And Quiet Flows the Don
One of her earliest roles was in Sergei Bondarchuk's and Fridrikh Ermler's "Unfinished Story", an archetypal Socialist Realist film. Bystritskaya was personally chosen by Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov to play the role of Aksinya in the film adaptation "And Quiet Flows the Don", over several other distinguished candidates, notably Nonna Mordyukova. In the 1960s, Bystritskaya turned to theatre work in the Maly Theatre and her appearances on screen grew sporadic. She was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1978.