tcherneva L’annexion de la Lettonie dans l’œil de la caméra. Analyse du film À la rencontre du soleil (1941), Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, 2019/3-4 (N° 133-134), p. 47-56. DOI : 10.3917/mate.133-134.0047.
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Died at
1- MoscowPlace
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Distinctions
1- Order of LeninTerminology
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 31 August 2026.
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