We primarily know Mykola Vinhranovsky as a poet, followed by his roles as a prose writer and children's author. However, fewer people remember that he was also a filmmaker. While his contributions to cinema are overshadowed by his literary legacy, they still merit recognition. Vinhranovsky as an actor, director, and screenwriter each represent facets of his involvement in shaping Ukrainian cinema.

Vinhranovsky as an Actor

Vinhranovsky’s education was in film, where he was mentored by the renowned Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Dovzhenko, impressed by Vinhranovsky, invited him from the Kyiv Theatrical Institute to study at VGIK in Moscow. Although Dovzhenko passed away soon after, his influence on Vinhranovsky remained significant, “Go and be! Stay with me! / Farewell, dear… I love you so little… / That love is sacred in my little name – / I will not destroy or burn it” (“Teacher, we are now alone with you…”, 1976).

With his teacher’s legacy is connected Vinhranovsky’s first – and star – role. In The Poem of the Flaming Years by Yulia Solntseva, based on Dovzhenko’s screenplay, he portrayed Ivan Orlyuk, a kind of symbol, an ideal image of the Soviet soldier. The young poet’s temperament perfectly matched the pathos of the film itself, which the director crafted in an intensely "Dovzhenko-like" style. In fact, the work resembled a "poem in prose" (or, more precisely, "on film"). One could say that Vinhranovsky was able to combine his talents as both an actor and a performer here. According to the memories of Anatoliy Dobrolozha, a fellow artist and production designer on several of his films, Solntseva invited her husband’s student, rejecting about a dozen other candidates before him.¹Indeed, the charisma of the young man with his "Ukrainian," "steppe" appearance and the fervor of a poet greatly contributed to the film’s success.

Returning home, that is, to Ukraine, to Kyiv, Vinhranovsky came back famous... although this did not open career doors wide for him. He would appear as an actor a few more times, but he would not replicate the success of his first role (yet his creative ambitions largely lay in other areas). In 1961, he made an episodic appearance in Ukrainian Rhapsody by Paradzhanov, in a scene that was vivid and, dare we say, the most "Paradzhanov-like" in the film: a ruined theater serving as a temporary shelter for Soviet soldiers, remnants of decorations, and in this setting, a piano on which, after laying his helmet and gun on the lid, a soldier plays Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The next year, he starred again in a lead role: The Seym River Overflows by Isaak Shmaruk and Viktor Dobrovolsky, based on Viliy Moskalyts’s novella, which tells the story of the clash between the young specialist Donchak (played by Vinhranovsky) and the kolkhoz chairman Buslay (Viktor Dobrovolsky), who changes from an effective leader to a tyrant.

In 1967, he played a role in his own project. Vaclav Kupka in The Shore of Hope is a young nuclear physicist, a proponent of the "peaceful atom," working on the problem of water desalination. He is also part of a romantic storyline, involved with Linda Sherwood (Ausma Kantane), the daughter of a scientist developing the “non-peaceful” atom. One of the film’s central themes – the exposure of the Western world – allowed for some unexpected elements: "Western decadence" manifested particularly in a relaxed scene of the lovers, set to appropriate music and cocktails in a cozy, dimly lit setting. Here, Vinhranovsky could also show himself in the role of a romantic hero – albeit in a socialist version.

1969 – The Ballad of the Briton and a new image. Nesvyatypaska, as portrayed by Mykola Vinhranovsky, is already visually the embodiment of the "steppe" and "Cossack" spirit. A kind of "kozarlyha," a carrier of the "people's" essence, primarily the peasant core, Nesvyatypaska-Vinhranovsky is an explicit reference to tradition, an introduction to a theme that is already historical. The artist never embodied this in fictional cinema, instead making several documentary films. After The Ballad of the Briton, he would not act in films again, focusing on his work as a director and screenwriter. Of course, if we don’t count Vinhranovsky’s voice in several of his documentary projects. The voice, in the literal sense: the artist applied his aforementioned talent as a reader, narrating the off-screen text. And it is this voice that becomes almost the main character of the film, delivering the profound thoughts of O. Dovzhenko (O. Dovzhenko. Diary (1941–45), 1992) or recounting episodes from Ukrainian history (films in the Fourteen Capitals of Ukraine series).

Directorial Projects

As already mentioned, Vinhranovsky’s path in cinema was not instantaneous. After returning from VGIK, he joined the O. Dovzhenko Film Studio, but he didn’t immediately get a directing position: "In the personnel department, we were treated courteously and enlisted as third-category assistant directors with corresponding pay – something akin to a janitor's salary."²In search of work, he went to Odessa,³where he became the second director on Vasyl Levin's film The Daughter of Stration (1964) (based on Vasyl Zemlyak’s novella The Wrath of Stration). In this war-spy film, the daughter of a partisan commander becomes the wife of a heroic officer, who turns out to be a German spy and saboteur. As is often the case in films of this genre, a sense of duty triumphs over personal relationships, and the heroine unhesitatingly renounces her husband.

 In the next film, the young filmmaker was already a co-director. The Squadron Moves West by Myron Bilinsky and Mykola Vinhranovsky (1965) told the story of the 1918-1919 intervention. The narrative about the heroic underground work of Frenchwoman Jeanne Labour and local revolutionaries, working together with their "comrades from Moscow," took the form of an adventure film, quite dynamic and rich in local color. This included the Odessa setting, with its recognizable historical, mythologized figures – Misha Yaponchik, Vira Kholodna (portrayed here as a "vamp" woman of the modern era), and the intervention itself with its French undertones: diplomats and military leadership representing the pragmatic policy of the West, while French sailors, ordinary boys, were clueless about where and why they were there. The main embodiment of "Frenchness" was Jeanne Labour (played by Elsa Lejdy), elegant, witty, intelligent, full of dignity and confidence in herself and her cause. In general, The Squadron became a solid example of historical-revolutionary cinema wrapped in an adventure genre with a touch of French "exoticism."

Two more years passed, and Vinhranovsky made his first solo directorial project, The Shore of Hope, a fascinating and quite stylish example of Cold War-era cinema. In 1962, the poet released his first collection, Atomic Preludes, in which the title alone encapsulated the major hopes and fears of the time: the atom, with its power that could either improve humanity’s life or destroy it. The second possibility seemed (and still seems) more likely: "I dreamed of the Earth's eclipse: / Hydrogen bombs, dark-flying swarms, / And humanity, twisted in ashen haze, / And clouds, like paper, burning in the sky" (Prelude, 1960). The Shore of Hope develops this idea. One of the opening scenes of the film depicts nuclear tests in an apocalyptic style (an excerpt from The Apocalypse with Vinhranovsky’s voice became the off-screen narration). And this "end of the world," as the plot repeatedly emphasizes, is entirely in human hands. At the center of the story is an international conference on nuclear physics. Some of its participants advocate for increasing the nuclear arsenal, the consequences of which we have already seen, while others, like Vaclav Kupka, work towards the peaceful use of nuclear energy (it is worth noting that the former represent the Western world, and the latter – the socialist one). A subplot involves the idea of retribution: the creator of the nuclear bomb, Professor Sherwood (Boris Bibikov), becomes an accidental victim of its tests, while Major Grizzly (Afanasy Kochetkov) embodies a collective image of the "executor," who once dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and now falls apart from guilt. This last character is the most complex and interesting in the film, while others are somewhat schematic. Overall, the film, based on a screenplay by Oleksandr Levada, is quite didactic. This is somewhat compensated by the visual aspect (cinematography by Yuriy Tkachenko). The film is widescreen and in color (a rare phenomenon in the USSR at the time), with interesting visual decisions that played with the motif of a grid-like surface, which was associated with bars (the visual "theme" of Grizzly and partially Sherwood), straight lines, and circles. Naturally, the poet-director incorporated a number of visual metaphors and parallels into the film's fabric. The title of the film is also significant: the action takes place on a Pacific island, and the image of both the ocean and the shore serves as a leitmotif throughout the film. The "shore of hope" is directly referenced in the plot as the place where humanity is supposed to head in search of salvation (though in the context of the story, this turns into a contrast between two "shores" – capitalist and socialist). The attempt to "liven up" the film with visual searches and a romantic storyline, however, was met somewhat coolly. As criticized in one review: "The very theme presented by the authors required more authenticity, a deeper psychological development of the characters, more rigor, more simplicity. However, the characters in the film seem schematic and flat. The director is too captivated by purely stylistic effects, and the low-quality love story of Sherwood’s daughter, her romantic entanglements, is wrongfully brought to the forefront..."⁴Nonetheless, the film became an interesting document of its time – both in terms of fears of nuclear threats and hopes for progress, particularly the use of nuclear energy for the public good.

After that, Vinhranovsky returned to revolutionary themes but in a completely different key. The Song of the Britanka (1969) is an adaptation of the play by Yuriy Yanovsky, which the director attempted to present in an emphatically epic and poetic manner. That same year, his eponymous poem dedicated to Yanovsky was published, in which a steppe landscape unfolds as the "freedom in Britanka," with folkloric melodies and imagery resonating strongly: "Black sorrow moves, and behind it follows woes, / Yet another grief weaves / From beyond the Dnieper, beyond the Sula, / From beyond waters that aren’t even named..." (Song of the Britanka, 1969). The stylization of the poem into a ballad is also present in the film, though the reception of its presentation was mixed. Some reviewers were captivated by the epic tone of the film,⁵while others noted: "The organic immersion of the author into the world he imagined makes the film The Song of the Britanka quite similar in mood to the poetic work. However, it lacks the strength and energy – either due to lack of time or other reasons – to complete the artistic-poetic narrative through the medium of 'moving frames.' The plot is underdeveloped, the characters not sufficiently 'alive,' and the idea unclear."⁶.

Nonetheless, the attempt to "folklorize" a story from the revolutionary era gave the author an outlet into a broader historical memory, primarily tied to the Cossacks. The references to Cossack traditions in the film are quite explicit: there is the image of the character Nesvyatypaska and the stylization of the peasants' rebellion as a Cossack-style camp. As recalled by the set designer Anatoly Dobrolyezha: "The drawing of the peasants' fortifications, modeled after Cossack barricades made of carts, left a great impression on us. Indeed, in that fortification, we managed to convey the popular character of the confrontation between the warring sides."⁷A lot could be inferred by the informed viewer from the setting: the events were based on the histories of the revolutionary Vysunska and Bashtanska republics, which, like the Cossack Sichs, could defend against any enemy. In their history, they fought against Denikin's troops, but also against the Hetmanate and the Communists (though, of course, it was not customary to mention the latter).

The following decade brought the detective Quiet Shores (1972), based on the script by Viktor Hovdy. As was often the case in Soviet cinema, such genres served as "wrapping" for a completely different kind of problem. The story revolves around the murder of a fisheries inspector by poachers, so the film touches on environmental issues. Besides petty poaching, the plot also addresses pollution of bodies of water by factories and even the barbaric treatment of natural landmarks. From here, it isn't far to the "ecology of the soul," since it is moral uncleanliness – not just of the perpetrators, but also of society that "sees but remains silent" – that breeds a lack of care for nature on all levels. Interestingly, this theme became quite popular during this decade, at least at the O. Dovzhenko studio: in 1976, the anthology Dnieper Wind by Volodymyr Denysenko and Vasyl Ilyashchenko was released, based on Oleksandr Honchar's novellas about hunting and poaching (with a very blurry line between them); in 1978, The Sea by Leonid Osika was released, based on the novel Reeds by Elygii Stavskyi, which tackled the threat to the ecosystem of the Azov Sea.⁸Unlike his earlier works, Quiet Shores does not feature formal experiments: everything relies on the relevance of the topic and the acting, particularly by the lead actor, investigator Ivan Lukych, played by Yuriy Mazhuga. The film does not offer an intense, dynamic plot; rather, its task is to educate, not entertain.

Klimko (1983) marks a shift in style, genre, and mood for Mykola Vinhranovskyi, as it is an adaptation of Hryhoriy Tyutyunnyk's works Klimko and Vohnyk daleko v stepu (A Flame Far in the Steppe). In essence, the film consists of two interconnected novellas united by a common protagonist. The first part takes place during World War II, depicting an occupied, war-ravaged country, with groups of nearly feral children and a market – a true center of life, where one could exchange basic necessities. One of the highlights of this section (and perhaps the film as a whole) is the performance of Kostyantyn Stepanov in a small but powerful role as a disabled salt and shoe trader. In just a few minutes on screen, Stepanov skillfully contrasts his character's dire circumstances with a noble, generous nature. The second part shows the country after liberation but still deeply scarred by the war, with survival as the main concern. Klimko's inability to feed himself makes his enrollment into a vocational school crucial for his stepmother, and it is this need that prompts the compassionate director to take him in. The narrative here alternates between the everyday life in the workshop, where small "miracles" of craft and initiation into the profession occur, and the journeys filled with adventure. The film concludes with a somewhat traditional ending: a field, working peasants, and a father returning from the war, symbolizing that everything will be okay from now on. In its portrayal of war and post-war life, the film lacks vibrant colors, and its pacing is slow, which can make it hard to absorb. However, this approach also helps capture the bleak atmosphere of the time.

Klimko became Mykola Vinhranovskyi's final completed directorial work in fictional cinema. After this, he shifted to a period focused on documentary filmmaking.

Documentary Cinema of Mykola Vinhranovskyi

The 1990s were marked by Vinhranovskyi's work in documentary cinema. During this period, he transitioned from his native studio, O. Dovzhenko Film Studios, to Ukrkinochronika, where he developed the idea for a cycle titled Fourteen Capitals of Ukraine. By this time, Vinhranovskyi had already gained experience in non-fiction filmmaking. In 1966, he released The Blue Sisters of the People, a film dedicated to the tributaries of the Dnieper River and the issue of preserving river ecosystems.⁹Rivers, and water in general, were a recurring motif in his creative work. As noted earlier, "shorelines" were directly referenced in the titles of two of his films, and in his poetry, critics often highlight rivers as archetypal images for him.¹⁰In 1967, he wrote a poem also titled The Blue Sisters of the People, which says: "I want to tell you / About our small rivers, / I want to show you / Our precursors... / So that in their blue anxiety / Your anxiety and mine / Be present night and day, / For our blue sisters' family / Is inevitable and sacred."

The second documentary film by the director is dedicated to Andriy Malishko ("Word about Andriy Malishko", 1983), and the third, co-authored with Leonid Osyka, focuses on Dovzhenko and his diary, with the corresponding title: "The Diary of O. P. Dovzhenko" (1989). A few years later, for the centenary of the teacher's birth, Vingranovsky would create another film on this topic ("Dovzhenko. The Diary 1941–1945", 1993), edited with Dovzhenko’s wartime documentary footage, and he would voice it with excerpts from The Diary. The film became a kind of redefinition of the master’s legacy: the pain and sorrow remained, but the direction of thought and tone changed: instead of solemn, pathetical, the tone became more personal, confessional, and this confessional character had a collective nature: it was not so much Dovzhenko as such speaking, but a representative of the Ukrainian people, even though he belonged to the elite and was aware of that. As a result, it was no longer about the hero-people and antihero-occupants: the people were both the hero and the antihero at the same time, because for the horrors of the war and after it, both they and the authorities above them bore their share of responsibility. This context also touched upon Ukraine’s colonial status with its consistent cultivation of mankurtism, which would negatively echo for the USSR itself in the years of war.

This Diary was filmed during the work on Fourteen Capitals. The idea came somewhat unexpectedly: the writer was offered to prepare a text on historical themes for a tear-off “People's Calendar”. This led to a broader idea for a study of Ukrainian history from its primordial beginnings, and from there the idea of Fourteen Capitals grew. In his letter to Volodymyr Bilyaev, a Ukrainian writer and political-cultural figure in the West, the author listed them (already numbering fifteen): "Kyiv (pre-Kyiv and Kyivan Rus), Halych, Kholm, Khortytsia, Chyhyryn, Hadyach, Hlukhiv, Baturyn, again Kyiv (revolution – Petliura, Hrushevskyi, Vynnychenko), Vinnytsia, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Lviv, Huliaipole (Makhno), Kharkiv, Khust, Rakhiv (UPA) and again Kyiv with President Kravchuk." Each was to have a separate film dedicated to it, but financial difficulties got in the way. The author sought help from both the state and the diaspora, but it was not possible to gather enough funds for the entire series. Only a few films were made: "Khortytsia – the capital of the Zaporozhian Sich" (1993), "Dmytro Vyshnevetsky-Bayda" (1993), "Chyhyryn – the capital of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky" (1994), "Baturyn – the capital of Hetman Ivan Mazepa" (1994), "Halych – the capital of Prince Danylo of Halych" (1995), "Hetman Sahaidachnyi" (1999).¹¹.

The visual component of the films mostly relied on visual art, and the main element, as mentioned, was the text. The film became a cinematic sketch of the history not so much of the capital, the cultural and administrative center, but of the corresponding stage in Ukraine’s existence: for example, "Chyhyryn" told the story of the 1648–57 war. In general, the project expressed the tendency of its time, when, with the acquisition of independence, national history became relevant, taken in the appropriate key: from a state-building perspective, opening or redefining taboo topics. The most large-scale documentary cycle of this kind was "Unknown Ukraine" (1994–1996), which covered many and varied pages of domestic history, while "Fourteen Centuries" focused on a narrower aspect.

... And Vingranovsky the screenwriter

The volume of this article does not allow for due attention to this side of the master’s work (which deserves separate analysis – cinematographic and literary). Meanwhile, his first steps at the O. Dovzhenko Film Studio were already connected with screenwriting. In 1962, he brought in the script "The World Without War", but it was never launched into production, nor was "Man and Weapon" based on the work of Oles Honchar (1963).¹²Naturally, screenwriting and his own literary work intersected: "The World Without War" was an adaptation of his own novella of the same name from 1958, as was "President" (1964, based on his 1960 work); in his screenwriting work, there was also the unrealized "Severyn Nalyvaiko", while in his literary work the image of the rebellious leader was embodied both in poetry ("The Last Confession of Severyn Nalyvaiko", 1966) and in prose (the novel "Severyn Nalyvaiko", 1992).

In 1964,¹³working in Odesa, the young director became fascinated with Yurii Trusov’s novel "The Fall of Khadjibey", devoted to the story of the capture of the Turkish fortress, the birth of the city of Odesa, and the Black Sea Cossacks. Together with the author, they prepared the script, which was accepted by the studio (Vingranovsky was to play the lead role of Cossack Kindrat Khurdelitsa), but it was not realized: the film on the war with Turkey was not timely.¹⁴.

In the 1980s, the artist wrote scripts based on children’s works: in 1982 – the script for his "Klymko", and in 1989 "Syromanytsia" by Petro Marusyk based on his own novella and script. Above, we mentioned the environmental themes in Vingranovsky’s work. They are also expressed in this film, where the tone of caution is sharper than in the novella.

Finally, in the 1990s, he wrote scripts for his own documentary films on Ukrainian history.

In one literary study, Vingranovsky’s last name is played upon: vin-gran-novii...¹⁵His creativity is indeed multifaceted: cinema and literature, which mutually influenced each other, various directions and genres of both. Only together do they form the facets of this large-scale creative personality.

Published in the "Kino-Theater" journal, Nos. 6 (159) for 2021, 1 (160) for 2022.

¹  Dobrolezha A. Mykola Vingranovskyi in memories, letters, and cinema. – Vitchyzna. – 2006. – No. 9-10. – Available at: http://vitchyzna.ukrlife.org/9_10_06dobrol.htm

²  Vingranovskyi M. Who and What Independence of Ukraine Means to Me. – Available at: https://day.kyiv.ua/uk/article/kultura/hto-i-shcho-dlya-mene-nezalezhnist-ukrayini

³  Dobrolezha A. Mykola Vingranovskyi in memories, letters, and cinema. – Vitchyzna. – 2006. – No. 9-10. – Available at: http://vitchyzna.ukrlife.org/9_10_06dobrol.htm

⁴  "Bereg nadezhdy" // Sovetskaya kul'tura. – 6.04.1968.

⁵  Kondratenko O. "Duma pro revolyutsiyu" // Kul'tura i zhyttya. – 16.04.1970.

⁶  Kucheruk D. Zvinyty slovy i kadram?.. Rozdumyi pro film "Duma pro Brytanku" // Moloda hvardiya. – 18.02.1970.

⁷  Dobrolezha A. Mykola Vingranovskyi in memories, letters, and cinema. – Vitchyzna. – 2006. – No. 9-10. – Available at: http://vitchyzna.ukrlife.org/9_10_06dobrol.htm

⁸  For more details on the ecological themes in Ukrainian cinema of that time, see the article: Pashchenko A. The Relevance of Ecological Issues in Leonid Osyka's Films // Kino-teatr. – Kyiv, 2015. – No. 4. – Pp. 33–36.

⁹  Kolyada I., Hudima V. The National-Cultural Dimension of Mykola Vingranovskyi's Work: Film Direction // Scientific Bulletin of the Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University. – 2018. – P. 88.

¹⁰  Bohdan S. Archetypal Images and Mythologems in Mykola Vingranovskyi's Poetry // Scientific Notes of NaUKMA. — 2009. — Vol. 98. — Pp. 66–69.

¹¹  Kolyada I. A. Historical Cinematic Documentary of Mykola Vingranovskyi // Halychyna. – 2019. – Issue 32. – Pp. 211–216. – Available at: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nikp_2019_32_26

¹²  Bezruchko O. The Genius Ukrainian Artist Mykola S. Vingranovskyi: Between Literature and Cinema //

Національна ідентичність в мові і культурі: збірник наукових праць / за заг. ред. А. Г. Гудманяна, О. Г. Шостак. – К.: Талком, 2017. – Режим доступу: https://er.nau.edu.ua/bitstream/NAU/28345/1/%D0%9E.%20%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%80%D1%83%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%BE.pdf

¹³  Museum of Theater, Music, and Cinematic Arts of Ukraine. Manuscript Collection.

¹⁴  Lyaskovskyi V. The Singer of Khadjibey. – Available at: https://hadgibej.wixsite.com/trusov/-5

¹⁵  Tarnashynska L. Ukrainian Sixtiers: Profiles Against the Background of the Generation (Historical-Literary and Poetic Aspects). – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – P. 288.