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Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko
Александр Довженко
Life Time
12 September 1894 - 25 November 1956
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Born in Ukraine, in the village of Sosnitsa, Chernihiv region. A native of a large peasant family, he graduated from the Glukhov Pedagogical Institute in 1914, later studied at the Kiev University and at the commercial institute. In 1914-1917 he taught natural science, physics and gymnastics at the gymnasium. After the revolution, he participated in the creation of the Kyiv Department of Public Education (1920-1921), was engaged in diplomatic work in Poland and Germany (1921-1923). In Germany he
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Born in Ukraine, in the village of Sosnitsa, Chernihiv region. A native of a large peasant family, he graduated from the Glukhov Pedagogical Institute in 1914, later studied at the Kiev University and at the commercial institute. In 1914-1917 he taught natural science, physics and gymnastics at the gymnasium. After the revolution, he participated in the creation of the Kyiv Department of Public Education (1920-1921), was engaged in diplomatic work in Poland and Germany (1921-1923). In Germany he studied painting at the Munich and Bavarian Art Schools. In 1923-1926 - artist-illustrator in Kharkiv newspaper "Visti VUTSVK". Since 1926 he worked as a director at the Odessa Film Factory. Having starred in two small comedies and the adventure film “Dipkourier’s Bag”, in 1927 he staged his first film, the heroic epic “Zvenigora”, in which scenes of modernity and civil war intertwined with episodes of Ukrainian history. For Dovzhenko’s work, the main theme was characteristic of socialist realism, the confrontation of the old new in the life of the people. Remaining true to communist ideals all his life, the director at the same time very peculiarly interpreted them. Dovzhenko’s last silent films, Arsenal (1928) and Land (1930), devoted to the class struggle in Ukraine, testified to the appearance in the domestic cinema of a director with an outstanding talent. Lyrical and epic works of Dovzhenko, such as Ivan (1932), Aerograd (1935), Shchors (1939) were solved primarily by visual means. In 1934, during the persecution of the national intelligentsia, Dovzhenko moved to Moscow, where, having found the patronage of Stalin, he worked on the creation of the painting Shchors, a heroic work about the civil war. In 1941, the film was awarded the USSR State Prize. During the war, the director made documentaries The Battle for Our Soviet Ukraine (1943) and Victory in Right-Bank Ukraine (1945), becoming one of the first major feature film directors to take part in the development of artistic means in documentary film. In 1949, the historical and biographical film Michurin (original title - Life in Flower) was released, which became the last notable work of the director. Since 1949, he has been teaching at VGIK, making articles and reports. In the last years of his life, Dovzhenko gave the main strength to work on film scripts, which constitute a significant part of his creative heritage. After the death of Dovzhenko, his wife and co-director Yuri Solntseva staged films according to some of his scripts – “Poem about the Sea” (1959), “The Tale of Flame Years” (1961), “The Enchanted Gum” (1964). In 1959, for the script “Poem of the Sea” Alexander Dovzhenko was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize.