It would be very hard for Ukrainian cinema to imagine itself without the roles played by Ivan Mykolaychuk, regarded as golden pages in the history book of Ukrainian film artistry. Taras Shevchenko in the film "Dream", Ivan in "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" and Petro in "A Black Bird With a White Mark". Many regard him as the best actor in the history of Ukrainian cinematography. His name is synonymous with the rebirth and flourishing of Ukrainian poetic cinema.
But he could also create and went on to be a successful producer and screenwriter. He would have celebrated his 65th birthday in June 2006. But Ivan died in August 1987 and it was symbolic and certainly no coincidence that he began his acting career by playing Shevchenko. Ivan died at the age of 47, just like Shevchenko.
Film Classic
Ivan Mykolaychuk is best known for playing the young Hutsul Ivan in the story of Marichka and Ivan in "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (1965), based on Mykhaylo Kotsyubynsky's book of the same name. Better known on the world film market as "Fiery Horses", the film brought Mykolaychuk worldwide recognition. Between 1965 and 1967 it won 28 awards at international film festivals in 21 different countries, earning a place in the distinguished Guinness Book of World Records. Mykoalychuk also received the Komsomol prize of Ukraine (1967) and the title of Honoured Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1968). He eventually received the acclaimed Shevchenko prize, albeit posthumously.
Yet, the film should be seen in the context of its day. Shadows was a landmark film which not only opened up new possibilities for poetic cinema but new reserves for work between, on the one hand, cinema, and, on the other, moral philosophy and aesthetics. It made the impression of a huge cultural explosion and opposed the dogmatic social realism of the day and its obligatory ideological transparency and pathos of collectivism.
But it should also be seen in the context of its controversial start. The film brought pressure from the authorities and distress for those involved in it. Mykolaychuk was plying his trade under a harsh communist regime, when efforts were made to break talented people like him. The premiere of the film in Kyiv was broken up by the police and KGB, as writers Ivan Dzyuba, Vasyl Stus and Vyacheslav Chornovil stood up and demanded the release of their friends Ivan Svitlychny, the Horyn brothers and others, who had recently fallen victim to a new wave of arrests of the Ukrainian intelligentsia after the Khrushchev thaw.
Dream team
It was Heorhiy Yakutovych, as the artistic director of the film, who was a driving force in bringing to life the legends of the Carpathian Mountains, the Hutsul traditions, beliefs and superstitions and creating a film that has become a classic of Ukrainian poetic cinema.
And although Yakutovych was not the only person who helped make the film quintessential - the legendary director Serhiy Paradzhanov and the talented cameraman Yuriy Illienko made huge contributions - it was he who cast the then unknown second-year Kyiv theatre student Ivan Mykolaychuk. And in unison, through the eyes of the film, they introduced the world to the scenic Carpathian Mountains. After the film's release, not only did Armenian director Paradzhanov become famous, but came to be regarded among the ranks of masters of world film direction. The story of the tragic love of Ivan and Marichka shook the world and Paradzhanov was flooded with congratulatory telegrams from the greatest film directors on the planet.
Career progression
Mykolaychuk himself became a symbol of the individual artistic search for one's own style. This was evidenced by his subsequent roles in films like "Weeds" (1967), "Annychka" (1969) and "Commissars" (1970). His career later evolved into screenwriting and producing. "Babylon-XX" (1980), in which he performed as actor and director, is regarded by film critics as being on a par with Oleksandr Dovzhenko's classic "Zemlya" (Land). "Babylon-XX" won the award for best director at the Soviet film festival in Dushanbe in 1980.
Mykolaychuk experienced great pressure during filming because the authorities did not want him to film it as he wished. Fellow actor Ivan Havrylyuk recalls that "...the authorities refused to accept the film. They imagined awful things in it. The toughest blow was when the film was banned from being screened at a film festival in Lviv - 15 minutes before its premiere showing. Ivan turned black in an instant." The film has great significance for Ukrainian cinema because it laid the bridge for more poetic cinema works and thirstily joined itself to life-giving sources of popular culture.
Lasting legacy
The house of Ivan Mykolaychuk in Chortoriya, Chernivtsi Region, was turned into a museum. Sisters Frozyna and Annychka look after it now. In Chortoriya even the smallest child knows where Mykolaychuk's house is, partly because he is remembered in the village for saying hello and chatting to everyone he met. Yet, the whole region seems to be a hotbed of artistic talent. Many famous singers and musicians started their creative work in Chernivtsi. These include singers Dmytro Hnatiuk, Sofia Rotaru and Vasyl Zinkevych as well as artist Ivan Kholomenyuk.
Mykolaychuk and his classic are especially remembered in Ivano-Frankivsk Region. The house where he lived during filming in Verkhovyna has been turned into a museum. While the house in Kryvorivna where the film was actually shot has also been turned into a museum, complete with its own plaque. Both attract many visitors from near and afar. Paradzhanov is remembered too.
A plaque was put on the building where he lived in Kyiv and a memorial to him with the heroes of the film embossed on it was opened at the Dovzhenko film studios in Kyiv.
Although Ivan died relatively young, with many scripts and plans unfulfilled, he leaves a rich legacy that will be appreciated for generations to come. On a smaller scale his works gave a push to, albeit at a local level, the many artists, actors, singers and writers in Ukraine who were searching, through their artistry, for their roots and Ukrainian identity in the Soviet era, and especially the 1970s and 1980s.
The success of "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" showed that Ukrainian art is part of world culture. For some the story of Ivan and Marichka in Shadows was no less tragic than Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”, and “Slovo o Polku Ihorevim” was as epochal as Homer's “Illiad.”
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