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1''Life and Fate'' is a 2012 Russian television miniseries, lasting 12 episodes. It is based on the famous 1960 novel ''Life and Fate'' by Vasily Grossman.
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3The series, like the novel it is based on, is a sprawling account of life in the Soviet Union in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, specifically 1942-43, during the battle of Stalingrad. The many, many characters include:
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5* Viktor Shtrum: A physicist, evacuated to Kazan after the Germans came to the gates of Moscow, still there a year later. Viktor is a Jew, who has to deal with anti-Semitism in Soviet society, while worrying about the more dire threat to his mother, somewhere behind the German lines. Although he is married, he's taken a fancy to Maria Ivanova, the attractive wife of his colleague Pyotr. Viktor is basically an AuthorAvatar for Vasily Grossman, and the actor is costumed to look just like Grossman.
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7* Lyudmila: Viktor's wife. Although they are still outwardly polite, they have grown distant from each other. Lyudmila has a son by a prior marriage, Tolya, who is fighting on the front. She thinks that Viktor doesn't care as much about Tolya as he does about their teenaged daughter, Nadia.
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9* Yevgenia (Zhenya): Lyudmila's sister. Married to Commissar Grymov, but they separated shortly before the outbreak of the war. She was evacuated from Moscow to Kuibyshev in 1941, and is working in a garment factory. She has a lover, Col. Novikov, who is introduced serving in the South Urals but is soon transferred to Stalingrad. Commissar Grymov, as it happens, is also sent to Stalingrad.
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11* Captain Grekov: Commanding officer in House #6 at the front lines of Stalingrad, which is being used as a fortress against the Germans. At the start of the series, he welcomes Katya, a pretty young radio operator who attracts a lot of attention from all the soldiers in the house.
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13* Major Berezkin: Grekov's superior officer on the Stalingrad front. He worries about his wife and child; they were evacuated to the interior and he hasn't head from them in some time.
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16!!Tropes:
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19* BuxomBeautyStandard: A lively discussion among the horny soldiers of House #6 about Katya includes one soldier insisting that he likes big breasts, and that Katya does not seem to have such.
20* CrapsackWorld: The Soviet Union at the end of 1942. If you aren't getting shot at by Nazis, you're living under Stalin's dictatorship.
21* DearJohnLetter: Col. Novikov gets one when Zhenya decides to return to her husband and follow him into exile.
22* DyingDream: Just as Grekov dies in the LastStand he has a vision where everyone from the squad shows up and they all embrace.
23* EpicTrackingShot: A shot in the first episode where Major Berezkin is getting a briefing is only two minutes long, but it's a pretty intricate shot, following Berezkin through several small, cramped rooms, as a junior officer tells him about the tactical situation in that sector of Stalingrad.
24* HistoricalDomainCharacter:
25** [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Zaytsev Vasily Zaytsev]] pops up and tells his tale of [[Film/EnemyAtTheGates a duel with a German sniper]].
26** Lt. General Chuikov, commander of the Russian forces in Stalingrad, is also seen on a couple of occasions.
27* KilledMidSentence: Two Russian soldiers are in the middle of a pitched argument about a gun placement when a German shell kills both of them.
28* KilledOffscreen: Tolya is last seen being taken away from Stalingrad after being severely wounded by an artillery shell. The next episode reveals that he died on an operating table at a hospital in the rear.
29* LastStand: Grekov and everyone else in House #6 is killed when the house is literally wiped out by a German attack.
30* ManOnFire: A whole armored personnel carrier of Men On Fire, as one Soviet sniper hits a flamethrower's pack, setting a whole squad of Germans ablaze.
31* TheNounAndTheNoun: ''Life and Fate''
32* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Zhenya has enormous difficulties with a bureaucrat who won’t give her a residency permit in Kuibyshev, seemingly out of sheer dickishness.
33* ThePoliticalOfficer:
34** Commissar Roushkin, a minor character in the first episode. He is introduced wearing a flower in a buttonhole of his uniform. And he's drunk.
35** A much more honorable example in the form of Commissar Grymov, who is embarrassed by the Marxist lectures he's supposed to give to front-line troops.
36* SceneryGorn: Welcome to Stalingrad!
37* UnresolvedSexualTension: Maria and Viktor never do consummate all that sexual tension, although towards the end of the series she's calling him "my love" and "darling".

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