As a Georgian-born Armenian who “served a sentence in a Soviet prison for Ukrainian nationalism,” Sergei Parajanov took his vengeance on Ukraine “with his love.” He passed away 20 years ago, but his “revenge” still lives on. The master’s oeuvre continues to be studied in schools and universities. People publish memoirs and monographs, shoot documentaries and hold exhibits about the great film director.
The Museum of Books and Book Printing of the Kyiv Cave Monastery has launched Tbilisi photographer Yurii Mechitov’s album book Sergei Parajanov. A Chronicle of Dialogs, and also the exhibit of cinematographer’s portraits that are kept in private collections. The event took place within the framework of the second congregation of the Parajanov Art Gallery, dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the screening of the world cinema masterpiece, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (the main organizer of the action is the Armenian Association of Cultural Liasons, AOKS). However, the guests spoke little of the film, focusing rather of the life and works of the great master.
Film Director Roman Balayan, initiator of the Parajanov Art Gallery noted with sadness, “Apparently, not only Armenians need these meetings. Parajanov is in a way a Ukrainian cinematographer, and he has done very much for our country.
When the question of the creation of Parajanov’s Museum in Kyiv was raised, I seemed to be the only one to object. I will explain to you my motives at the time: Sergei lived near the Victory Square on a sixth floor of a house, so I thought it would not be reasonable to turn his apartment into a museum.”
“Moreover, we will never succeed in outdoing the Yerevan Exposition, as the only thing we can do is to exhibit mere copies of the Armenian collection. Therefore I suggested a gallery instead of a museum, the Parajanov Art, in order to get talented young people involved.”
The young people responded. Apart from the exhibit of Parajanov-style collages executed by Alla Zhmailo, it presents the works of schoolchildren who participated in the Nationwide Historical-Literary Competition named “The Knights of Romantic Worldview: Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky and Sergei Parajanov”.
Parajanov’s portraits painted by the director’s friend, a renowned Ukrainian artist Yurii Novykov (who, much to our regret, deceased 50 days ago), have a special place in the exhibition. In his last interview, Novykov said that Parajanov came to his place after being released from prison and banned from living in Kyiv. Sergei proposed Yurii to paint each other’s portraits, not with a brush, but with a comb or fork, since those are the things that carry a person’s energy. Before they parted, he presented Yurii with a mirror covered with paint, saying, “If you will want to see me, wash off the paint.” When Parajanov died, Novykov painted 47 portraits of him. But he has not washed off the paint. He kept the master’s image in his heart, and the portraits from the Lodz Exhibit were scattered over the world (one of them, granted by the artist to the Lodz Cinematography Museum, is quite impressive: it features Parajanov’s hands nailed to his mouth and bleeding).
However, the author of the album, Mechitov, who for 30 years remained friends with the disgraced director and photographed him throughout this period, did not attend the exhibit. Neither was it attended by the officials from the Main Department of Culture of the KDMA, listed among the organizers.
The book Sergei Parajanov. A Chronicle of Dialogs, with a preface written by Eldar Ryazanov, comprises all the photos made by Mechitov in Georgia. The folio weighing nearly three kilos(!) consists of 464 pages and features the master both sad and joyful, ironical and contemplative.
“I remember Yurii coming nearly every moring to Sergei’s place, when the latter was residing in Tbilisi,” Parajanov’s widow, Svitlana Shcherbatiuk recalled, “He was sitting silently in the conner with a camera, catching the moments he believed to be most valuable. In 12 years, he gathered a large archive of Sergei’s life in Georgia. Some photos have become widely known in the world. For example, the one featuring Sergei half-naked carrying a cage with a parrot on his head, or another one where Sergei seems to be flying. This photo was an inspiration for the Kyiv photographer Viktor Marushchenko (who depicted Parajanov flying over the Victory Square above the house he had lived in before being arrested and sent to prison). Incidentally, Kyiv photographers scarcely made photos of Parajanov, with the exception of Yurii Skachko, Oleksandr Antypenko (now living in Moscow), Andrii Volodymyrov (who resides in Germany), and Petro Volodymyrov. If all their pictures were to be collected it would be a wonderful album.”
Svitlana visited Tbilisi when the monument to Parajanov was installed. Of course, she could not visit the house where he used to live. Now it is inhabited by different people, as the house was sold long time ago. Its yard is a place of frequent meetings of the admirers of Parajanov’s creative work. The neighbors say that a person came there by foot from Odesa in order to honor the memory of the great film director.
“He created and lived like a genius,” noted Olha Petrova, an artist and professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, “I was 18 when I met Parajanov. Young people did not just love, but actually worshiped Sergei. Parajanov was always filled with ideas. People came to him to ‘be nourished.’ It is thanks to Parajanov, his uninhibited manners, and creative games which he would organize at his place, that I have become a person devoid of stereotypes. Parajanov, like a catalyst, developed artists by invoking in people a sense of beauty. People were attracted to him. This was a sort of addiction. It was difficult not to communicate with him. I remember the premiere of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors in the Ukraina Cinema. He was standing at the door to help young people get into the hall. Parajanov was postmodernist back at the time when the term was not yet known in our country (In 1972 the entire world was speaking about Parajanov’s stylistic manner, while Sergei was making collages, creating a new artistic trend).”
