Between Cultural Revival and State Censorship: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s

The Ukrainian Poetic Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s represents an outstanding period in Ukrainian and all-Soviet film history. Unexpected artistic freedom, allegorism, aesthetic ambiguity, combined with avant-garde cinematic techniques and Ukrainian national motifs, were both enticing and frightening. The filmmakers of this period succeeded in creating several films with a completely new aesthetic that was far removed from the usual socialist realism with its “positive, optimistic (socialist) heroes, comprehensibility, simplicity and catchiness of subjects and motifs as well as pedagogical effectiveness”.[1]

In total, between 10 and 15 feature-length films are attributed to Ukrainian Poetic Cinema, mostly from the years 1964-1972, made by directors such as Serhij Paradžanov, Leonid Osyka, Jurij Illjenko, Volodymyr Denysenko, Mykola Maščenko, Borys Ivčenko, Rollan Serhijenko and Ivan Mykolajčuk. Around a third of these films were banned immediately after production for ideological reasons and could only be shown publicly in the late perestroika years or even in independent Ukraine after 1991.[2]

The main focus of this work is on the historical contextualization of the film-making process in the 1960s and 1970s and on the complex relationships between filmmakers and the state cinema authorities. Primarily, films with pre-Soviet themes will be considered, as they were particularly influential in the general movement for Ukrainian national self-determination after the era of Stalinism. Most of these films are based on literary works from the 19th and early 20th centuries and accordingly reflect Ukrainian reality before the times of the Soviet Union, for example:

“Tini zabutych predkiv” (“Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, 1964) by Serhij Paradžanov, based on the povist’ of the same name by Mychajlo Kocjubyns’kyj (1911);
“Kaminnyj Chrest” (“The Stone Cross”, 1968) by Leonid Osyka, based on the novellas “Kaminnyj Chrest” (“The Stone Cross”, 1899) and “Zlodij” (“The Thief”, 1899) by Vasyl’ Stefanyk;
“Večir na Ivana Kupala” (“St. John’s Eve”, 1969) by Jurij Illenko, based on the short stories by Mykola Hohol’ and Ukrainian folk tales;
“Zachar Berkut” (1971), also by Leonid Osyka, based on the historical povist’ of the same name by Ivan Franko (1883) and
“Propala hramota” (“The Lost Letter”, 1972) by Borys Ivčenko, based on the short story of the same name by Mykola Hohol’ (1831).
 


[1] Murašov, Jurij (2010): Sozialistische Politik, osteuropäisches Kino und Deleuzes Filmphilosophie. In: Drubek-Meyer, Natascha; Murašov, Jurij (Eds), here p. 6.
[2] See Brjuchovec’ka, Larysa (2008): Proryv do vičnoho. In: KinoTeatr 5 (79), pp. 2–6, here p. 3f.