The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, transcribed as Shchelkunchik) is a 1973 Soviet/Russian animated film from the Soyuzmultfilm studio directed by Boris Stepantsev and based partly on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, but more closely on E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" which inspired the ballet.[1]