Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Oleksandr Dovzhenko was born on 10 September 1894 on a farmstead near Sosnytsia in the Chernihiv region. In Kyiv he studied at the Commercial Institute, attended the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts in 1918, and worked in the city’s education and arts administration – among other posts, as commissar of the Shevchenko Theatre.

After a spell as a diplomat and as a cartoonist in Kharkiv he turned to film. His Arsenal (1929) tells the story of the January 1918 uprising at Kyiv’s Arsenal plant, and Earth (1930), made at the Kyiv film factory, regularly appears on lists of the greatest films ever made.

In 1933–1934, under political pressure, Dovzhenko moved to Moscow, though he continued to work with the Kyiv studio (Shchors, 1939) and for a time was its artistic director. He died in Peredelkino on 25 November 1956 and is buried in Moscow.

In 1957 the Kyiv film studio on Peremohy Avenue (now Beresteiskyi Avenue) was named after him. On its grounds stand a monument to the director and the Dovzhenko Garden, an orchard of more than a hectare. His name is also borne by the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, Ukraine’s main film archive.