Taras Shevchenko (film)

Taras Shevchenko
Directed by Aleksandr Alov
Vladimir Naumov
Igor Savchenko
Starring Sergey Bondarchuk
Ivan Pereverzev
Production
company
Release date
  • 1951 (1951)
Running time
 118 minutes
Country Soviet Union
Language Ukrainian

Taras Shevchenko is a 1951 Soviet biopic about the Ukrainian artist Taras Shevchenko produced by Isaak Shmarukh, Vasili Lapoknish, with associate producers Aleksandr Alov, Vladimir Naumov, Grigori Malik-Avakian and Latif Faziyev, and scripted and directed by Igor Savchenko. The New York Times praised the acting of Sergey Bondarchuk.[1]

Synopsis

Summer 1841. Lermontov is killed. The news of this arrives to a modest attic of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, where lives and works the young artist and poet Taras Shevchenko. Growing up in an Ukrainian peasant family, knowing all hardships of serf life, Shevchenko in the years of study clearly identifies the meaning of true art, which is to serve the interests of the people. After graduating from the Academy, Shevchenko goes to Ukraine. The poems of Taras are imbued with love for the common people. Landowner-nationalists, liberal leaders of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, try to "tame" the famous poet, but Shevchenko forever has made his choice; he is on the side of the people, their defender and crooner. Fiery freedom-loving creativity of Taras Shevchenko is known throughout Russia. Nicholas I exiles the poet to the distant Caspian fort where he is to serve as an ordinary soldier and is banned from writing or drawing. In the poet's difficult days he has the support of Ukrainian soldier Skobelev, Polish revolutionary Sierakowski, captain Kosarev and the commandant of the fortress, Uskov. For the sake of his release Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov are hard at work. And so, the sick and aged Shevchenko is finally free. Together with Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, he dreams of a bright future of the motherland, when the Russian and Ukrainian peoples throw off the chains of slavery.

Awards

Sergei Bondarchuk won the USSR State Prize and the Best Actor Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for his acting.[2]

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Review in The New York Times
  2. ↑ "History 7th festival - July 12 - August 3, 1952". KVIFF.
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