Even Russia's most celebrated filmmaker knows what it's like to have egg on his face - or at least on his pants.


While Nikita Mikhalkov was teaching a class Wednesday at the Union of Cinematographers, of which he is chairman, a member of Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party sitting in one of the back rows shouted "Sleazebag!" and hurled an egg at him. It hit him on his pant leg.


The perpetrator and another Limonov supporter who was with him were forcefully detained - and severely beaten - by Mikhalkov's bodyguards and a police officer, before being taken to the 88th precinct. A police spokesman said the detained men were age 26 and 21.


During the scuffle, one of the guards held up a gun that he had apparently found on one of the pair.


The incident, which took less than five minutes, hardly disturbed the director's talk.


"There's a good plot for a film," Mikhalkov, 53, joked to his audience, mostly comprised of students. "It's hard to scare me."


Mikhalkov was later quoted by Itar-Tass as saying the incident represented "a situation in the country where there is absolutely no rebuff of a provoker. ... When a country understands freedom as lawlessness and chaos, such sad events occur."


Mikhalkov, who is prone to answer specific questions by pontificating on the state of Russian society, said such acts "sooner or later will cause a civil war," the news agency reported.


In a telephone interview Wednesday evening, Limonov, a well-known writer and radical, said the egg-throwing was revenge for a police raid of the party's headquarters Feb. 20. Limonov said that he believed Mikhalkov, a celebrity who has warm ties with President Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin, had cajoled Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin into ordering that raid.


"This is a continuation of that episode on the 20th when Mikhalkov arranged a provocation," Limonov said. "He tried to put us behind bars."


Why would Mikhalkov try to get the police to shut down the fringe National Bolshevik Party? Limonov said because his party was distributing literature that morning that ridiculed Mikhalkov.


Limonov did not mention his theory that Mikhalkov was behind the Feb. 20 incident when he held a press conference on the matter last month.


Interestingly, the raid on the National Bolsheviks came on the same day that Mikhalkov's new blockbuster film, "The Barber of Siberia," was having its premiere at a Kremlin gala. At the time, a source close to Limonov told The Moscow Times that Limonov had wanted to attend the flashy event, but was repeatedly refused an invitation.


Speaking about the egg incident Wednesday, Limonov said his party opposed Mikhalkov because of his support for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was re-elected last month in elections that foreign observers have called unfair. Mikhalkov showed "The Barber of Siberia" in Almaty during the election campaign before the movie's Russian premiere, in what made for something of an endorsement of Nazarbayev.


"His [Nazarbayev's] regime is inhumane," Limonov said.


Mikhalkov himself is a controversial political figure. In January, the director told London's Sunday Times that he would not rule out running for president of Russia in 2000. Mikhalkov was elected to the State Duma in 1996 but, after winning, decided not to take the seat.


Many observers have noted political overtones in his latest creative effort. Mikhalkov gave himself the small but important role of Tsar Alexander III, who is celebrated in the film as a caring father to his adoring people. And Mikhalkov himself has said that the movie is about his vision for a stable, peaceful and honorable Russia.


"Barber" had the media transfixed for months before Mikhalkov thrust himself into the political spotlight. The film's large budget, which eventually grew to $45 million, was previously unheard of for Russian cinema. The movie, which is about an American woman who falls in love with a Russian officer in the 19th century, stars Hollywood actors Julia Ormond and Richard Harris, as well as Russian heartthrob Oleg Menshikov. The film has already become a hit in Moscow. Since its arrival in the city, the normally empty movie theaters have been packed for its showings, and many audience members emerge with eyes red from crying.


But Limonov said "Barber" was nothing but a "shadowy cranberry," a Russian expression for foreigners' inaccurate perception of Russia.