Oleksandr Dovzhenko: Peculiarities of the National Myth Creation

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, its culture, its civilizational choice raises the issues of the formation and functioning of the national mythology. There are many definitions of myth, interpretations of its significance and place in the world and national history. One thing is clear: any nation forms the mythological core of its picture of the world. The heart, which serves as one of the main tools of its self-identification and self-defense against external forces. In this sense, the phenomenon of Ukrainian cinema and one of its creative leaders, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, is of a particular interest. Starting with the film Zvenyhora (1928), the artist produces mythological subjects centered on Ukraine and Ukrainians, their historical fate. Zvenyhora is the first screen myth of Ukraine. It is based on a four-part structure of historical-temporal layers presenting Ukrainians – from the most ancient epochs to the future. This myth continues already existing mythological structures developed in the poetics of the works of Taras Shevchenko and Mykola Hohol. In this way we are talking about the continuation of fundamental deep structures determining the special sacredness of the signs and symbols of the national history. During the Second World War, Dovzhenko’s myth of Ukraine has undergone a tragic transformation. The national catastrophe, the destruction of the country and its people as such seemed to be factors that made any option for the future impossible. For a certain time, apocalyptic visions become decisive for Dovzhenko’s artistic thinking. However, the desire to shape the image of the future returns the history of the Golden Age to the circle of Dovzhenko’s stories as a natural conclusion of the historical life of Ukraine and Ukrainians. The feature films Zvenyhora, Arsenal, Zemlia, сinema stories Ukraine on Fire, Chronicle of Flaming Years are, in essence, the screen embodiment of the myth of the frontier zone, where human communities of various modifications are constantly moving, different types of socio-cultural attitudes and national characters are formed. Ukrainian Cossacks are considered as the main source of them. They are distant ancestors, the memory of whom must be activated by new art.