January 07, 2014

The Many Homelands of Sergei Parajanov


The Many Homelands of Sergei Parajanov

Today, January 7, would have been Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov’s 90th birthday.

Sergei Parajanov was always hard to define, but he was best summed up as “an Armenian born in Georgia and put in a Russian prison for Ukrainian nationalism,” and as one of Soviet film’s creative geniuses.

In comparing Russia to the Soviet Union, one often overlooked point is the sheer number of various ethnicities and nationalities that made up the USSR. The USSR was not just the Russian Federative Republic – it included 14 other republics, politically subjugated, but culturally distinct. In much the same way, Soviet film was not just Russian film: while the Russians had a technological headstart, actors and directors of the various republics eventually came into their own, drawing on their home cultures and methods of storytelling.

Enter Parajanov. Well, before him, enter his mentor at the VGIK film institute, Aleksandr Dovzhenko. In films like Earth, Dovzhenko was one of the first to use motifs from a distinct minority culture – in his case, Ukrainian. For his troubles, the film studio in Kiev was later named in his honor.

Okay, now enter Parajanov, who relocated to Kiev after graduating from VGIK, to work at the newly-named Dovzhenko studio. In addition to his Armenian heritage, Georgian upbringing, and Russian education, he learned to speak Ukrainian fluently, married a Ukrainian woman, and immersed himself in the culture. He emerged with one of his most famous films, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, steeped in Ukrainian Hutsul culture and which, for its markedly un-socialist un-realism, quickly got him blacklisted with the Soviet authorities.

A markedly traditional wedding from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Later films – all released with great difficulty – explored Armenian (The Color of Pomegranates), Georgian (Legend of Suram Fortress), and Azerbaijani (Ashik-Kerib [video]) cultures in similarly vivid color and detail.

So what was that about being put in a Russian prison? Parajanov’s art and public position on touchy subjects like free press and show trials were a bit of a nuisance to party leadership. Their heckling pushed him to leave Ukraine for Armenia; in 1973 he was arrested for the first time and sent to Siberia – the Soviet punishment of choice. He served “only” four of his five years, following a personal plea from Louis Aragon to Brezhnev on his behalf, but made up that last year after being arrested again in 1982 and serving one more year before another early release.

Needless to say, hard labor in a Siberian prison camp is no path to good health. In 1990, while working on yet another film, Parajanov died of lung cancer – the news was relayed to Russia as “the world of cinema has lost a magician.” In claiming Parajanov’s legacy, Armenia was most proactive: Parajanov’s “house-museum” was opened in Yerevan in 1991, even though Parajanov never lived in that house. But it’s Tbilisi’s gravity-defying statue that gives the filmmaker the representation he deserves: full of life and somehow soaring above it all.

Lookit 'im go!

Image credit: Vladimer Shioshvili, Wikimedia Foundation

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955