Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko, also Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko (, ; November 25, 1956), was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Ukrainian origin. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein; (11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is no ...

, Dziga Vertov, and

Vsevolod Pudovkin Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin ( rus, Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин, p=ˈfsʲevələt ɪl(ː)ərʲɪˈonəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈdofkʲɪn; 28 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter and acto ...

, as well as being a pioneer of Soviet montage theory.

Biography

Oleksandr Dovzhenko was born in the hamlet of Viunyshche located in the Sosnitsky Uyezd of the Chernihiv Governorate of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(now part of Sosnytsia in

Chernihiv Oblast Chernihiv Oblast (), also referred to as Chernihivshchyna (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northern Ukraine. The capital city, administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv. There are 1,511 sett ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

), to Petro Semenovych Dovzhenko and Odarka Yermolayivna Dovzhenko. His paternal ancestors were Chumaks who settled in Sosnytsia in the eighteenth century, coming from the neighbouring province of

Poltava Poltava (, ; , ) is a city located on the Vorskla, Vorskla River in Central Ukraine, Central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Poltava Oblast as well as Poltava Raion within the oblast. It also hosts the administration of Po ...

. Oleksandr was the seventh of fourteen children born to the couple, but due to the deaths of his siblings he was the oldest child by the time he turned eleven. Ultimately, only Oleksandr and his sister Polina, who later becomes a doctor, survived to adulthood. Although his parents were uneducated, Dovzhenko's semi-literate grandfather encouraged him to study, leading him to become a teacher at the age of 19. He avoided military service during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

because of a heart condition, but during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

he may have served for some time in the army of the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

.Who is Hidden behind the Figure of a Genius? The Context of Dovzhenko’s Work
/ref> In 1919 in

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( ; see #Names, below for other names) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (Oblast, province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding ...

he was taken prisoner and sent to the prison on suspicion of intelligence for the UPR army. At the end of 1919, he was released at the request of Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny. After his release, for some time he taught history and geography at the officers' school of the Red Army. In 1920 Dovzhenko joined the Borotbist party. He served as an assistant to the Ambassador in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

as well as

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Upon his return to

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1923, he began illustrating books and drawing cartoons in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. At that time, Dovzhenko was also a member of VAPLITE. Dovzhenko turned to film in 1926 when he landed in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

. His ambitious drive led to the production of his second-ever

screenplay A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of w ...

, ''Vasya the Reformer'' (which he also co-directed). He gained greater success with '' Zvenigora'' in 1928, the story of a young adventurer who becomes a bandit and counter-revolutionary and comes to a bad end, while his virtuous brother spends the film fighting for the revolution, which established him as a major filmmaker of his era.

Ukraine Trilogy

His following "Ukraine Trilogy" ('' Zvenigora'', ''

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

'', and ''

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

''), are his most well-known works in the West. ''Arsenal'' was badly received by the communist authorities in Ukraine, who began harassing Dovzhenko - but, fortunately for him,

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

watched it and liked it.

''Earth''

Dovzhenko's ''

'' has been praised as one of the greatest silent movies ever made. The British film director

Karel Reisz Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker and film critic, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are '' Satur ...

was asked in 2002 by the British Film Institute to rank the greatest films ever made, and he put ''Earth'' second. The film portrayed collectivization in a positive light. Its plot revolved around a landowner's attempt to ruin a successful collective farm as it took delivery of its first tractor, though it opened with a long close-up of an elderly, dying man taking intense pleasure in the taste of an apple - a scene with no obvious political message, but with some aspect of autobiography. The film was panned by the Soviet authorities. The poet, Demyan Bedny, attacked its "defeatism" over three columns of the newspaper ''

Izvestia ''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, r=Izvestiya, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in February 1917, ''Izvestia'', which covered foreign relations, was the organ of the Supreme Soviet of th ...

'', and Dovzhenko was forced to re-edit it.

Appeal to Stalin

Dovzhenko's next film, ''Ivan'', portrayed a Dneprostroi construction worker and his reactions to industrialization, which was then summarily denounced for promoting fascism and

pantheism Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

. Fearing arrest, Dovzhenko personally appealed to Stalin. One day later, he was invited to the Kremlin, where he read the script of his next project, '' Aerograd'', about the defence of a newly constructed city from Japanese infiltrators, to an audience of four of the most powerful men in the country -

, Molotov, Kirov and Voroshilov. Stalin approved the project but 'suggested' that Dovzhenko's next project, after ''Aerograd'', should be dramatized biography of the born in

communist guerrilla fighter,

Mykola Shchors Mykola Oleksandrovych Shchors (; – 30 August 1919) was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Russian Communist Party and a participant in the Russian Civil War, serving as Red Army commander. In 1918–1919 he fought against th ...

. In January 1935, the Soviet film industry celebrated its fifteenth anniversary with a major festival, during which the country's most renowned director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, who was in trouble with the authorities, and had not been allowed to complete a film for several years, gave a rambling speech that jumped from one esoteric topic to another. Dovzhenko joined in the criticism, raising a laugh pleading: "Sergei Mikhailovich, if you do not produce a film at least within a year, then please do not produce one at all... All this talk about Polynesian females, I will gladly exchange all your unfinished scenarios for one of your films." At the end of the conference, Stalin presented Dovzhenko with the Order of Lenin. Later, Dovzhenko was summoned to the Kremlin again, and told by Stalin that he was a "free man", who was not under "any obligation" to make the film about Shchors. He took the hint, and paused work on ''Aerograd'' to follow Stalin's 'suggestion', and sent the dictator a draft of the screenplay for Schors. He was then summoned in front of the boss of the Soviet film industry Boris Shumyatsky to be told that the script contained serious political errors. His request for another meeting with Stalin was ignored, so he wrote to the dictator on 26 November 1936, pleading: "This is my life, and if I am doing it wrong, then it is due to a shortage of talent or development, not malice. I bear your refusal to see me as a great sorrow." Stalin's response was a brief note to Shumyatsky, in December, listing five things that were wrong with the script, including that "Shchors came out too crude and uncouth."

''Shchors''

Dovzhenko completed '' Aerograd'' in 1935. Before its release in November, Dovzhenko had begun work on Shchors. According to Jay Leyda, who was employed in the Soviet cinema industry at the time: Several of Dovzhenko's colleagues were shot or sent to labour camps during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, in 1937–38, including his favourite cameraman, Danylo Demutsky, who worked with him on ''Earth''. But when, at last, he had completed ''Shchors'', which was released in January 1939, he was paid a huge fee - 100,000 rubles - and awarded the Stalin Prize (1941).

Later work

During the war, Dovzhenko wrote an article and a screenplay ''Ukraine in Flames'', which was denounced for its alleged 'veiled nationalistic moods'. There are two versions of who was behind the denunciation.

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

, who was head of the Ukrainian communist party at the time, paid tribute to Dovzhenko in his memoirs as a "brilliant director", and described the denunciation of ''Ukraine in Flames'' as a "disgraceful affair" initiated by the head of the political administration of the Red Army, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, who "was obviously trying hard to fan Stalin's anger by harping on the charge that the film scenario was extremely nationalistic." Dovzhenko had read the scenario aloud to Khrushchev, but he claimed not to have paid much attention to it because he was focused on the war. But a police report sent at the time by the head of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

Vsevolod Merkulov to the party secretary in charge of culture,

Andrei Zhdanov Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андрей Александрович Жданов, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ˈʐdanəf, a=Ru-Андрей Жданов.ogg, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician. He was ...

, said that Dovzhenko greatly resented the behaviour of Khrushchev, and leaders of the Ukrainian writers' union, who had praised the scenario on first reading, but then denounced on orders from above. Dovzhenko was quoted as saying "I don't hold anything against Stalin. I hold something against .. people who throw malicious slogans at me after all their admiration of the screenplay - these people cannot guide the war and the people. This is trash." After being hauled in front of the Central Committee, Dovzhenko was excluded from various official organisations, cut himself off from fellow artists, wrote novels, and applied himself to writing a screenplay about the biologist, Michurin. The film '' Michurin'' earned him another Stalin prize, in 1949, although it was revised so many times, in order to get political approval, that according to one historian, "a large part of the final version was made without him." Khrushchev claimed that with his rise to power after the death of Stalin and the execution of the police chief

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria ka, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია} ''Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria'' ( – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph ...

, the persecution of Dovzhenko ended, and he was able to "live a useful active life" again. He embarked on two projects, a film adaption of the novella, ''

Taras Bulba ''Taras Bulba'' (; ) is a romanticized historical novella set in the first half of the 17th century, written by Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852). It features elderly Zaporozhian Cossack Taras Bulba and his sons Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at th ...

'', by

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and " Nevsky Prosp ...

and ''Poem About a Sea'', neither of which was completed before Dovzhenko died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

on November 25, 1956, in his

dacha A dacha (Belarusian, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of former Soviet Union, post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ...

in Peredelkino - though the latter was completed by his widow Yulia Solntseva. Over a 20-year career, Dovzhenko personally directed only seven films.

Legacy

Dovchenko was a mentor to the young

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Ukrainian filmmakers Larisa Shepitko and

Sergei Parajanov Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. He is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Parajanov was born to ...

. The Dovzhenko Film Studios in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

were named after him in his honour following his death. Dovzhenko A

In 2016, after the Ukraine government had announced a programme of 'decommunisation' of place names,

Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...

Street in

Melitopol Melitopol is a city and municipality in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, southeastern Ukraine. It is situated on the Molochna River, which flows through the eastern edge of the city into the Molochnyi Lyman estuary. Melitopol is the second-largest city ...

, in East Ukraine, was renamed Oleksandr Dovzhenko Street. On 30 January 2023, after Melitopol had been occupied by the Russian army during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, Melitopol's Russian-installed Mayor, Galina Danilchenko announced that the street would be given back its previous name.

Filmography

*'' Love's Berries'' (, translit. ''Yagodki lyubvi'', , translit. ''Yahidky kokhannya''), 1926 *'' Vasya the Reformer'' (, translit. ''Vasya – reformator'', , translit. ''Vasya – reformator''), 1926 *'' The Diplomatic Pouch'' (, translit. ''Sumka dipkuryera'', , translit. ''Sumka dypkuryera''), 1927 *'' Zvenigora'' (, translit. ''Zvenigora'', , translit. ''Zvenyhora''), 1928 *''

'' (, ), 1929 *''

'' (, translit. ''Zemlya'', , translit. ''Zemlya''), 1930 *''

Ivan Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was the B ...

'' (, ), 1932 *'' Aerograd'' (, , translit. ''Aerohrad''), 1935 *'' Bukovina: a Ukrainian Land'' (, translit. ''Bukovina, Zemlya Ukrainskaya'', , translit., ''Bukovyna, Zemlya Ukrayins'ka''), 1939 *'' Shchors*'' (, ), 1939 *'' Battle for Soviet Ukraine*'' (, translit. ''Bitva za nashu Sovetskuyu Ukrainu'', , translit. ''Bytva za nashu Radyans'ku Ukrayinu''), 1943 *'' Soviet Earth'' (, translit. ''Strana rodnaya'', , translit. ''Krayina ridna''), 1945 *'' Victory in the Ukraine and the Expulsion of the Germans from the Boundaries of the Ukrainian Soviet Earth'' (, translit. ''Pobeda na Pravoberezhnoi Ukraine i izgnaniye nemetsikh zakhvatchikov za predeli Ukrainskikh sovietskikh zemel'', , translit. ''Peremoha na Pravoberezhniy Ukrayini''), 1945 *'' Michurin'' (, ), 1948 *'' Farewell, America'' (, , translit. ''Proshchay, Ameryko''), 1949 *'' Poem of the Sea*'' (, translit. ''Poema o more'', , translit. ''Poema pro more''), 1959 *''codirected by Yuliya Solntseva''

Film award

A film award called the Oleksandr Dovzhenko State Prize was named after him for his great contributions in the film sphere.

References

External links

* *Chris Fujiwara's revie
Neglected Giant: Alexander Dovzhenko at the MFA
*Ray Uzwyshy

* John Riley
A (Ukrainian) Life in Soviet Film: Liber's ''Alexandr Dovzhenko''
, ''Film-Philosophy'', vol. 7 no. 31, October 2003 – a review of George O. Liber (2002), ''Alexandr Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film''

"Screenplays About the Earth" by Aleksandr Dovzhenko
fro
SovLit.net

Oleksandr Dovzhenko Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dovzhenko, Oleksander 1894 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Ukrainian politicians Borotbists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union) politicians Executed Renaissance Hlukhiv National Pedagogical University of Oleksandr Dovzhenko alumni Kyiv National Economic University alumni Odesa Film Studio People from Sosnitsky Uyezd People from Sosnytsia Propaganda film directors Recipients of the Lenin Prize Recipients of the Stalin Prize Silent film directors Soviet diplomats Soviet film directors Soviet film producers Soviet male screenwriters Soviet propagandists Soviet screenwriters Ukrainian avant-garde Ukrainian diplomats Ukrainian film directors Ukrainian People's Army personnel Ukrainian screenwriters