Thus, in OiM he managed to depict very tragic and romantic events on a really grand scale. Jerzy Hoffman is a real master of the historical movies he had already achieved great popularity with Potop and Pan Wolodyjowski, two other films based as Ogniem I Mieczem on the novels of the Nobel Prize Winner Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Since there are three nations close to one another, that conflict made it all even worse, when true brothers were killing each other. Terrible wars were waging all that time between Poland, Russia and Ukraine. All you need is some basic knowledge of the Polish Russian Ukrainian history of the 17th century.

I agree that you have probably to be Polish to understand this film, but this is not a must. That is true that one has to know Polish well enough to perceive this magnificent epic drama, but at the same time this film was broad-casted in Russia, my homeland, dubbed into Russian, and many people watched it and loved it very much. I first saw Ogniem I Mieczem in Poland in 2000, where I was working and learning Polish.

With fire and sword guide