www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Fiddler on the Roof question...

I just purchased a dvd copy of "Fiddler on the Roof". I know it suppose to be a small village in the Poltava Region, close to Kyiv. In the beginning when Tevye walks thru the village of Anatevka, they show a Ukrainian Church. It looks very much like all the 19th century style masonary churches that one would find in the East Slavic villages of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Does anyone know where the village scenes were filmed?

Ung (Dee dee dee dee dee dee...)

Croatia? [imdb.com] Which would explain the former Austro-Hungarian Empire Slavic Village look.

Croatia is correct. I knew a Croatian-American who was visiting Croatia at the time of filming and because he spoke English became one of the extras in the film.

Sophia,

How cool for him! Fiddler on the Roof is a great movie.

A thought...if it was filmed in Croatia, would the church they showed really have been Ukrainian? Or was it more likely Serbian or something else?

God bless and keep you....

I saw a documentary on a DVD of the musical, I don't remember the precise location but I do remember the suggestion certain areas were "off limits" in the planning stage. "Croatia" rings a bell, I can't imagine they would have been granted access to Ukraine by a Soviet bureaucrat.

I remember one tidbit which described how some of the locals constructed the village. They used hardwood from the local forest and built the set much more sturdy than it would have been in the States. It impressed the director, he said that it ended up being far more realistic than he had hoped.

Terry

Most of the exterior shots in the 1971 film adaptation were, indeed, done in Croatia at three locations: Mala Gorica, Lekenik, and Zagreb.

The film won three Academy Awards, including one for arranger-conductor John Williams, who did the audio recording at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England.

I love Chaim Topol's memorable and charming portrayal of Tevye! His jabs at Jewish "traditions" are unforgettable:

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the world would soon be blind and toothless!"

"If you spit into the sky, it will fall flat on your face!"

Amado

There are some Ukrainian churches in Croatia; a Serbian church might be a bit less likely, although there would have been at least a few at the time that the movie was made.

Fr. Serge

Could it be that the featured Church in the film adaptation belongs to the Krizevci sui iuris Catholic Church, those Byzantine Rite Croatians?

(Majority of Croatians are Latin Rite Catholics.)

Amado

Actually, I read on another forum, that the church is a Serbian Orthodox Church.
I see that the most of the exterior shoots were filmed in Croatia. That implies that not all of the shots were in Croatia.
But even in Croatia there is a minority of Serbs and a few Serbian Orthodox Churches.

I thought the church was a Serbian Orthodox Church in Novi Sad. I remember someone asking if the church had been destroyed in the unrest there.
Sorry, I don't have documentation to back it up.

Hey! That would be pretty cool!

God bless and keep you....