Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Aleksandr Dovzhenko (born Sept. 11 [Aug. 30, old style], 1894, Sosnitsy, Ukraine, Russia—died Nov. 26, 1956, Moscow) was a motion-picture director who brought international recognition to the Soviet film industry during the 1930s. Emotional intensity and mystical symbolism often took precedence over narrative structure in his films, many of which concerned the Russian Civil War (1918–20) and the collectivization period (late 1920s to early ’30s).

Born to Ukrainian peasants, Dovzhenko graduated from teachers college and became a political cartoonist for a Ukrainian newspaper. He also studied painting under German Expressionist Erich Heckel. He began his film career in 1926, making his directorial debut with the short subject Yagodki lyubvi (1926; “The Fruits of Love”). Zvenigora (1928), his first important film, is a lyrical history of the Ukrainian people from their Viking origins to the Russian Revolution; Arsenal (1929) deals with a hero of allegorical stature confronted with the forces of the Revolution; Zemlya (1930; The Earth) interprets in sensitive visual symbolism the almost mystical closeness of the Ukrainian peasant to his land. Other well-known films were Ivan (1932); Aerograd (also known as Frontier, 1935), dealing with the establishment of an airfield in a remote Siberian outpost; Shchors (1939), the story of a Ukrainian revolutionary commander, which won Dovzhenko the first of two Stalin prizes (1941, 1949); and Michurin (1946; Life in Blossom).

Dovzhenko wrote an autobiographical novel, Zacharovana Desna (The Enchanted), and numerous short stories.